Sunday night here...I see that it's been a couple months. With my brother being here I find that I have less time. I guess you could say that a few things have changed for me in that time. For starters I'm sitting on the 15th floor of my new apartment building. As many of you, who haven't talked to me recently, might have guessed, I finished my contract and renewed for another year. I haven't decided if I will stay for the full year but I think I will.
I completed my contract and got my payout. About $8000 including my last month's pay. Twas nice. I've paid off all my student debt, so I'm working for myself now.
My brother and I got a bigger apartment. I had to put down about $2500 (that I get back when I move out) and pay an extra $240 a month but it's worth it. It's up on the 15th floor (like i said) and about twice the size of the last place. It's only 1 bedroom(which is tiny by the way) but the kitchen and living room make up for it. We found a used furniture store and got a few things, including a bed for Kyle, for pretty cheap so that was nice after incurring charge after hidden charge while moving. The $35 I had to pay to use the elevator to move my stuff into the new Apartment was the one that almost caused me to completely lose it.
The area is nice though. I'm near the subway now. About a 5 minute walk to the nearest station. It's a busy area. We have all kinds of businesses, restaurants, massage parlors ;) etc. i just have to start over collecting new delivery menus and finding new good restaurants. Not to mention getting used to saying the new address in Korean when ordering food. I've managed to get pizza here a couple times without screwing up. The new pizza place is better and cheaper than the last place I ordered from...so far so good. We went out and toured the neighborhood gyms. There is a really nice looking one in the basement of our plaza but it's pretty expensive. We found a cheaper place a little further away. It's about half the price and only about an 8 minute walk.
In other news, I bought a computer!(desktop) ?Pretty kick ass. Pentium 4, 512 megs of RAM, DVD/CD RW, flatscreen LCD monitor(so that i can ship it home easily), 40gigs of HD, etc. I'm happy with it. I got ADSL hooked up now so I think I'll be able to keep this site updated more often. Actually I should take this opportunity to turn this web site into something a little more asthetically pleasing. Although the thought of spending that much time doesn't turn my crank so I probably won't.
It's nice having the internet though. I'm hearing music that was popular a year ago that I've never heard before because I'm so far out of the loop. I thought it was pretty neat to get my old favorite Winnipeg radio stations broadcasting live over the internet. I'm listening to a Winnipeg radio station as I write this. It's not so much the music, but it's the familiar DJs and commercials that I enjoy.
In response to the questions...I still love it out here. I currently plan on heading back to Canada in late July for my cousin Brad's wedding in Penticton. I'll spend a few days visiting family and then head back to Winnipeg for a couple weeks. After that I guess I'll be heading back to Korea. The appeal of the great money and easy lifestyle is tough to beat. I don't start before 4pm and I with the good tax rate i'd have to be making almost $100,000 back home for it to be comparable.
Yes, it's been a year now and i still don't speak Korean all that well. I'm not bad when it comes to simple conversation. But I can't watch the news and follow exactly what's going on. I think i'm goning to take another course at the University next month. I'm hoping that after another course I should be able to bring my profeciency up to an acceptable level. That starts on April 3rd so I'll have to get on that fairly quickly.
Well I'm exhausted so I'm going to bed. I'd like to update you on what I've been doing but I really can't think well right now. I need sleep, my friend Jong-soo came over for the weekend and I didn't get a lot of sleep.
Please keep emailing. Now that I've got internet at home I don't mind getting the forwards that I used to complain about. I'll try to get back to this website so that i can upate it further but we'll see how the time goes.
Have a peachy day!!
Brent