drumroll please......

guess who is no longer living in a seedy motel...yours truly. tonight will be my 3rd night sleeping in my own apartment. and tonight is the first night that i have had the internet. hooray!!!!!

i had an interesting couple of hours after work today. as i was walking out the door of work with my really heavy computer, i got a phone call from a friend of a friend in missouri that i had tutored. mr. kim (missouri friend) had given mr. baik (korean dude) my number, so he called me and wanted me to meet him to just talk because mr. kim said i was a cool chick. so i carry the computer to the sidewalk and try to hail a cab. any other time i've ever needed a cab, they seem to magically materialize, but it took me forever to hail one today. i dunno. maybe they all just knew i had something heavy and was on a time frame. in the cab, the driver asked me if i was married. i've been asked if i'm married more times by cab drivers here than ever before in my life. it's funny. and they have no problems asking how old you are either. so i get to my apartment and lug the computer up three flights of stairs (no elevator). as soon as i set it down, mr. baik calls me back so i can direct him to my apartment. i don't even know my address, i barely know what to tell the cab drivers. so i tell him to park at the apartment complex down the street and i'll come find him.

when i get to the apartment's parking lot, mr. baik is there with his own driver. apparently he's important. so we went and drank beers and just talked. he said mr. kim had asked him to watch out for me and if i ever needed anything to call him. so that's pretty cool. and very nice on mr. kim's part.

after i got home from meeting with him, my landlady knocks on my door so her son can come set up the computer. and while her son does that, she proceeds to separate my laundry into seasons and start my first load of dirty stuff. she even gave me her detergent. she also folded all my bras and underwear. and she didn't speak a lick of english. now my apartment is basically set up, but i'll need to do some rearranging and home decor stuff when i can afford it. i'm very excited about getting to go explore my own neck of the woods this weekend. hopefully i'll have some mandu and some kimbop nearby...