So, in spite of the fact that the Ulsan Ministry of Education (UMOE) has been housing me as well as the 24 other members of the fall 2011 cohort at UNIST, the dorms do not have any wireless internet access, I, as well as all of us have been a bit out of digital touch.
With that said, it's nice to finally be online :-)
So, Ulsan. Where to begin. Well, first off, Ulsan is super modern. Having India as the last place to which I have traveled, my expectations for an "abroad expeirence" were set to Indian standards. In short, I did not expect that in Ulsan that there would be a Starbucks in many corners, Dunkin Donuts all over the place, and overall a level of organization and chaos on par with any city in the U.S. In other words, I am loving Ulsan so far, but I really expected to be much more out of my element. Suffice to say, I am not.
The group of people who are part of the Fall 2011 chort range in age and background from 22 and right out of college to 30 and experienced in the work world. Some folks are here because they can't find work in either the U.S., England, Canada, or South Africa (those are all the countries covered by the members of this cohort) or simply because living abroad is an exciting and attractive line of work. Regardless, everyone has been very plesant, some folks are going to become my good friends, and other will simply fade in to a more peripheral role in the next year to come, but regardless, it is really really nice to be meeting so many new folks.
Just yesterday, Danielle, Zach and I were wandering around the downtown part of Ulsan. This area is about a 50 minute bus ride from UNIST, and we happened upon three very well organized markets. Each was in one common area but were divided by either selling 1) fruit, 2) veggies, or 3) seafood. As we were wandering through noticing all sorts of great looking fruits, and since I have not eaten much fruit since being here, naturally, I began to crave one of the many juicy looking peaches that were for sale. Grabbing one peach, I gestured to the woman at the stand as to ask "how much." To make a long story short, she began to thrust an box of 20 peaches at me and told me they were $40 (or about 40,000 Won). Well, I didn't want a box of 20, so I continued to try to gesture that I only wanted one. Eventually, and with a huge smile, the woman just began to push me away. I didn't know exactly what to do, and I tried to give her some money, but she wouldn't accept it. So, with a bit of reluctance I eventually walked off with the unpaid peach, and gladly sunk my teeth into it later. So, juicy. So sweet. Perfect.
I later found out that fruit is not sold by the piece. Buying the whole box is the way it goes here, and thought I don't yet have a well established feel for the nature of the culture here, I believe that one situation may have been my first glimpse into what I have heard is the extremely giving and generous Korean culture.
Just for refernce sake, fruit and veggies here are SUPER expensive here. For example, a normal size watermellon that would sell for $8 in the U.S. sells for about $20 here. Just yesterday I saw two canteloupes for $40. I guess I'll be adjusting my diet a bit or just making more room in my budget for produce.
We'll see...
~sETH
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