bir, iki, üç...

We have an address! E-mail me at Sabran321@gmail.com for the number of our residency.


Apparently, there are old town shops 5 km one direction and a new mall 5 km the other direction. A nice swimming pool is directly outside our living room and many more apartment towers surround us. Reminds us of a mixed Mexico + Korea setting. It's also much more hilly/mountainous than we suspected. The 3-building school is nestled between hills with expensive villas overlooking the campus. The area and school itself are very nice and everyone there has been extremely welcoming and friendly so far. This year, all teachers in the primary school get Smartboards in their classrooms (just like we had around the Dallas metroplex) and all teachers get laptops they can take home. They seem much more organized than Jeju Camp and have many more resources. I'll be teaching 2nd/3rd grade English and Katie will be Pre-K/K but we're not sure how the class schedules will be organized yet.

Jetlag hasn't been as big of a problem as we had anticipated. We both slept for a few hours on the plane, so our internal clocks are only an hour or two off at the moment. I'm sure that being forced to wake up everyday at 6:45-7 everyday will set it back on track fairly quickly. The bus picks us up around 8 (along with 15ish other teachers who live about our area). It's about a 30 minutes ride to the school, so we can work, talk, read, or sleep (the seats are rather comfortable) on the way up. The view of the landscape through the bus windows can be describe as such:

We went grocery shopping yesterday at Carrefour (partially French owned) yesterday and spent about $50 on basic foods and home goods. I'd post a picture of the receipt but it's faded, in Turkish, and probably wouldn't be worth the effort. Instead, here are some prices I jotted down from a different grocery store we stopped by today:

5 Red Bell Peppers - $6.47
Tomatoes - $0.25 /lb.
Potatoes - $0.48 /lb.
Boxed Whole Milk - $0.78
Boxed Organic Soy Chocolate Milk - $5.02
100g Instant coffee - $5.59
Mentos - $0.62
Blue Cheese - $15.17 /lb.
21 oz. Canned Sweet Corn - $2.44
160g Canned Tuna - $2.80
5 Hotdogs - $2.80
Whole Chicken - $5.47/kg or $9.76 for a small whole one
Regular Eggs - $1.99/dozen
Organic Eggs - $3.51/for 10
Pre-Made Chicken Salad Sandwich - $2.80
500g Margarine - $2.22
6 Mini Dannon Yogurts - $1.06
300g box of 10 Frozen Chicken Fingers - $4.21
Monopoly (Turkey Edition) - $28.01
Flip Flops - $2.80
Diary of a Wimpy Kid (Hardcover Book) - $9.26
Mach 3 Razor - $11.76
4 Mach 3 blades - $14.31
2.5 liter Coca-Cola - $1.45
120g Ruffles Chips - $1.12
Can of Pringles Chips - $2.53
1 bottle of Heineken - $2.47
8 liters of Drinking Water - $1.06
1 liter Orange Juice - $0.81
Twix Bar - $0.56
1 liter Olive Oil - $4.46
Volcano Chocolate Cake Mix (4 servings) - $2.78
500g Pasta - $0.56
750ml Dish Washing Soap - $1.07

Note: We did not buy any of these products. I just wrote them down to blog about it. And yes, I converted prices to dollars and pounds.

The majority of the prices seem relatively close to those in the United States, if not only slightly more expensive. Heavy items in glass containers and odd shaped bulky items definitely cost more. There are about 3 small grocery shops within walking distance, so going to buy food isn't such a chore as it was in Korea. The school said they would organize trips to IKEA and around to tourist spots within the next couple of weeks so that new teachers could get acquainted with the city. Also, we should be getting our residency permits and transportation cards through the school soon as well.