Late Than Never...

Friends, family, and assorted followers of the travels of Jonathan Fowler:*, **

I am starting a blog now, as I have threatened to do numerous times, to keep you all informed about what is going on in Korea and how my extended working vacation progresses. I am about 3 months overdue to start this, but I have some of my earlier observations written down on paper so maybe I can edit and transfer them here to their new electronic home for your enjoyment. Soon, I hope to add some pictures I have been taking with my Korean cell-phone, but unfortunately you have to be a Korean citizen to transfer photos from you cell-phone to a website for retrieval, so until I get a USB cable hooked up to the work computer manually, I won't have those.

Disappointingly, there are a lot of things here in Korea that you have to be a Korean citizen to enjoy. Some video games that are available online through a website require a Korean citizenship number to play. There is one thrilling first-person shooter called Sudden Attack that I tried unsuccessfully to start an account multiple times for before I realized this, with the help of apologetic Korean friends. Fortunately, one of them felt pity on me being denied access to such a great game and gave me his own username and password. For most of the past two months, I've been ruining all of his scores and records in the process of learning what is truly a fun and engaging game, but I don't feel as guilty as perhaps I should due to the jingoistic policy that necessitated my action!

On the career front, my situation has hit a regrettable stumbling block, as well. After zero training within the first month-and-a-half of working at EG Language Academy, and after several complaints from parents saying that I don't know how to read a class sylabus or get the noisy troublemaking kids to shut up for five minutes in a couple of my classes, EG has elected to terminate my employment, effective the 10th of November. This gave me about a month to find other work in Korea, or face the unpleasant possibility of my little working vacation ending prematurely (in which case, I would probably just change gears and continue it across the Sea, in Japan!) I have applied to four or five other places in different, more exciting locales of Seoul. One of them replied to me yesterday saying that while the position I was applying for in Gangnam (a neighborhood, translated as "South of the River") had already been filled, they had numerous other positions all around Korea. The first position I examined caught my eye in a big way: It was located on the Korean semi-tropical isle of Jeju. Drawing comparisons to Hawaii for it's climate, volcanic formation, and beauty, Jeju attracts Korean and Japanese tourists in a very steady stream and if I am hired to work there, I will be working in Jeju City on the north-central coast, very near to the beaches (which is not an unpleasant prospect as the temperature of Seoul drops to the single digits some days!) Needless to say, I applied to them and they are excited to hear from me and look forward to doing a telephone interview in the next couple of days. They want the position filled by early November, which corresponds well to my timeframe, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed. For pictures and more information on Jeju Island, look no further than here:
http://www.lifeinkorea.com/Travel2/Cheju

If I leave Seoul, there are many things that I will miss. I've gotten quite accustomed to subway system here and whenever there is a line transfer, a few notes from a Vivaldi song play quite dramatically. I missed those when I went to Japan and took their older, more boring subway, which lacked the song. I will miss the PC bangs (rooms) that I frequent to send out the occassional e-mail, waste time on Facebook, or ruin a trusting Korean's high score at Sudden Attack. I will miss the prospect of eventually seeing an enormous metropolis blanketed with snow when winter eventually sets in. I will miss a few of the friends I have made here, including my coworkers Jeff, William, Brad, Stephanie, Dr. Lim, Hyung-suk, and Yoon-suk; the middle-aged Christian Pastor/English teacher, Mr. Park, who is never too busy or sanctimonious for a lively evening of Korean barbeque with Soju and Korean beer; the nice woman who works at the PC bang "TNT Zone" who brings me a sweet latte for free every time I visit when she is working, even if it is 11:00pm at night and I really need to get some sleep. I'll miss trips to the major international zone in Seoul, Itaewon, I don't care how many people deride it as trashy! I'll miss the local stores Homever ("Sweet Home Forever" is their motto!), Save Zone, and Lotte Mart; there may be branches where I'm going, but I have no way of knowing yet. I'll miss many more things and have more things to say and show you all soon, but right now the work day is done and I need to go get some supper.

Welcome to my blog! I hope you all are well; wish me luck in the job department!



* A note for my friends: You may have seen me do a keg-stand while my pants were on fire at a party one time before making out with three girls, but please keep your posts family friendly on this blog!

** Conversely, a note for my family: You knew me before I met my friends; they don't need to hear unsavory or unflattering factoids from my childhood like my phobia of being kidnapped by strangers when mom got into line at the bank, for example!