IT’S NICE TO HAVE SOMETHING WAITING AT HOME FOR YOU

When I came home this evening from the airport, this is how I found my front door.


Yes sir, lots of fast food delivery services that I will not be availing myself of. Considering the building is half empty, and there are only 2 apartments on each floor, I’m surprised to see so much. I expect to have many more as time goes by.

I picked up my visa today without problem. Everything went quite smoothly. After my visa pickup I had a little time to kill, so guess what I did? You’re right. A bookstore with a nice selection where I purchased four more books. I’m planning on making a major Amazon purchase and bringing them back with me from the States, but I may not have that many to choose from.

I then took the subway back to the hotel. At the subway station I turned in my Octopus Card. You get the money you have remaining on it back in cash. That is so cool. They do deduct about a $1 service charge, but I’m not complaining. So, was I done spending? Nope. I had to walk from the subway to the hotel and on the way I bought an electronic dictionary. I will be able to translate between English and Korean. It also does English to Cantonese and Mandarin. It says the word in the language you’re translating to if you want, and it’s has the roman phonetic of the word in English which is a help. The dictionary has 340,000 words along with useful phrases. It’s kind of difficult to explain words at times even with my skillful acting and drawing abilities. Have you ever tried to explain the word “clue” to someone with limited English? It will be handy for words like that.

I took a shuttle to the airport where I grabbed my first Whopper since leaving America. I do prefer Burger King to McDonalds so that was quite nice. The flight was pleasant. I was the aisle seat in the middle three, and there was no one beside me. The flight went smoothly and the food was edible. I had Chinese food. Sweet and sour chicken which I’ve had a craving for, so that was nice. One of the desserts on the tray was an ice cream bar. I can’t say I’ve ever seen one of those served on a plane.

The custodian guy was at the airport to meet me. It is just so damn nice of everyone to take such good care of me. This is how you treat strangers who come to work for you. I am so pleased. However, I want to move to Hong Kong. I like it. There are things to do, it’s clean, it’s pretty (when there is no fog), and there’s plenty of English. I’ve seen English teachers there out and about with their students so maybe you can get a job there. Who knows? I might look. I am a traveling man, trying to make a living doing the best I can.

So tomorrow is my first day of school. The custodian guy is picking me up at 8:10 and school starts at 8:30. I have no idea what to expect except I’ll probably have to take my shoes off. Koreans always take their shoes off when entering a room and apparently at the public schools, all students and teachers take their shoes off and walk around in slippers. I was hoping to wear my new green Converse All-Stars tomorrow, but is there a point? I’ll have to decide in the moring.

I think it should be a long day. After all, when there are only 10 teaching hours a week, how many can you have in one day? I hope I have my own area to hang out in, with my own computer. I really don’t want to drag my computer back and forth to school to kill time. I’ll take some books with me to read, and I’m taking my Korean study book I bought months ago. Now that I’m inspired, I’ll begin in earnest.

I can’t believe I’ll be in Texas in less than 2 weeks. I wish there was Montreal Smoked Meat there. I wonder if anyone will bring me some. This is a craving that just won’t die. (And I have a ribs craving too).