Shop 'till you drop

Part of our orientation has been going shopping every day. It's nice to have these little outings to show us where to go to get what and to have veteran teachers/staff there to answer questions. It is also very helpful to have the buses to help us get things back home, especially since we've had to buy a lot to set up our apartments. 

Since I lived in Korea and Korea is very developed and part of the global economy, I thought I had a good idea of what to expect. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that there is a MUCH bigger variety of familiar groceries than I expected. Yes, they are a little more expensive but not too bad and not as bad as I thought they would be. Electronics and other items...... not so much. I was rather unpleasantly surprised with that. They are for sure more expensive. 😞

Some shopping misc things: I went to the Diaso. It was cute and everything Diaso is, but even the Daiso was a little pricey. In the Korean Daiso most items were around $1. In the US Daiso most items are $1.50. Here most items were around $2. 

At the first grocery store we went to I found one of my favorite candy bars. It's totally random and I think what I like most about them is the memory of them and the fact that they're hard to find. No, not Pinkies- which probably are my all time favorites. It was the chunky caramel KitKat. I first found them in either Fiji or Australia- I don't remember which one. They were so common and I just figured it was a new thing that came out and that we would have them in the States. When I got home I was very disappointed to discover that no one had them. After being back for 1.5 years and moving from Texas to Arizona I actually found them at the 7-11 right by my house. And then that 7-11 burned down and I haven't seen them since, until I came here. 

We went to Ikea. Seemed a little pricier than normal but still very much the same. I bought a couple of shoe cubbies for all my shoes and spent 2 hours assembling them when I got home. I really missed my sister Rebecca who is known for being very good at assoymbing things. BTW- I love TOMS, as you can tell in the photo of my shoe cubby. 

First day orientation- with pics of classroom

We're all jet lagged and the school totally gets that, that's why we got started at 8am after getting in very late last night. That may sound like I'm complaining but I'm not. They do it on purpose to help us get over the jet lag and get on to the schedule here. They also don't expect too much from us so that's nice. We had a nice breakfast at a restaurant on the harbor. We toured the school, got keys to our classroom, had our picture taken for IDs for the school and government (that one IS a little mean- picture the very next day when you haven't slept much and you don't own a hair dryer or flat iron yet), we got our settling in allowance, and went shopping! 

The outside of the school enterance and the view from my table at breakfast:

My classroom. I can't wait to see what was left for me. I also got my class list- 22 students. I LOVE that about most international schools- the class sizes are smaller. They're even smaller for the high school. The HS principal said he's run classes with as little as 5 or 6 students. 

Just a few stats about the school. Not real stats, just estimate stats I've bee told. There are about 1,600 students at the school. About 1,100 are elementary K-5. There are about 175 teachers and admin staff and about 35 new hires this year. 

The money here is cool looking, like ALL non US money. The conversion is about 1KD=$3.50US.

The apartment- first day

I'm very happy with my apartment. It's a 1 bed 1.5 bath and it's big. I could fit 4 of my last Korean apartments here. Heck, my Korean apartment could fit in my bedroom. 

It is very bare and white- it needs some work. We had dinner with a teacher in our building that has been here for 3 years I think. Her apartment was super cute and looks like a home. It made me excited to get my place together. That's going to take a long time I think. You may not see the after pics for a few months, but here's the before:

They left us some food I. The fridge to get us started- that was awesome. 

How much to upgrade??

How much to upgrade? 

That is a question I will be asking the next time I have to fly for 15.5 hours. I flew Emirates (first time) San Francisco to Dubai and then Dubai to Kuwait. I only had about 1.5 hours between flights so I couldn't ask for a more direct flight. I love how direct it was and I wouldn't ask for something different but it is pretty much impossible to be comfortable for 15.5 hours in economy class- even on Emirates. 

The inflight entertainment was the best I've seen. The screen is big, there are plug ins so you can charge your devices. Hundreds of movies to choose from.

 The flight tracker was the coolest. There were two channels that showed in various ways where exactly we were in our flight. There were also two cameras outside the plane that we could click on and see what was below the plane and what was in front of the plane. That was really cool- especially at landing because you could watch like you were the pilot landing the plane. 

The flight took us over the North Pole. Well, I guess it was technically right by it, not exactly over it. 

We also made sure to skirt Ukrainian air space. 

We were given a hot towel at the beginning and the end of the flight. The first time I ever had a hot towel was when I got bumped up to 1st class so the hot towel always feels special. And there were stars on the plane! I've flown many airlines and I have never seen stars. I love things like that. I didn't get a vey good shot, but you can see them in the celing above the flight attendant. It was even cooler when the whole cabin was dark. 

The food was pretty good. Nothing special really and not the best I've had. I LOVED the food on Air Nauru. Air Nauru is what we flew when I was in Peace Corps. It was the only airline that flew into Kiribati. (well, there was Marshall Air for a little bit) I'm still not sure if the food was really that good or if it just seemed extra good because I hadn't had decent food for so long.