Korea - Day 4 - Going to Work

Thanks to jetlag, I woke up at 3:00am. I called home to check in with everyone and chat with them. After a shave and a shower, I made my way down to the hotel's breakfast area where I found a selection of Korean and Western breakfast items. There were a lot of military uniforms at breakfast. I suppose this is the place for servicemembers to stay.

I hopped in a taxi and made my way to Camp Henry, where I'll be teaching for the next week and a half. Since I did not have a military ID the taxi driver dropped me off in front of the guard gate. I arrved at 7:30am and waited for nearly an hour before my contact picked me up. As they were unable to get me unescorted access to the post I will have to be met by someone at the gate every day and signed on. A little tedious, but every post works a little bit different.

I arrived at my classroom, met the students and started the day. As could be expected, there were the typical Monday morning snafus: The heat was on in a small room with twelve men and twelve computers on a day where the forecast high was 82 degrees Fahrenheit (about 28C). Technical issues popped up that didn't happen during testing.

By 10:00am I realized that the class wasn't going to be working. To get it to work I needed Internet access, which I couldn't get while on post. So Keith, one of my students, offered to take me back to his house so that we could work on the lab issues. While there, his wife brought us some excellent Korean food for lunch. I still can't remember the name of it, but it was fried rice with a black bean sauce and chicken.

Back at the classroom by 12:45pm I decided we would do two days worth of lecture while we sorted out the technical issues overnight. By 3:45pm my throat was painfully sore from the heat in the room, so I dismissed the class. All in all, it was a very draining day, physically and mentally.

I decided to walk back to the hotel, as much for the fresh air as for the stress relief. Google Maps had it as a 39-minute walk, and it was pretty much a straight shot up one street. Sure enough I made it back to the hotel, exhausted more from the heat in the room and the stress of malfunctioning labs. My throat was hurting pretty badly, and I had no appetite for dinner. Still, I forced myself to change into some casual clothes and go for a walk around the hotel. I wandered past a park and several restaurants before discovering all the computer stores one block behind the hotel. I had some fun just walking into the stores and conversing with the storekeepers. I asked in English, they responded in Korean and somehow we understood each other. Prices were either typed into a calculator or written on paper. Not finding what I was looking for at the price I wanted (USB Headset), I headed back up to my room and called it a night.

Here's hoping that tomorrow is a better day.