Starting to make arrangements now that we have a plan in place. Now that that Sharon and Annelise won’t be moving over in the near term, decided on a permanent apartment in the same neighborhood and bought a better TV – it won’t be a bachelor pad, more of an offsite man cave. With the TV, all wireless, and better connection speed I pretty much can access TV as I want. So I had my first “normal” night – off work at a reasonable time, home to change, got a good workout in, picked up McDonalds, and came home and watched a couple episodes of 24. It was nice for one night – but not looking forward to normal a lot in the future– without Sharon and the girls, it just isn’t normal. This stretch is probably the longest we will have apart – so looking forward to next trip home. I have an Outback on the first floor – pretty disappointing but at least a good IPA. I found out later over 100 Outback’s in Seoul.
A had my first series of Korean language tests – I passed reading and verbal comprehension on alphabet, on pronunciation, she said I made sounds that were not known to Koreans. But she passed me and said we’ll work on it.
Samsung is very big into community responsibility – I received a notice of a volunteer opportunity and naturally I ignored it but then a couple of days before the event I was advised is was not really voluntary. The event was at an adult day care center and two activities were listed and we were told we would be assigned to one when we get there – two choices – food distribution or bathing. The other expat and I were a bit freaked out – so we made sure that we got food service. It was during work hours, which was a first for me, and it was very rewarding. The people were probably the happiest group of people I have ever come across and the center serviced able-bodied people that lived on their own, so that were in pretty good shape. There was one table that had about 8 old guys, wearing various ROKMC (Republic of Korean Marine Corps) hats and probably had been friends since the 1950’s. The other group that did the bathing was mostly older – because the country was so poor, when they grew up there was no nurses so it was normal for children to bath their grandparents when they were old. They all spoke afterward of how it was so moving for them. Not something you would ever see at a workplace in the U.S.
Found a part of Jamsil with music bars – some just play records or videos while others have instruments that people play…as well as a drive-thru. Too hard to order…
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