Trip to Donghae

Yesterday afternoon I was informed that Mr. Seo—Julian’s husband—would be driving us to Donghae so I could get my alien registration. Side note: I’m learning to not expect much warning for anything around here—you’re moving tonight, we’re getting in the car right now for a long trip, you don’t have class this hour, you have to come up with next week’s lesson plans by the end of the day…Anyway, we hopped in the car and zipped at an alarming rate down the coast. The speed limit was 80kmph (which in all fairness is a little slow for the nice expressway we were on), but Mr. Seo had the car consistently moving at 170kmph. Every so often, he would slam on the brakes and slow to 80, and I figured out that he was slowing down for cameras strategically placed over the roadway. What Julian told me would be a three hour trip barely took an hour and a half.

Last night Liz and I slept nearly 12 hours. It was delightful, and I’m happy that I haven’t had too many problems sleeping with the time change. The teaching is exhausting, too, though, which helps with the sleep. I don’t know where people get the idea that Koreans are well-behaved. The Japanese, maybe, but not Koreans, at least not the ones at our school. Kids get put in the corner on a regular basis, and today in one of Liz’s classes, Michael shook Eric’s cheeks so hard that he got a bloody nose. I have Michael in a later class, but fortunately I’ve had no incidents involving blood.