We'll I've been here for a week now, so I figured it was time for another update. This country has been great to me so far and I don't feel homesick at all. I find the culture fascinating, and the differences charming. And boy are there ever a lot of differences!
For one, people don't accept tips here. They are a very generous culture, and they give lots, but they rarely take.. no matter how hard you try! What you see on the menu in a restaurant is all you will pay, which is typically very very cheap compared to eating out in Canada, even cheaper than making your own meals here! I've gone out for lunch every day I've worked so far for all sorts of great meals and it's only cost me at most $6CAD per meal, that includes all the extra appetizer dishes, and a coffee. Crazy! It doesn't make much sense for me to bring my own lunches to work, so I'll just go out every day. And it's a great way to experience the culture.
Here are some videos from my first lunch outing from work last Thursday:
(These are some of the awesome people I work with :) I really like our team)
(Nom nom nom nom nom)
And a picture:
:)
The restaurant is in a little town called Naah-Ri, which is basically one road that leads into the nuclear power plant that we work at. Here's a video of the street itself:
And for those of you who know George and how awesome he is, here's another video:
(I don't know why, but this video cracks me up every time I see it. Thanks George!)
Oh, on my first day at work, Thursday of last week, I drove in with one of the site coordinators, and since he was in a smaller vehicle, we could go over the mountain, instead of all the way around it like the shuttle bus is forced to do because it's so large and the mountain roads are barely wide enough for 2 cars to squeeze past each other. That was my first experience driving up and over these mountains, and since it was early morning I was fortunate enough to witness the sunrise too. I was completely floored by the view.. I was almost hyperventilating it was so gorgeous. You couldn't see very far because of the heavy misty-like air (not smog, this is a pretty clean country, no black snot!) but the mist makes very interesting sunrises..
here's a quick snapshot I took with my pocket camera on my way into work:
And after work was done that day, this is the sunset we were greeted with as we left:
Some other things I've noticed. Strawberries here are awesome, and they are hand arranged in the packages:
I haven't seen a single tractor yet, but I have seen a lot of these:
(The drive unit is just two wheels, and you attach it to whatever you want it to tug around, in this case a trailer, but it could be a tiller or whatever. I like the modular design a lot)
Here's the sunset on the way home from work last night. This is part of the bus route we take home, which is about a 45 minute ride.
Domino's Pizza, which has really good thin crust pizza..
Well I think that's it for now. I'm not feeling that great so I didn't want to write a really long post, just wanted to share some videos and pictures with you.
Here are the rest of the pictures, with two directories at the bottom of the page of other sets:
https://www.gwcphoto.ca/photos/20090209_Various/
I'll be posting about this past Sunday sometime over the next day or two, where Bert and I walked up the mountain behind our apartment building and took some fun pictures. That's when I confirmed that I am indeed out of shape. We'll also talk about the tour Sean took Bert and I on Sunday, where we visited the Hilton for some expensive lunch buffet, and the agro-fish market in downtown Ulsan, as well as a few other places. More on that soon!
Take care for now ;)
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(Note: This blog post was imported from my old blogger site to this new WordPress blog.)