I just gave myself a tour of my uncle’s factory and wow. I am impressed. When I first found out what he did for a living, I imagined a very boring, monotonous existence… much like the episode of the Simpsons when Bart’s class goes on a field trip to a box factory. It is anything but.

I saw large stacks of cardboard paper transformed into pretty, complete boxes. But each step requires different machinery. Big, hulking machines speedily print, score, cut, or fold. It’s so cool to watch something go in and watch it come out completely different.

Then there are jobs that require human touch to be finished. One such job had women from other Asian countries (Thais, Viets, Malaysians, Chinese) scoring and assembling boxes by hand. I guess they’re cheaper labor. Large stacks of finished boxes took up most of one side of the wall; there must’ve been over a thousand. This particular one was for a Ginseng health set and had a gold finish; I bet those boxes are expensive.

Eventually he wants me to go to trade shows in Las Vegas (yay!) and Chicago. After looking into it, I am pretty excited. Being able to travel for free and hobnob with large-scale businesses… Perhaps going into unrelated trade shows to hand out business cards and get some more clients for my unc… At a commission, of course :) It’d be pretty awesome if that was my job.

Of course, I still have a lot to learn about this business. I don’t know the specifications or logistics of anything yet. But I took a few related classes in college due to my advertising design degree. One class was all about printing, colors, offset machines, yadda yadda… The professor was talking about e-ink (as in what the Kindle uses) before the Kindle was even introduced. Saying how it’d change the world and we could eventually figure out how to put it on t-shirts so that we can change the message/designs on them at will. Awesome stuff.

I’m more excited about the possibilities of getting to travel for free to amazing places. There’s trade shows all over the world… If I’m lucky enough, maybe Japan, Thailand, and Amsterdam will be on my list eventually. Where are your top must-see travel destinations?

I’ve been here a couple of weeks now and have started to settle into a comfortable rhythm.

I wake up around 8am. This sounds early and normally it is for me, though living with a family whose kids get up at 7:30 and usually go to bed before midnight gets you in the habit of doing the same. So far this hasn’t been too bad at all.

I wash up and have breakfast. No toast, cereal, or oatmeal to be found here… Usually the first meal of the day consists of rice, sometimes soup with fish/tofu/beansprouts, and a bunch of side dishes including kimchi. Yes, their breakfasts are very similar to their lunches and dinners. At times there’s good protein like bulgogi (seasoned stir-fry beef), eggs, or fried fish. I’ve been eating more fish since I got here; I like that. It’s good for you!

After that I get dressed and head out to the office with my uncle. During rush hour the drive takes an hour to an hour and a half, ugh. He’s the one with the impressive packaging factory. I had no idea how big his company was (not in physical size but the amount of business that they do) until I got here. He makes boxes for Wal-mart, Samsung, Hyundai, cigarette companies, and countless food and beauty products across Korea. Although with this current economy, even he’s struggling to stay afloat. It seems very few are immune.

For the first couple of days at work I thought I’d die of boredom. I basically surfed the web for 6-8 hours a day. But now I’m working on getting their catalog online; been working on it since yesterday. I won’t bore you with the minutiae of this task; suffice it to say there’s a whole lot to be done for something that sounds so simple. I’ll probably finish it by today though. (I need to take breaks though; hence this blog post!)

Office workers in Korea generally get lunches (and I’m told breakfasts and dinners if they work those hours) for free. Pretty sweet. My other uncle runs the cafeteria here and his wife is a factory worker. Employing family members since 199x…

I finish up around 5-6pm and head home, but don’t get home till around 7pm. Then it’s leisure time. One thing I must say is that though deli’s here are plentiful (mistakenly called “supers” as in “supermarkets” by the locals) actual supermarkets are not so common, at least in my area. I found myself wanting to buy fresh fruit and healthier stuff other than chips and ice cream at the “super”. Also why tf is a watermelon $18, ughhh. I need to find out where to buy inexpensive produce. I haven’t been eating too well because of it :\

My next adventure will be trying to buy a prepaid cell phone… I totally wanna go to DongDaeMoon this weekend and go shopping. Yay for getting spending money. Eventually I wanna make my way to Lotte World and get on a couple of roller coasters but all my cousins like wussy rides. Mope.

Jenno out.

P.S. — Apologies for the lack of pictures. I took a ton and need to upload them; the next post will be a picture extravaganza!

I didn’t expect this night to include a cocktail, with plumes of hookah smoke escaping my lips…

My friend and his pal showed me around Itaewon today. To those unfamiliar, Itaewon is a part of downtown Seoul popular for its foreigner population. Lots of foreigners = lots of Americanization, foodstuffs, and shops eager to take the bek-in’s cold hard cash. And of course that means places to party.

There are countless bars, clubs, and the infamous “hooker hill” where lady boys won’t hesitate to proposition any passing male. Sure, there are regular lady hookers as well, but I was surprised at the number of man-ladies preening at passerbys.

Last night was the first time I’ve really done anything “adult” in this country. On the surface, Koreans are a modest people, and they usually don’t wear revealing clothes or act too outrageously. But here, after the sun goes down, people watching is fascinating: girls of all races in clubbing gear (yes, including Korean gals who’d normally never reveal that much skin outside of Itaewon), more gay Korean men than I’ve ever seen in my life congregated on one street where all the boys clubs are (one aptly named Always Homme), and places of establishment created purely for the purpose of “giving some”; when there’s a customer, the storefront’s door remains locked.

This is the seedy underbelly of Korea. Rumor has it that the police sometimes goes into clubs and demands to drug-test everyone in there. You cannot refuse; that will land you in jail. If you do have anything in your system, expect to be jailed anyway, fined thousands of dollars, and deported, but not before getting to know the inside of the Korean prison system intimately. (At least there’s no ass-raping in these prisons.)

We went to a place called Bricx, a cool underground lounge-type bar with a dance floor and dim seating areas. Non-abrasive techno blared from the speakers and smoke wafted from nearby patrons with hookahs. A couple of drinks and Apple-infused tobacco smoke had me feeling pretty good for the night.

This place is pretty much the only place in Korea where people don’t bat an eye at interracial couples. All night I saw Korean girls leaving with white or black guys, and usually, the girls were way hotter than the guys (just callin’ it as I sees it). To them, the foreigners are a novelty… Girls have been known to come here to try new blood, so to speak. My pal commented that to be a female in Itaewon would be like being at a never-ending smorgasboard, but is it ever hard for a female to get laid in any country? Yeah, I thought not.

The night ended on a high. Buzzed from the alcohol and a bit lightheaded from the hookah, we made our way to an American-style diner (Copycat was the name of the place) where the proprietors claimed the best burgers in town. They were right (though the heavily promoted curly fries were nowhere to be seen).

Mmm… Itaewon cheeseburger.

Hey there. The internet is pretty spotty at my uncle’s so here I am at 10:13am on May 28th, Korea time, typing this in notepad. I got here 2 days ago and it’s been neat so far. I think my body *just* got used to the time difference and the different virii and such in the water and food (the first couple of days, I couldn’t eat or drink much cuz my bod’s so used to NY’s germs… at least I think that’s why).

The first day I was here I went merchandise shopping with my dad after a few hours of naptime. (Btw I hate how flights to Korea are scheduled… You land around 4am at Incheon which is an hour away from Seoul. So you’re forced to wait, fatigued, till 6am for a bus to take you to wherever… C’mon, you know people land at 4am!! Make it earlier! Or make the flight later! Sheesh.)

Anyway. I must say, I do like the subway system here. It’s so efficient and clean.

(Cont on June 1st… yeah I got sidetracked) My uncle is a jovial, cheerful man with 3 kids. For the summer I’m supposed to talk to them only in English but the youngest (age 8) doesn’t know what I’m saying most of the time. I find the Koreans’ will and efforts to learn English and to do well in school fascinating. Most Korean kids will go to school, then go to hak-won (after school academy to learn even more), then come home and do their homework… Oftentimes they will literally be studying from early in the morning to late at night.

I said to my dad, thank GOD I didn’t grow up in Korea to be subjected to this. My uncle agrees — he said children should have playtime and not be studying all the time. But his kids come in last place on placement exams and grades in school so what choice does he have but to make them do the same thing. This is the first year he’s been pushing them really hard.

My oldest cousin who’s 15 has been sent to a Catholic school in Illinois for the purpose of learning English and to hopefully get admitted to a good college in the US. She’s home for the summer but has been in IL for 6 months previously and her English has improved a lot, but the hak-won director said her test scores were abysmal. (Really? It’s that bad, compared to kids that haven’t lived in the US? Wow.) I’m supposed to tutor her for 2 hours a day from Monday-Friday after working at my uncle’s.Looks like my summer will be plenty busy…