Uijeongbu & my apartment.

So I have settled into my apartment and neighborhood now. Enjoy a picture post:





The view from outside my (rather large) window.



An adorable cartoon rabbit demonstrating what (not) to do on elevators.











I'm the only American here from anywhere near Philly (well, there is a guy from Maryland, but like west Maryland), so I'm the only one who was at all amused by the insignia for this particular set of apartments. Granted, not an exact match, but nonetheless they bear an uncanny resemblance to each other.







My digs. While it's a small apartment, and the bathroom is the smallest, nastiest-smelling washroom I've ever used (or hope to use), I have one sweet perk: radiant heating. Aww, yeah.

Uijeongbu is, I've decided, the Newark of the ROK. Everything is pretty plain and shabby looking (the pictures posted above have the cityscape covered pretty much 100%) and nothing very glamorous. The only difference is you're much less likely to get shot in Uijeongbu than in Newark. And there's no major international airport.

No one out here really speaks any English, which makes for some interesting scenarios. I've gotten by OK so far, though I'm sure I'll have some goofy language-related mishap sooner or later. Anyone who knows even a little English, however, seems to be pretty eager to use it.

Because of its Newarkness, Uijeongbu doesn't really get that many white people (from what I understand, South Korea isn't really a big tourist destination to begin with, but still). My coworkers are the only other Westerners I've seen so far. There's another English academy in town, and supposedly they also employ foreigners. I haven't seen them yet, though. In any case, sometimes people stare, mostly little kids or old people. It's adorable.

There's also some pretty awesome Engrish to be had, but that is a post for another day.