1st Real Day

So I think I managed to find the most expensive gym ever.

I should have known by the fact that they offer valet parking for their customers that it would be expensive, but I kind of went for it anyway. But I'll have you know, if you join for only 5 million dollars a month (ok. maybe not quite that much) you will look and be as hot as the owner, who happens to be some Korean movie star whose name eludes me at this point (and probably every other point in my life).

So 1st Real Day I'll say.... seeing as yesterday involved a lot more sleeping. (and friend seeing! which was nice:) But today was 1st Day I walked around some.

So I'm kind of in a ritzyish-er neighborhood.... I dont live super close to that station (in fact I live a lot closer to another), but I think it helps explain the dearth of grocery stores around me. I have yet to see one. Conbini. no problem. Grocery store?

The cable guy has just arrived ... for what will be the 3rd time today (I love how even in Korean, he refers to himself as 'cable guy.' Let it be known worldover that cable guys are hereforth and forever cableguys!) It has been a long and silly process. (Less silly when I finally got some food and so could think again. And I have to say kudos to my friend Won who put up with his incessant phone calls.) But In the frugality test of life.... I have failed... at least the first round (oh but Japanese tv! and CNN World. ). So.

Round 1: cable tv 1, Naomi 0

(In other notes, I REALLY need to learn how to say yes in Korean. My answer of 'hai' all the time just won't do. I mean, if I was Korean, I'd probably be pissed off by now.) Though I have to admit that so far my knowledge of Japanese has amused the few Korean folk that I have said I speak to (I was hoping that if we didn't share one language maybe we'd share another.

Frugality tests continue. I intend to eat out very little to make up for my cable TV installation (though I suppose I should just view it as a 'sunk cost' and get on with my life. I'm putting my slim economics education to good use.)

But back to Korean. I've realized (realized? decided? really the same thing in life I think) that I need to learn the alphabet. so I can read. Supposedly one of the most ingeniously designed (so say the linguists).... I think I would be best served investing a little effort to learn it. Asking what everything says... every single time I think would make life pretty cumbersome. (I mean imagine this: me at a conbini with 4 different onigiri (samga-kimbap. is that right?) asking the guy who works there if there is deji gogi (the dreaded pork) in any/all of them. I think it's amusing/might fly for the first week or so but that's about it).

Alas. Back to my neighborhood. Useful places... like grocery stores, the like, don't really seem ...in abundance (Where can I buy trash bags? teiuka, I don't even know where I can throw out the trash even if I had trash bags.) other things? uhhh.... it's hilly.

If I were comparing it to Tokyo, I would say that the neighborhood is Omotesando/Aoyama, and that I live on the edge of it.

I still have no cell phone. The need to text. overtakes one's soul. hehehe.

Hopefully I will have one by tomorrow. I did, however, manage to successfully spot (and use!) a pay phone. (such ooooold technology!)

I start 'training' tomorrow. I think I get two days of training to teach a test I haven't taken in... about 9 years?

woot.