what is this, thanksgiving?

I don't know if anybody who reads this will get the reference I'm making with the title of this post, but if someone does get it, man, that person is really gonna maybe laugh.

It can get pretty cold here in Daejeon, cold enough that my face can get halfway numb during the two minute walk from my apartment to work. It's just about on a par with winters back home, maybe a bit colder.

Koreans seem to have an interesting way of dealing with the cold outside, which is they blast the hell out of the heater inside. The teachers' room at school is the main place I experience this; the room's heat is set at 30 degrees Celsius--a balmy 86 degrees Fahrenheit. Yet, while I'm shedding layers in an effort to rid myself of the sweat I have going, my Korean co-teachers are still bundled up in their winter jackets and sipping on a hot cup of tea.

There also seems to be little concern with being environmentally friendly. If ever it manages to get too hot for someone, the solution isn't to turn down the heat, but rather to crack a window. As a result, and this goes for most of the places I've been over here, it's either oppressively hot, or there's a 10 degree draft in the room.

I anticipate the inverse of this scenario in about 6 months. From what I'm told the Korean summers are brutal.