Dongtan: Week One

I have been here for a week.

It is really weird for me to be in a new place.

I feel like, 

where I got here at first, 

it was Japan all over again...

Even though Japan and Korea are very different.

For me it is the same weird feeling,

of getting used to a new "somewhere" around the world.

When I got to Sanbon at first,

I shared a room with Alyssa.

That was the big difference with Japan:

In Japan I just had no one with me to make the transition.

With Alyssa, I felt that there was something I knew,

that I could hold onto.

That's what I tried to be for the new teachers, 

Heather and C.J. when they got here.

Just a cushion, for them to feel that,

Korea could indeed become another "home",

where nice people were there for you in case shit happened.

...here I feel like Japan is over me all over again. 

A great new place, 

yet unexplored, 

but far away from everything else,

an empty place where I have to make mine and empty space.

The apartment I am in right now is temporary.

I am moving again in two weeks.

So I cannot make it into what I want:

it is not mine.

It is an empty cold 3 rooms "opistel".

It looks amazing and has a great view,

but it is really cold and empty.

I find myself in an "in between", 

just like when I was in my apartment in Sanbon,

waiting for Alison to leave so I would have furniture.

Sitting on the floor and waiting for time to pass...

Heather, my Darling~ <3

Heather is a sweetheart: she finishes work earlier than the other teachers at A-Class (at 6 instead of 10pm) and she came twice this week, to hang out with me, have a drink and sleep over. On the occasion, I also invited Yeonjoon (a friend I met thanks to my BBF Lala<3)that lives close by, so we could hang out and be more than two.

 The first time, we hanged out in Byeongjum and Suwon and ended up being out too late for the subway. Having to pay a ridiculous price for a cab back to Sanbon, Heather decided to take the cab back to Dongtan with us so we could split the fare in three. 

She had to wake up super early in order to get back to Sanbon to work the next morning, and it was painful to wake up so early, but I think it was worth the fun we had. She got lucky, missing the subway transfer, she got to work only  a few minutes late. Ironically, I was almost late for work myself even if I had woken up 2 hours early and live 1 minute away from my workplace: I hadn't seen the time and ended up having to come back to the apartment because I had forgotten some stuff.

Dongan : Japan?

Ironically, while Dongtan emotionally makes me live Japan (my student exchange to Japan in 2005) all over again, it actually literally feels like Japan: It is a clean clean clean new town full of malls and parcs and open clear spaces. 

And everywhere you look you will lay your eyes on at least one Japanese restaurant. I have tried two of them so far: they both look amazing from inside and have really tasty food, but are really expensive. Being broke, I do not plan on trying them before I get my pay check.

I paid a ridiculous price for Yakisoba in this place,
but the portion was enormous and the meat of good
quality. While I honestly prefer the cheap couterpart
to this expensive meal, I actually got two "service"
side dishes while I hanged out in the restaurant drinking
my pint. That meat was soooo tender and melted in my
mouth, I loved it ~~~ <3

The whole restaurant has a very intimate feeling to it, having wooden separations in between tables, cherry trees all over the place and fake wooden rooftops making it look like a mini village. While the food was expensive, it was good and all in all I would like to go back, with people, ideally.

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Last night, we tried yet another Japanese restautant, a "yakiniku' place this time. The place also looked nice. While the first place I went to was mostly a fish place, this one was an asian BBQ place and the meat we ended up ordering was really good. We had beef and lamb (beef was soooo yummy).

It was SOOOO humid and cold outside and we walked
around so much to finally settle down in this little restaurant
that was actually close to my current apartment building.
This picture was taken as we, red nosed, had just sat in the
BB place....