Korea week 1

Sorry for the lack of updates this past week. I arrived in Korea last Monday and got internet a few days ago but have yet to put much up here. I am alive and having a good time. First off I am living in a pretty awesome place. It is pretty much living up to my expectations. I have a one bed room apartment that is about the size of 2 dorm rooms put together. It is pretty nice. The riding here is great there are some trails that are mtb rideable right behind my house and the road riding is really excellent. To get out of town and onto good roads I need to go over one of 3 pretty decent size climbs. There is a really nice 5km climb right out of town to a big country club it is through the woods and the top ridge part has really great views of the surrounding mountains. I have been emailing with a group of foreigners that race/ride bikes here in the greater seoul area meaning within about a 1 hour bus ride of seoul which is a huge area! This weekend one of the riders invited me to borrow his spare Storck carbon road bike with campy record 11 on it so I could go for a ride with him and a few other guys!!!! I got on the bus to Seoul at 6:30 am and it took about 40 minutes! A quick and cheap taxi ride to his apartment and off we were with 2 other guys one who was an italian chef and a british guy who teaches law at a few universities in Seoul. We had to ride about 20 km on some crazy bike paths along the Han river in Seoul which is where everyone goes to ride. Man this post is getting long. Ok so it was a great ride through big mountains with some great climbing and great guys! I think I have found a club to race for here! The next day I took the bus and then a subway to Incheon which is on the ocean and rode with Stan and suzanne from missouri. We also went to pretty sweet circus/breakdance and other crazy stuff show which was great!! Also stan who just happens to be a dietetics major too cooked me some awesome food and took me to a western style restraunt to get a burger and fries! Overall great first week! Today was my first day of work at the school too! It was great and all of the kids here are so excited to meet me! Today had 4 classes of 4th graders and tomorrow we have the 6th graders. Also school lunch here is sweet! It is actually good food (if you like korean food) and they let you get seconds!!! I start Korean language class at Kyung Hee University in Suwon (a 30-40 minute bus ride tomorrow. So hopefully I will be able to really have some good conversations in Korean soon! It is definitely a big culture shock moving here but the biggest one for me is going from basically constant non stop social interaction of living at Purdue with a bunch of my friends in the same house to living in a 1 bedroom apartment! I think I will get used to it though.