First weekend in Seoul

Hmm... I notice a pattern starting here. First blog in Korea, first post, first weekend.. Hopefully after a few more days I'll be more adjusted and everything won't be a first.

Anyhoo.. my weekend!! So my weekend started on Friday with my mom and my aunt (well, my second cousin's wife) picking me up from my officetel and whisking me off to their home. Sisters of mine, if you are reading this, their house is soo soo SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO nice. Its a three story house and has a very zen feel to it. In addition, there are fabulous views of the mountains. Its really beautiful up there. Halmoni and haraboji are doing great but they definitely look a lot older. Samchon is exactly the same. Still short, still really thin. Only thing thats changed about him is that his hair isn't big and he's a business man.

Moving on. So the next day my aunt took me to get a cell phone. Ugh, let me tell you, it is so hard to be here without a phone. Payphones are really hard to find and when you do find them they aren't always so clean and its hard to hear the person you're talking to. For these reasons and more my aunt decided that she would just sign me up for one.

When you're here as a teacher on an E2 visa you generally have to wait until after you receive your Alien Registration Card (ARC) to get a cell phone and bank account set up. If you have a friend who is a Korean citizen, they can help you bypass all the waiting by setting up things for you in their name. That's what my aunt did for me resulting in a really cute cell phone



The best thing about the phone is that, well it works and that I can watch tv on it.

After getting my phone I went to meet my friends and Justin. I went to school with the both of them but its been a year since I had seen either of them so I was pretty pumped to see them. First we went to Deoksu Palace because Shane had never seen a palace before. The palace itself was really beautiful but there were these ridiculous pigeons there. I swear, they were as big as chickens. Since I'm not a big fan of birds it was a bit traumatizing seeing them so big.

When we were leaving the palace we noticed all of these people in traditional clothes so we stuck around a bit longer and asked a person working what was going on. The person informed us that there was going to be a demonstration of a password ceremony. We decided to wait and watch it.



It was really interesting since they people in the demonstration were playing instruments and things. Their expressions were so serious. I had an urge to run up and poke one of them but decided against it. Not so mature to do.

Deoksu Palace is really close to City Hall and since Shane had never been there we walked on over. Apparently over the weekend there was a "water festival" promoting filteration of the city's water or something like that. It was cute because there were these shooting fountains and children were running around through them. Made me think of Portland and the Rose Garden

We got free bottles of water, empty water bottles and cell phone things. It was great since it was SO hot.

If you live in Seoul you know that City Hall is really close to a lot of popular shopping districts. My friends and I headed towards Myeongdong to look for shoes. Let me tell you how bizarre it is for me to go to Myeongdong with guys. I love Myeongdong and have spents countless hours there but I have never once been the only girl in the group when going there. Because of this instead of hitting my normal shopping spots I just looked at a lot of shoes because I guess thats what boys buy? I don't know maybe it was just the guys I was with.. still fun nonetheless.

After doing some eye shopping (Korean people call window shopping eye shopping) we went to a cafe like place. The place we went to is called Coffee Love. It is a really nice, chill place. I liked the atmosphere a lot! Instead of ordering coffee I got tea.

This picture doesn't do it justice!

Shane and me

I would've taken pictures of Justin but he always gets weird whenever I try to take his pictures. What a loser. Next time I'll get you Justin...

Sunday I got a rice cooker and found trash bags! It was a great way to end my weekend if I do say so myself

First real post in Korea

Hello world!! So I've been in Korea for a few days and have settled in a bit. At first things were pretty rough for me but they're slowly getting better, day by day. I have a really cute apartment. I made a video tour but youtube wont let me upload and it won't let me upload here so my video tour will have to wait.

Onto better things...
So yesterday I finally went out and had yummy food and some fun. Since I've gotten here I've been cooking for myself in my apartment because I haven't found the courage to eat by myself at a restaurant (all of the other foreign teachers at my school are on vacation so I haven't been able to meet/make any coworker friends). Luckily my friend Jill is in Korea and we were able to meet up!! We went to Myeongdong.

It was super great to see a familiar face. It was even better to be able to eat delicious food with a friend.

Some pictures of food we inhaled for ya:



Okay, so when we were actually eating I didn't take pictures but this is a picture of the exact same stuff Jill and I were eating from the same restaurant! We chose from a set menu. In our set we got Samgyupsal (Korean bacon), another kind of pork, and beef in addition to lots of yummy side dishes, onions, and mushrooms. Oh yeah, we also got a bottle of soju as a "service" but we didn't drink too much of it.

After a delicious dinner we decided to walk around and decided that having dessert was a really good idea. So we stopped by Lotte Department Store and went up and down looking for this one cute cafe like place that I went to last year. We eventually found it and got two beautiful and delectable desserts!



Super yum! Jill got the fruit one and I got the round one. Can you guess why I chose the round one? For those of you who know me, you know I love hearts (yeah, it's a bit silly, but everyone has their thing). If you look closely at the round cake you'll see that there are tiny little hearts on it.

One weird thing about Jill's cake was that there were two tiny little berries on it. We couldn't figure out what they were but when we tried them we came to the conclusion that they were tomatoes. Oh Korea... while tomatoes are indeed a fruit, they aren't really sweet.. and on a dessert? Nice try but no cigar.

After lovely dining we took it to the streets. Myeongdong is a fashion district and so there are tons of clothing stores and lots of street vendors selling their goods. One thing that's really great about Korea is that Koreans love to use English randomly. A lot of things don't make sense but if its in English, you've got yourself a winner.

This sign was the best of the evening.



People never believe me when I talk about how big Dunkin Donuts is here. Korea really loves Dunkin Donuts as you can see in the picture. Here it is in all of its glory.


Pretty sweet if you ask me. Didn't go in but I will definitely go sometime soon because yeah, that looks pretty sweet!

Well that's all for today so enjoy!!!

I'm here!!

I've made it!

Guess I've gotta make a trip to Seattle now...

So after a fun filled night of YUMMY YUMMY flambe and bowling I checked my email and found out that I have a visa number! I don't know how I feel about getting the number.

Side note**
The flambe was delicious and it was FREE. They didn't have vanilla ice cream and instead gave us chocolate. It was still delicious but it tasted even better because it was free ^^. Good job Touche!!! My friends and I left happy and full of fattening goodness!!






Going to Korea after I graduate has been something I've talked about for such a long time and now that it's happening I don't know how I feel about it. I'm really going to be gone for a year. My family is really going to be thousands of miles away. My friends are really going to be super far away having tons of fun without me (super sad panda about this, I LOVE YOU FRIENDS). I won't be able to drive for a year!!! Okay, so it's not like I love driving to begin with but its a convenience factor. Things in Korea overall just won't be as convenient as at home.

I've been to Korea a couple of times and have loved every moment I was there but to be there for a year? 365 days of flashing lights (insert Kanye here hehe) and polluted air. Disgustingly hot summers and frigidly cold winters? Hmm... It's probably the jitters that are getting to me. I really do love Korea. There is so much to do in such a small space. Korea is smaller than Idaho!! Okay, now I'm just rambling.

Well by this time next week, in theory I should have my visa and that means DUN DUN DUN I'm that much closer to stepping on a plane to the ROK. This is like going away for college all over again. I was a terrible blubbering mess before I went to college and ended up loving it. No tears yet but I still have that horrible anxious feeling again. Whats a two hour drive in comparison to a 12+ hour plane ride costing easily over 1200. Le sigh

First post!

Hello world! This is my first post. Pretty exciting, no? Anyhoo I'm still in the US. Just waiting for my visa to process. I will post again when that happens. Until then, I bid you adieu ^^