Annyeong Haseyo!

bus from the airport to my hotel

That is the formal greeting for hello in the Korean language. I have started taking the Korean I class for foreign employees by Samsung =) 3 days a week and 2 hours each day. The class is already 2 weeks in, but they still let me attend class so I have some catching up to do. I should finish the class around the end of October and hopefully I can start the Korean 2 class in November. I am pretty excited to learn some Korean so I can converse with the locals when I go out. I am experiencing some sort of a culture shock being fully immersed in the Korean culture without much of a background, but learning the language should even the playing field somewhat.

Most of the summer interns that are still here will be leaving at the end of the week with the exception of about 4 French interns who will be staying until December. We are planning on having our farewell dinner tomorrow night at this Viking Seafood restaurant. I guess we will see how many things I will eat while it is still moving on my plate, I'll post an update tomorrow after it goes down. Luckily, we will have about 20 more European interns coming in mid-October.


Also I finally received my first month's stipend today. It took a while because I had to go open a Korean bank account and I kept forgetting my US passport at home, but I finally got it done. However, the jerks at KEB bank won't give me an ATM card. I am gonna go back to the bank and tell them what's up soon. 1.2 million won has been deposited into my account today though. Yeah, I am living the baller life.  All that converts to about $1000 USD. Thankfully, I only have to pay for going out and eating out, which is only on the weekends usually since all our meals are paid for at the Samsung cafeterias. Now I need to go get a pre-paid phone from Samsung for my stay here. Just in case you were wondering, here is how I get around the huge Samsung complex. These bikes are called Doobaloos, aka my bucket ride.

We can only use orange and pink Doobaloos. It is a free for all bike, so if you are walking and you see one in front of a building, it will most likely not be there after 10 minutes. The interns are a clever bunch though, we ride the Doobaloos back to our dorms after work if we can find a free one. Then we hide them in a dumpster overnight outside of our dorm so no one takes our Doobaloo and ride them back to work the next morning. Work smarter, not harder.

Here are some pics from my Mcd's experience in Korea. I had a bulgogi burger and it was delicious. The burger patty is just ground beef or pork marinated in Asian spices. It pretty much rocked my world. I highly recommend it. Interesting fact: Mcdonalds delivers to your door. Check out these sweet Mcdonald's branded scooters and helmets. This doesn't seem like a bad high school job. 

bulgogi burger was LEGEN...wait for it...
DARY!!