Living the life and paying the bills.

My collapsible bike.

         Life in Cheonan has been swell these past two months. A lot has happend since I've moved into this quite place south of Seoul, and I have got to say its quite a nice little shin dig I have going here. My current room is quite spacious, with enough room to set up a small table for panting and building minatures. It also has a 'breezeway' with my Washing machine and space for a drying rack (as well as my Bike which I acquired for use of getting around.) Likewise, I am also very close to grocery stores and toy stores, so supplies of needed items like foodstuffs and trinkets for the kids is an easy matter, as well as any other piece of necessity I need.

The only real drawback is Cheonan is a newly developed city, and the location I'm in is quite spares in terms of things to do; sure there are two shopping malls/department stores and a movie theater, but there really isn't much else unless I take the subway or bus downtown (which isn't too far from me either; a 15 min walk or 10 min bike ride.) Still, I don't mind being here, and I've made a lot of progress in seeing places and meeting new people, but most of all, I absolutely am in love with my work; I enjoy its amazing schedule, easy criteria and lesson material, and the children are quite capable and easy to handle; a definitive improvement from dealing with younger kids (Grades 3-6 are who I handle.)

My work begins Monday, starting at 3:00pm in the afternoon and going till 9pm in the evening. This varies depending on days. On Monday and Friday I start at 3pm, on Tuesday and Thursday, I start a little later at 4:20, and on Wednesday I start at 3:20. I have several classes a day, most 40 minutes in length with one or two being 50. The kid count per class can be as small as three to four as as big as 10 to even 14. It isn't hard to handle classes that size, and the work criteria is easy to follow and explain; most of the time we get the work done pretty quickly and I'm left with a good 10 minutes for the kids to watch Youtube vids for thins that relate to the lessons, like Mosquitoes or colours, or food stuffs. Quite interesting material, and all to help them better understand English for their higher grade levels to follow.

 I'm actually in an interesting setup with this school. I have to travel each Wednesday from Cheonan to its neighboring city of Asan to teach at another branch of the company I work for. Asan starts from 3:20 and ends at 8:20, a little earlier than most. The kids are also great and many, even the youngest kids, are really smart and active, I'm always blown away by how helpful they want to be and how edger they are to learn.

Twenty bucks for maple syrup!

Besides teaching, I am still living in my own apartment and have to cook and clean for myself. Neither are a problem as my room is one giant space with smaller rooms connected; a kitchen, bathroom and the laundry breezeway are easily accessible and detached from the main room where I do most of my living; so cleaning them all is fairly simple and with a quick vroom of my dust-buster/vacuum and I can clean most of the dust without a problem. Buying food is also fairly easy. I live near a Homeplus express (Grocery store) and both an E-mart (Korean Walmart) and E-mart Traders (Bulk Supplies Mall). All three places are great fopr buying foods both domestic and imported, though prices on certain things are quite out there. Still, a weeks worth of food can be around 30-80 dollars for things like Milk, eggs, fish or chicken, bread, and some veggies. Its quite surprising the stock they have and its great to play around with the food I get and cook with.

Another fun thing I have to do is pay my own Electricity and Gas bill each month. At my prior job, the school paid the bills for us, deducting the cost from our paycheck. This time, I have to pay it myself at my local KEB (the bank branch I use) and have found it to be surprisingly easy and I took the time to put it down to show ppl who may not know but will have to do the same thing as me.

1. Get Bill
For security reasons, the important details are hidden, but you will get a bill like this in your mailbox once or twice a month for gas and electricity. It will be wellow with three/four sections on it. Each part tells you about your cost, how it measures to other months, and general info (which I actually don't know well as I can't translate it XD)

2.  Take to local Bank
Weither it be KEB, KB or WOORI, take your bill to your local bank, there, you will have to find a machine like this one that's specific to paying bills. Once you find it, start by putting in your bank card into the machine.

 3. Take off the bottom section with the OCR on it.
This is the primary piece of paper we will need to pay the bill. Remove it from the bill (it tears away easy) and get ready to use it to pay your bill off. Most bills are paid this way, the OCR is the actual code and information regarding your account and is what helps to transfer the money to the right place when you pay.

4. Push the button labeled "지 로 공과금"which means "Support Utilities" (I think it means to pay utility bills) , this will bring you to the next section and show you a display on preparing that peice of paper we took from our bill. This time, you have to tear off the end with your cost price and address, just leaving the part with the OCR on for payment.

Once that's done, insert the bill and you're good to go.




 5. Pay the fee.
Once the bill is accepted by the machine, you get to see how much the cost comes to as well as any other costs (depending on how many bills you put in or if there are any added costs to the one bill.) Now, push the green button, which of course means yes and then put your code in and boom, payment is sent and you're free from paying until the next month.


   Despite moving away from Seoul, I still play airsoft on the weekends. I hadn't done so for the past month or so as situational problems within the Airsoft community here in Korea had risen, and several police raids had put everyone on edge, Apparently, someone within the community had went to the police with information and told them of several games that were happening. It brought a huge damper on many players, and even a few people I know got arrested, gear taken and destroyed by the police.  It really boils my blood that someone within this community wanted to do something so low; we're all here to have fun, we're all here to enjoy good, wholesome survival games; and someone has to go and throw poop into it.

Still, games have begun to happen again, and this month of October has been full of em, To get to Seoul, I only have to take a KTX, Korean Transit Express Train into Seoul. It takes only half an hour to 45 minuts depending, but its quick painless, and only 13,000 Won. One cool thing I found, even if the train is full, it doesn't stop the KTX attendants from selling 'standing tickets'. For 11,000 Won, you can get a ticket to stand in the train, and a lot of people do this if the seats are full. I've done it too, you can stand in the mid-sections between cars or the food cart (which has tables). The ride is smooth and always punctual, so you're never late for your appointment.

Well, thats all for now, with Halloween coming up, I'm prepping for a two day extravaganza at my school with me explaining to the kids the history of halloween. I hope you fellow readers are holding out well and look forward to seeing you when we talk about NaNoWriMo in South Korea!