Not so much dangerous, but telling of my future in K-town was my first night in Incheon. I finished training in Seoul at 5pm and was in a car at 7:30pm head to the school to meet the other teachers and staff. As is custom when a new teacher arrives, the Korean staff took everyone out to drinks and dinner; drinks being the operative word. The temporary teacher, that was covering my classes in between the teacher I'm replacing and when I got there, is some sort of a hot head and alcohol doesn't help. So as we were all migrating between venues and he got into a fight were the cops were called. Everyone had had a few too many and I was no exception; throw in my full work day at training, the hour and a half car ride and partying as hard as I could, I was in no mood to see where this was going. So everyone ran off from the cops (Korea has a no fault policy where whoever throws the first punch/isn't hurt as much is in trouble regardless of the motive and that can also mean any foreigner vs. Korean fight = foreigner going to jail). So with the combination of booze, no sleep and being in a city I've never been with and people I just met, I should have known this wouldn't end well.
Needless to say I didn't end well. I got separated from everyone and I couldn't find my way back home. I wandered the street looking for my hotel or the office until I was too tired to continue. I made base camp on some stoop near a 7-11 and slept until a guy yelled at me to move (I guess that is what he said as it was in Korean). I finally found my way to the motel (~8am), but I still couldn't sleep as I was only going to be there a little longer until I went to my first apartment and I don't have a departure time. This is where I note that the motel is a love motel and the bed was freaking me out.
The picture to the right is the love motel. These are cheap accommodations for just what the title insists/encourages. In Korea many people live with extended family until and after marriage, so if alone time in necessary, these motels are the sanctuary. These are also cheap enough to throw a foreigner in for the night.
The temporary apartment (~11am) they put me in was a hell-hole only slightly better than the love-motel. The bathrooms here are all wet, so the shower, sink and toilet are in the same place and everything gets wet when you use the shower. I forgot to take a picture of this one, but I don't really need to remember it. The u-joint in the sink just emptied into the drain on the floor, so my socks got wet when I tried to brush my teeth.
Now by 8pm I'm in my current quarters and life is good. This really set the stage for the future perfectly.
