Thursday, July 26, 2007

1/3

So its up to 27 days now. Meaning I ve almost finished my first month here. So I kind of wanna look back on that.

Life has been good. I ve been adjusting to life here. Been picking up some korean, unfortunately not as much as I would like to, but I guess I m partying too much. Hope I can speed up some things in the 2nd month. Lets put it this way though. I can basically survive here, so thats good. My indonesian is still better than my korean though. Strange...hihi

Work, was my project got killed, because we didnt get enough support or commitment from our supposed partners, so it didnt quite work out. I ll still get to meet the Asia Pacific and Global bosses for a presentation so that should be good.

Other than that partying has been good. been playing lots of pool. some karaoke and lots of drinking, but not excessive, no worries. Funny thing is I ve had more german beer than korean. And then I had a Moosehead last night. All people from Canada should know what that means...hihi

Other things... hm... Alper is still here, but he is past the halfway mark already, so its time to pack up already. Its been fun, but also cost me some sleep I guess. But its good to hang out.

so life has been treating me pretty good. I ve enjoyed lots of korean food, which is so good.

Also for those of you that might not be so familiar with korean culture I might want to introduce a couple of things to you. Korea is very hierachical, so if you re tiny tim, you dont have to many rights, although on the other hand there is lots of dinners you re invited to, business dinners.hihi. then again you have to drink, because its tradition and a sign of weekness if you dont.you dont refuse what somebody offers you, because its offensive. Also because everything is so hierachical you have to bow a lot and you have to hang out with the right kind of people because all that matters is status.

so you re not allowed to hangout with certain people, but then again as foreigner, its not as bad, but I guess I m half korean, so sometimes i can feel it. also a lot of people kind of see it as a weekness of mine that i m not able to speak korean that well although i have a korean mother.

on another note some things here are really expensive, while others are really cheap, for example alper bought a hockey jersey with name for 25 bucks. then a beer in a bar can be up to 12 bucks, fruits are also very expensive, but it really depends on where you buy things or where you go out.

you can really have a fun time here, but i dont recommend living here for a longer time.

anyways....its getting late again, so i better head to bed.
I think i still have an avg of 5.5 hours of sleep per night and thats been going on for 25 days now, so you can imagine, hehe. getting harder to get up in the morning...

take care all of you out there...

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Day 17

So its already Day 17, not much has changed. Work is still going well. Not too much to do though. Actually maybe it will stay this way until the end. We have another deadline this friday, so we ll see if people get around for that. Then maybe things will speed up just a little bit.

So Alper got in on friday, which was good, I got to experience some of the korean nightlife. Well the club life, actually meetings 2 friends from 2002 as well and some of their friends so that was fun. And we also met one of Alpers friends, which he hadnt seen for 5 years. Then yesterday it was family reunion at my cousins bar. hihi kind of funny. It was the total reunion weekend, but then tomorrow its back to work and i m kind of tired, because i always went to bed at 8am over these last couple of days.

Alper will start exploring the city some more. The area around my work, so hope he ll have a goodtime there.
I kind of dont know what to do, because I actually still odnt know to many people here, which is fine, but then in the evening there is not too much to do, besides karaoke, drinkin, dancin....so thats what we did.
oh well, we ll figure something out.

So I guess thats it from me again, as you can see not to much going on.

Shout out to the world!
Stay safe and sound and I ll see you when i get there =)

Take care!

Monday, July 09, 2007

a week in, seems like i m lost n the crowd

8 days have passed, still jetlagged, still cant sleep, yet always so tired at work. I guess its part because I dont have anything to do. Really hope things will speed up, because the project we re doing right now, we re doing with 2 people and i could probably run 3 projects bymyself withuot spending more time in the office. I guess I have more experience than they expected off me.

Anyways, enough about work. Korea is good. Been drinking quite a bit, but actually not since friday, so im slowing down again, which is good, might not drink this week, but friday a friend of mine will get here....so i guess then i ll get to see more of the nightlife. plus my mom is here right now so i m meeting more of my fam, which is good.

other than that.. the subway system is pretty good and the location of my apt is pretty cool. i really have everyhing around here. restaurants, bars, malls, bakerys, karoke, supermarkets, subway station... pretty much all you need in korea, so thats all good.

other than that...what else is new? hmmm... not too much actually. i guess thats all i can tell you for now...

but seriously life is going well and i guess my internship already ends in 7 weeks... so fast..crazy...

hey if anyone wants to visit, let me know, ok?

i can show you around...hehe

take care world, whereever you might be...

Sunday, July 01, 2007

on the final stop home

hey everyone?

I hope you re still all with me. now i m in korea. just got in a couple of hours ago! its crazy. less than 20 hours ago i was catching my only baseball game this season. we won 11-0 ;)
unfortunately the guys lost the 2nd game after i left....i dont know how in the world that happened, but oh well, it happened.

other than that...yes its crazy. now i m finally back in a really big city, actually the 2nd biggest of the world. Seoul has a population of 22 million and i have my own apt here, which is kind of cool, just hope i dont get lost, because i had a hard time finding it...but its awesome i have a flatrate, bed and couch ..even kitchen and stuff. oh well my bathroom is like 2 squaremeters including, sink, toilet and shower.. i m not joking when i say 2 squaremeters, but who cares about the bathroom... haha.

tonight i ll have kind of a business dinner and i ll probably have to drink soju. i wonder how that is going to be... soju is pretty hard liquor. at least for me it is... oh well... i guess its welcome to korea.... but because i have to be ready in 4 hours i ll try to get some sleep in as i ll have to start working tomorrow...

so just a short notice, that i got to korea save and i m doing good...

all the best out there!
rich