The sad state of the Korean exchange rate. See that jagged line that looks like a blue outline of a mountain; that is the one year projection of what converting Korean Won into Canadian Dollars looks like. The lower the line dips, the less Canadian money I get for sending Korean money that way. As you can see at the moment, and starting since the moment of january this year, that line has been plummeting like Newton's law. What this means is, if I sent home 5,000,000won (approx. $5000) which is a realistic lump sum I may send, at the current exchange I will get $5,448.47CAD. But if I was able to send the same amount at the peak of exchange(in January), I would get about $6050.00. that's a difference of $601.53. It's absolutely annoying. I've been waiting months for the exchange to start increasing, but it just keeps going down. I think I'll just need to wait a little bit longer. I've found a 5 year plodding of the exchange rate:
It seems that this so far presents itself as a cycle; and every January the rates become much much better. So I'll wait, and hope that there's currently enough money in my bank account in Canada to hold off my monthly student loan payment until then. gah.

I just found this statistic about the average anual working hours of selected countries. and this explains a lot about koreans. and i feel even worse for them. it isn't just perception that they're working way too much. they're statistically working way too much.

japan and back. not nearly as exciting as last time. although, certain issues made it at least interesting.

i woke up at... no wait, i didn't wake up. i didn't go to sleep because we had to leave at 5am. Ben and I got on a bus to the airport flew to Fukuoka Japan in 80minutes, and found the korean consolate there with relative ease. however, we also found it to be closed for a japanese holiday. after finding our hotel at 12pm, we wasted time until 3pm, our check-in time. some of that time wasting consisted of calling our school to inform them, we really can't get a work visa in two days because one day is a holiday. later, and i believe because the lady at our school is probably a bulldog, we were informed that we actual will be able to get the visa processed in one day.

once i got into my hotel, i crashed for 5 hours. then Ben and I walked around Japan at night. Fukuoka is not a tourist destination. Ben was offered 5-10 minutes for $30. You can guess what the 5-10 minutes was for.

the next day we got our work visa. we also met some other ex-pats getting their work visas too. although they didn't have the benefit of it being processed in one day like us. we weren't allowed to tell them either. so at one point we snuck away when we had to pick up the visa. we gave some vague excuse like 'we have an appointment with someone'.

after that we came home. nothing exciting. world travel has become de-glamorized. maybe it's just because it's for business reasons. i assume that businessmen feel the same way. maybe not.

I found out that I'm mostly immune to mosquito bites. Well actually, i just confirmed it. however, it doesn't mean at all that i'm immune to incredibly annoying buzzing in my ears while i try to sleep. it's kind of funny, it took me months to learn to sleep on rock hard mattresses, and now i'm being kept awake by the bugs. anyway, i don't leave my window open anymore.

i'm mostly adapted to my new living. at least to the point where i'm singing loud enough to make you cringe, and i'm walking around naked before a shower. the beauty of living alone. korean towels don't afford you the opportunity to walk around with just a towel on, they're essentially the size of floor mats.

i went for a long walk around my town to discover it. i found the red light district, and i found a subway station that has professional looking ping pong tables set up. looks like i'm buying a paddle.

teaching english is easy. the curriculum is straight forward.

on the weekend, i climbed a mountain. a mini-mountain. i think a mountain is 1000m. what i climbed was 850m. however, you soon realize that even that leaves your legs sore for a week. the annoying thing is, you think you're special, but then you look over and see an old korean lady at the top too.

i went to a different part of the seoul metropolis. i learned that you should know where you live before you venture out. i had some bus adventures trying to find home again.

my schedule is 3-10 mon-fri. which kinda encourages my bad sleeping habits. i'll fix myself sometime.

3 days of work finished.

revelations.

my last job in korea was at a school that was completely new. everyone there knew as much about the area, and had as many friends around as the next person, which was none. granted, a couple of us had friends that lived on the other side of seoul.

the thing i now realized that i missed in my last job was the history through the carry over staff. there are intertwining friends and traditions through teacher to teacher. the best is this 3 bedroom apartment that has always had at least one old staff living in it, so when new people move in, they keep everything in the apartment, and then they add their own touch. it looks so lived in. regretfully, the school is finally letting the lease go on the apartment.

so far the job is good. easy. everything is prepared mostly. i work 3-10pm. i'm thinking of taking up the violin or cello in my free time. depending on the prices. it could be a bad idea, but i'll look into it.

the first week is not even finished, so i'll wait to give a fuller review then.

i've had a pretty bad percentage of frustration with airlines given the number of times i've flown compared to how many times i've been frustrated. and after reading many other stories of annoyance from other interwebbers, i've decided that the airline industry is pretty screwed up, and it's only getting worse with terrorist paranoia, and gas price increases.

my problems mostly had nothing to do with either issue unless you count that increased gas prices caused me to be over-elated and had me jump on a plane ticket that was half the price of every other ticket i'd seen. and that ticket i got actually turned out to be incredibly wearisome.

shortly after purchasing a one-way ticket to korea i received a phone call from the airline asking if i have all proper documentation for a one-way ticket. interesting. i of course had no follow up documentation to help me out so she told me to call the embassy and make sure that it was alright. I called several people, the embassy, the korean school I was going to work for, other friends in korea, and asked them all if it was alright. nothing seemed amiss, but nothing was absolutely definite. I figured if all else failed I had enough money in the bank in korea to allow me safe passage.

When I got to the airport it was a different story. it seems that regardless of my confidence of the flight being ok, they have an absolute no fly rule unless you have a visa, or a ticket out of the country, because if you don't then the onus is on the airline to fly you back.

I didn't understand this before, but they made it more than clear as I was standing there ready for check-in, and they wouldn't let me. They gave me a number to call to book another flight out of korea. Since i needed to fly to japan for my visa anyway i booked a flight for japan. of course i was not able to book a flight with their airline because they did not fly where i needed them to fly.

so what happens when you can say you have a ticket but you can't prove it. of course. nothing. so i said if i bought some internet time on my laptop to show the email confirmation. funny story, i ran to the other side of the airport to try and get the internet when it turned out i could get the internet right there. it cost $10 just to show an email confirmation of my ticket. and it turned out they couldn't even use that confirmation because it didn't say the ticket number.

to get a ticket number i had to go back to the payphone and call this new airline to get my ticket number from the ticket i just bought an hour ago. this process usually takes much longer, but after 10 minutes on the phone i was able to get it.

i raced to check in finally at 9:40 with my plane leaving at 10am. as i got through i luckily found out thatthe flight was delayed.

and now it's 10:20 and i'm boarding. see you in korea

it's become habit for me to stay up all night the night before I fly. Actually, I think it's kinda funny thinking I could develop a habit in regards to flying, since I never thought I'd be flying as much as I have been. I don't think I'll do or be a lot of things. Thinking this way is best for creating low expectations. And low expectations are best for quelling disappointment, or making the fulfillment of such things that much more gratifying.

I got a job in Korea. I think I got it not because I said "yes" but because I didn't say "no", if that makes sense. I think I was being the job equivalent of a playa. I sent my resume to so many jobs in Korea, and I wanted to court all of them as long as I could. When one job was offering me something, I'd only tell them no to something I definitely didn't want such as teaching kindergarten. Then they'd usually tell me that they might have another job for me, so they'd get back to me. So then the job I eventually took didn't have anything I didn't exactly dislike so I just didn't say no. I ended up in contract negotiations in gmail chat. Next thing I knew I had a job, and my ticket for Korea purchased.