Mum in Korea - Day 2

To Busan

We left Seoul this morning to head to Busan, which is in the south of the country in the Gyeongsangnam Province. 

We took the KTX fast train into Busan, and the trip took about 2 and a half hours. The time went really quickly, the train was very comfortable and smooth. I would totally recommend anyone travelling across Korea to use the KTX for long trips. Totes worth it. 

Mum was funny this morning when we were leaving the hotel in Seoul... There were 3 stations between Seoul Station and Chungmoro (where the hotel was near) but she wanted to take a taxi as we had heavy bags. There were NO taxis around at all because of Chuseok, so eventually I talked her into the subway. It was super easy, although we did get a little lost on the platform. Lets just say that Seoul Station is freaking huge and we had no idea where we were going... And the signage is not awesome so we were really confused. But we made it in the end. There were plenty of super helpful people around, from the bag porter to the police officer, to the local citizen who had decent English. 

We got of the KTX at Busan Station and asked around for the subway, as the next hotel was apparently very close to Bujeom Station. But no, mum STILL wanted a taxi, so we went and found a taxi. We jumped in, and to mum utter shock and horror the driver spoke no English. By then the bags were already in and he was driving away so we were kinda stuck in the car. My teachers at school would be so impressed - with my VERY limited Hanguel knowledge I managed to write a garbled Korean version of the station we were after and we got there ok. Mum was panicking, neither of us knew for sure where the driver was taking us so we were not relieved when we saw the station we were looking for. We thanked him and off he went. So here is a tip for anyone travelling to Korea - the taxi drivers do not really speak English. So get your hotel to write down where you are staying so that you can pass it to cab drivers. Or better yet, have it prepared before you head off...
We then dragged our bags a few hundred meters down the road to the hotel - there was no way I was going to try and write the name of the hotel down. When we got there, I looked across the street and gestured to mum... We were literally across the road from the subway enterance. It would have taken us 5 minutes or so on the subway and brought us to right in front of the hotel. 

Let this be a lesson to you - if anything is near the subway station, IT IS EASIER TO CATCH THE SUBWAY. I know at home taxi is easier, but honestly, unless you have some degree of Korean then its just not fun trying to get a taxi.

We stayed at the Ibis Ambassador Hotel Busan. I would totally recommend this hotel to anyone wanting to visit Busan. Apart from the fact that is was so close to a good subway line, the staff also speak pretty good English and are super helpful. The food wasn't amazing for dinner but the breakfast was good.

ANOTHER TIP - Don't bother to pay for the breakfasts at the hotel... Seriously just find a Paris Baguette, they are the biggest bakery chain in Korea and the stuff is tasty. And will cost you under 5000won for breakfast rather than the 15-30,000won it will cost at the hotel. Its totally not real bacon.

Haeundae and the aquarium

We were both kinda grumpy by then, and I needed a nap so mum went for a walk and I had a short kip. Then we rallied ourselves for the afternoon. It was probably about wish when we went to the subway (win for me) and ran into some people from the hotel that mum had met earlier. They were an American couple, but the wife was actually born in Korea so she spoke the language but hadn't been back in years. We ended up joining forces and went together to Haeundae Beach for a look, and then to the Busan Aquarium. I LOVE aquariums, and I thought this one was pretty good. They had decent sized sharks, no seals but they did have otters and some finless porpoises which were kinda like dolphins but smaller and without fins (hence the name I guess). Entry was something like 18,000won and they were open from 10am till 10pm or something. Basically you go to Haeundae Station and walk towards the beach and go right. The aquarium is right there... If you ever go to Busan check it out.

www.busanaquarium.com

After that we wandered around and got some dinner, we had chicken and salad and both mum and I thought it was pretty delicious. It cost about 17,000won for the 2 of us, and we got some beers as well so all up dinner was 23,000won for 3 massive plates of chicken and 2 beers. So I thought that was pretty good. 

We then got back on the subway and came back to the hotel, skipped Georgia and here we are. I am hella tired, I feel like I have been non stop since last weekend so tomorrow is going to be a sleep in day.

View from the room

Haeundae Beach

Haeundae Beach

Because keeping off this bit of grass will totally help the porpoise :s

Giant crab!!!

Some of the cool sharks - mainly grey nurse sharks

Tourist shot!

Something different? Or not?

While we were at the aquarium we were acting the tourist and taking a heap of cheesy photos, as was everyone else. There were 2 young guys that were there having a day out and were taking pics of each other, so mum offered to take their pic together with some sharks in the background. They were super pleased and thanked her a heap. One of the guys then asked if he could have photo with me... I said yes but felt like a big dickhead, like some sort of try hard celebrity. The friend was super jealous so he had to have a photo with me too... I really hope they turned out ok, I would hate for them to be showing ugly pics of me to their pals.

Then when we were on the subway an older Korean guy started talking to me, I said the usual 'hello' and he asked where we were from. I now know enough Korean to understand what he was asking and I was even able to answer him, but the rest of the conversation went straight over my head. Lucky our new American friends were still with us and the wife had a chat to he old bloke and just continued the conversation for us. He ended up not he same train and we chatted on and off through out the trip home. Before we got off the train, the old guy said something else to me in Korea - I have no idea what - and gave me an apple. It was a perfectly good apple, so I will probably eat it tomorrow :)

Anyway, thats about it for tonight. Again, this post will go up after the fact, as I want to add the pics so all this has happened today (being Sunday).

Oh, and Happy Chuseok!!!

xoxoxox

Mum in Korea - Day 1

Mum arrived in Korea on Thursday, and spent Friday exploring around the hotel by herself until I arrived after school on the Friday night.

Here is what we have done so far...

DMZ Tour

Thats right, folks, I have seem North Korea. I have seen North Korean soldiers and their flag - the whole thing. Well, not quite.

Mum booked the tour through the hotel, we are staying at the P&J Hotel which I am pretty sure is in Myeongdong. The hotel is nice, the staff are trying to be helpful but are failing at it. 

We wanted to do a tour that went to the JSA area in Panmunjeom, which is the area in the DMZ where soldiers form both Koreas and also from the UN are in the one place and have meetings. It was where peace talks are held and I think its where the cease fire agreement was made. I was under the impression that we would see all this but when we got there it turned out we were only on the half day tour and it did't go there. So that was disappointing.

We did however go to the Peace Park, the 3rd Tunnel and also to the Observatory. If you ever come to Korea I totally recommend doing some sort of tour to the DMZ.

The Demilitarised Zone 

Just a quick side note for those who have not been reading my blog (in that case welcome, and I hope you enjoy) and those who have not been paying attention I will give a brief run down on the DMZ.

The Demilitarised Zone, or DMZ, is the strip of land separating North and South Korea. The DMZ is 250km long and around 4km wide and is the most heavily militarised boarder in the world. Technically the Koreas are still at war, and the tension between them can totally be felt in this area. It has been this way since 1953 when the Armistice Agreement was signed, and its not changing any time soon.

Anyway, so we started at the Peace Park, which you can see North Korea from but not well. They have a blown up train there and lots of monuments talking about peace. Then we headed off to the 3rd tunnel. These tunnels are both amazing and ridiculous. 

There are 4 tunnels all up that the South have found, which are tunnels dug out by the North to infiltrate and invade the South. They run under the DMZ from the North to South, and were found in different circumstances. 

The first tunnel was found I think by a scout who felt vibrations or something. it is more shallow than the other tunnels. When it was discovered there was a bit of a shoot out and both Korean and American troops were killed. 

Now the guide told us today that the rest of the tunnels were found with the help of spies in North Korea, but Wikipedia has said that the 3rd and 4th ones were found with the help of North Korean defectors... Who knows? Either way the other tunnels were found. They discovered them by pumping water down pipes and when the water flowed through the pipe they knew they found a tunnel. The 3rd tunnel is especially amazing as if it had been completed it would have allowed something like 30,000 troops though per hour plus heavy artillery. Scary though! And here is the ridiculous part - the North deny that they built the tunnels - they say it is propaganda from the South. Yet, all evidence in the tunnels says they were made from the Northern side. So THEN they said that the tunnels were disused coal mines. They even slopped coal all over the inside of the tunnel to prove their point. Yet the whole area is granite and there is no geological way that coal would be present there. 

We were able to go into the 3rd tunnel and look around, but we were not allowed to take photos. Even bags are not permitted down in the tunnel. It was a wide tunnel, 2 people could walk side by side but even I had to bend over at some points (I am about 156 centimetres tall - barely 5'2) so it was a squeeze if you were tall. 

Then we went to the observatory and looked at the North through binoculars. I saw the guard tower and it had North Korean troops walking around. they looked like they were just chatting to be honest, and some of the South Korean guys on the gate were joking and fooling around. I hear they are waaaay more alert and focused at the JSA. Looks like I will never know.

We also went to the station. They have built a station that can take passengers all the way to Pyeongyang (capital of North Korea) but it doesn't go anywhere. I found that quite sad. 

Was it worth it? Yes, and this particular tour only cost 46,000won. And the tour guide was pretty good, he was funny and spoke English really well and was pretty cute - very tall for a Korean bloke. The company was VIP Travel. Look them up. But ask to do the JSA tour, it costs more but I think it would be worth seeing the extra area. I did smell a fair bit of propaganda on this tour, I wonder how much is true and all that. But I am unlikely to ever visit the North, especially since I am working here. I'm pretty tight with South Korea.

Another funny thing - South Korea make a heap of money out of these tours, especially the 3rd tunnel visit. North Korea caught wind of the whole thing, and know that tours are run and all that, and said they should get money from the tours too. Apparently the South said "Sure, admit you built the tunnels and you can have a slice of the pie". Lol, sif they will ever do that...

Kinda creepy to think that there are probably a heap of other tunnels out there. And the DMZ is littered with mines, so its hard to go searching.

Anti-Aircraft missile, and some mines

There are live mines still littered through the DMZ

North Korea! Somewhere out there... 

Train to Pyeongyang... Hopefully someday in the future a train will actually come

Gyeongbokgung Palace

I will need to consult a guide book or some of my pamphlets to get the real download on this place, but to sum it up its a palace that was used in Joseon Period but built earlier in the Chosun Period. I think. It has been used on and off since something like 1394 so its pretty old but I think it was in really good condition. In saying that the Korean Government really love their National Treasures so they are preserved really well and are fixed up all the time. 

I really liked this palace - the grounds were huge and the whole place was open to guests. Some of the building you were not able to enter but you could look in from the outside and get a really good look. The old kitchen area was closed off but it is being restored. 

Entrance to this palace cost a whopping 3000won. Basically $3 AUD. 

And right outside the gate is the Korean Folk Museum which is free entry. We wandered in to that, not really knowing what is was, and because of the holiday they had all these cool stalls set up and lots of cultural things going on. There was heaps to see, and it was all FREE! And busy! But Seoul itself is quite... I expected sooo many more people and a heap of traffic. I guess its all because of Chuseok. Suits me!

The palace grounds are huge, there is a wall around the whole thing but a lot of the outside is gardens and lakes. The main buildings are set up like the Forbidden City in China, which seems to be a common trend in Asian palaces. The one I visited in Vietnam was set up the same way but on a much smaller scale. 

This palace had a heap of inner and outer walls and heaps of inner buildings. There were guide books in English and they ran guided tours in English every few hours. They also had tours and books in Chinese and Japanese. It was a really awesome afternoon, made even better by the fact it was so cheap. We then caught the subway back to the hotel and now we are chilling out here waiting to go to dinner. (Note - at the time of writing, we were chilling. As I am waiting to post this until I put pics up too, by the time you read I will be chilling back in Songtan.)

Throne room

This spot was beautiful!

So we have had a great day. Mum was super impressed at me getting her a ticket for the subway and figuring out which line to get on and all that. So maybe I am getting the hang of Korea :)

I have no idea what we are going to eat tonight but I will start taking photos of my food again so you can see some food stuff. And I will add that too. Tomorrow we will head off to Busan on the KTX which is the super fast train... I will be the judge of super fast...

I love being a tourist!

Till later,

xoxoxoxoxo

The Slipping Mask

As I have started writing this tonight, this post is unnamed. Looks like this is going to be one of those rambling posts... Apologies in advance, Citizens.

I constantly fluctuate from surprise to disgust to awe to amazement to gratitude to so many other emotions at the different things we humans do. What we do to each other, ourselves, nature, animals, etc etc. the list is eternal.

I have just come back from a 3 day conference held by GEPIK (Gyeonggi English Program In Korea) which is the government body in charge of the English Program in my province. The Gyeonggi-do province in South Korea is the largest province in the country, has the most schools and the most students. And consequently the most native teachers. So they put together this program for the new teachers to attend in order to better equip them for teaching in ROK. Did it work? Not really, I don't think I feel any better prepared than before. Did I enjoy it? Yes, I did actually. But for different reasons.

I am a known people watcher (polite term for stalker maybe?) and I really like to see how people interact. And I always lol at myself after these things, because I notice the change that happens to myself when I am around people I either don't know or am not comfortable with. I am always a slightly different person.
Are all these other people the same? Are they being themselves? How long do you need to know someone before you actually know someone???
An analogy I have used before is my Mask Theory. I think everyone wears a Mask pretty much all the time. Every person we come in contact with sees a slightly different version of ourselves. is this a good thing or a bad thing? Neither, I think. Its just how it is. The thing is, though, is that eventually the mask will slip, and the real 'you' will start poking through. I know for myself, I always pretend to be cooler than I really am. In truth, I am a big nerd who is bad at sports and likes reading, anime and Game of Thrones. But as far as new friends are concerned, I am a super cool person who loves to drink and party and all that. Or maybe thats not how I come across? I have no idea, but thats certainly the image I want them to get. I want to seem fun and exciting... Because fun people make friends, not boring people. Right???

While on the conference I could see certain groups forming. It indadvertedly happens, people gravitate towards certain people. Now, we were all adults who attended this event. Yet, when people get together childish events still occur. There was someone who was picked on (without his knowledge), someone who skipped out on class, a group of boys making noise, a group of girls talking about everyone else... it just goes to show you can never escape high school.
I had made it my goal to try and talk to everyone. I wanted to meet lots of people and hopefully make new friend. I think I did ok, I got a few new FB friends out of it, and was able to build on current work in progress friendships. But I do wonder what other people got out of the even. And I wonder what people thought of me... Will I ever be able to shake my insecurities about making friends? Probably not. And its storage that I feel this way - its not like I had a hard time at school... People may even say I had it easy at high school compared to others, I had a heap of friends and never really got picked on. But I made a huge effort. I picked my friends carefully and stuck by them.

So whats the go here in Korea? How do you make friends and keep friends? How do I know if my mask is slipping? Will people still want to be friends when they see my nerdy loser side???
Yes, i think so. Because most people have a nerdy side, I think. I hope anyway...

You can't hide who you are forever (Maddie - remember when we tried to be cool in New Zealand???) so my new goal for this year is to try and be more myself. Stop trying to be cool, and stop labelling! Just be myself and if people don't like me then thats fine. They wouldn't have been a real friend anyway. So then, i will know I have true friends here on the other side of the world.

I didn't think this post was going to be about me, but there you go.

In other news...

Please, PLEASE get into the K-drama "To the Beautiful You". I am going mental for it, especially now I know what's going on (shout out to Jeong from school for explaining it to me haha). 

In brief - 

The series centers on Goo Jae-hee (Sulli), a Korean girl who lives in the United States. One day, she sees a track and field competition on TV, and becomes inspired by a gold medalist high jump competitor, Kang Tae-joon (Minho). She begins to idolize the young athlete but Tae Joon suffers an accident that could potentially end his career. Therefore, to see Tae-joon jump again, Jae-hee disguises herself as a boy and attends the same school as Tae-joon. 

(Thanks Wikipedia!) 

But of course there is a love triangle - Kang Tae-joon knows she is a chick, and they both like each other but can't admit it because she doesn't know that he knows, and he doesn't want her to get into trouble. 

Then there is Cha Eun-gyeol who thinks she is a guy, but has admitted his feelings for 'him' and is totally confused about his sexuality. 

The whole thing is ridiculous but i'm hooked. It also starts a heap of K-pop stars, so go celebrity spotting :)

MUM IS NEARLY HERE! She is coming to visit for Chuseok (traditional Autumn festival here in Korea) and we are visiting Busan and Seoul. I haven't been to either of those places yet so stay tuned for some pics and some interesting information! I will try and remember everything so I can tell you about it. I am super excited to see some of the country, and also to have such a great travelling partner. my mum is super good to travel with, she is up for anything and loves travel. She is open to other customs and likes to see sights. Except temples... She gets sick of temples pretty quickly. 

I have also recently found out a certain family member is a full on jerk. Just because someone is 'family' doesn't mean they have to be your friend. 

Anyhoo, i will leave you with some pics of the KSA Centre where the GEPIK conference was held. It was a nice area, kinda farmland kinda mountainous. And it wasn't really far from home - still in Pyeongtaek! 

 Our room - I was lucky enough to be roomies with Shanda :D

Till next time!

xoxoxo

In sickness and health

You can't take me anywhere...

Its a well known fact around town that i get sick anytime I go overseas for a holiday. And apparently moving overseas is no exception. I have been here for less than 3 weeks and I am already sick. Luckily it has nothing to do with my bowel and guts (random comment? Not really, I have Crohn's Disease for those who have only just joined us), rather I appear to have the beginnings of a chest infection. I don't actually think it is that bad, I think its more the constant dry coughing is driving Co mad at work. So today, he came inside and said;

"Bonnie, I feel you need to go to the hospital"

My reaction was something like this:

"..."

"Bonnie, I am concerned about your chest. I think you are getting much worser and need to get a shot".

A shot? You mean needle? Surely not! I have had many a cough in Melbourne, and as much as it used to drive my sister mental at night it never warranted a trip to the hospital. I tried to explain to him that I just didn't think it was serious enough for the hospital but he wouldn't hear of it. 

"But teacher," I said to him, "I can't go to the hospital, my ARC card isn't ready yet and I don't have medical insurance set up".

Not to worry! Out Vice-Principal has very good connections apparently, and they will sort it all out so it won't cost much.

So off we go to the hospital around 4pm.

Hospital visit

I get that it was supposed to be a hospital, but to me it looked like more of a big, old clinic. If Co hadn't been with me I would not have gone in, mainly because from the outs it didn't look like a hospital (in fact the inside wasn't much better). The floors had huge cracks in them, which I think will be due to the heating and cooling in winter, but still it looked messy and un-hospital-like. The admin girls didn't speak English so it was lucky Co was there with me. He desalt with all the paperwork and the hospital director came out to say hello. Turns out the Vice-Principal DOES know people... Anyway then they took my temperature and blood pressure and then I went in and saw the doctor. He spoke ok English, asked me if I had any diseases and if I was allergic to anything. That was all. He looked in my throat, asked me what my symptoms were then prescribed a heap of stuff and then sent me out. I paid something like 22,000won and got 3 different pills to take for 3 days, a heap of 'tonic' (coughing syrup) and a shot. Needle. I was like "huh?" 

I didn't even feel that bad! Why do I need a needle?

Now, I don't really have issues with needles, I have a heap of tattoos so it would be stupid if I was a needle freaker. But, this is South Korea, and I just wasn't sure about this needle business. Especially when I was asked to follow the nurse into the back room. She told me, well, mimed at me, to drop my pants. 

WTF?

So there's me, leaning over a bed with my pants down while this nurse gives me a needle in the fleshy part of my butt. She slapped it a few times, and kept slapping while administering the injection. She then got an alcohol swap and mopped the area and then gave it a good rub. She mimed at me to keep rubbing my butt for a while. I walked back out feeling a little weird, and Co said to me that I should keep rubbing the area or I will get a big bruise. 

I then got on the bus and came straight home to lick my wounds (in a non literal sense obviously). 

Needless to say I am not going out tonight, which I am a bit disappointed about as it was a newbies night in Suwon. But I will try and pay the area a visit on Friday night instead. 

My syrup and pills

School this week

Has been stupid. There has been absolutely nothing to do, which is ok but it does make the time go slowly. 

Monday

This was Typhoon Day. My first typhoon and it was a complete letdown. Very dull. It rained and was super windy so the classes were cancelled and the kids all got to go home after lunch. I however, had to go to immigration with Co. It was in Suwon, but in an area that was way far out and I had never been anywhere near there before. It took at least an hour to get there and then we had to wait for over 2 hours for my number to be called. By the time it was my turn I had started shivering and coughing. im thinking this is why I am sick... Getting wet and all that in the typhoon... Anyway, Getting the form filled out only took 5 minutes and cost 10,000won. So not expensive at all really. The catch is that I have to go back on the 12th October to pick up my ARC (alien registration card) and until then I can't open a bank account or get a phone. I am totally pissed off about this, because I am running out of money and I hate not having a phone that works. I am trying really hard to make friends, and I can't even call the ones i've got to make plans. And its all Co's fault for not taking me to immigration right away. Still, its done now and there isn't really anything I can do about it. 

By the time I got home Monday it was dark and I was cold and coughing. 

Tuesday

I honestly don't really know what happened yesterday, except that the kids had no classes after lunch again, but this time it was because they were practicing for the Sports Day. I swear, these kids are never in class...

I took the grade 4 class by myself for the first period which was ok, I like the grade 4 kids they are still cute. And they were pretty well behaved, i wanted to play a game with them but they didn't understand what I was trying to get them to do. So we just went back to the workbook. 

Today (Wednesday)

I swear I did NOTHING. All classes were cancelled for the kids to practice for Sports Day but no one told me, so i was sitting around wondering what the hell was going on. I put something on FB along the lines of "Where are my students?" and Jeong, my teacher friend, saw it and told me what was going on. She then came to see me in my classroom and we hung out all morning. I gave her some tongue twisters to work on - she has plenty of English vocal but trouble with conversation and pronunciation. So hopefully they will help. e went over a few so i think she got the gist. The we worked on my Korean. I am so fucking bad at it. I can't make certain sounds properly, so i sound like the biggest idiot trying to make the words work. but, i a trying really hard so I think once I have some basics I will be better. For example, Jeong and I were talking about where I was from, and how to say 'I like...' or whatever. Then, when I was in the hospital I recognised when the hospital director asked Co where I was from. And I understood when he said I came from Australia. I couldn't tell you what they said, but I knew what they were talking about. So its a start!

Tomorrow is the Sports Day and I asked Co if there was anything he wanted me to do... He said yes, that if I had a video camera would it be ok if I filmed the students. Hell yes! I was planning on doing it anyway, but was worried I would come off as a creep - filming kids. A big no no at home lol.

So i will take some pics and put a video up on Youtube in the next few days. 

Now, it's 6:30pm and I am ready for bed. I think the pills have made me sleepy so hopefully that means they will work. Because I want to go out for dins tomorrow with some Pyeongtaek people and then I want to go out drinking on Friday with Suwon people. So I need to get better soon!!!

I'll leave you with an adorable pic of the kindy kids practicing their flag waving for tomorrow. They were supposed to be doing some sort of synchronised flag waving and dancing, but they were just flailing them around like tiny crazy people. So cute ^_^

Anyway, peace out!

xoxo

God Bless America

Having never really met any American's,

I realise now I have been seriously generalising. 

Which isn't entirely my fault, all I know about America is from what I see on t.v, and by t.v I mainly mean C.S.I or Criminal Minds rather than the news. So I naturally assume that everywhere in America has a heap of crime, and that everyone is either obese or super skinny. 

I also assumed that they all love God, or follow some sort of religion (not that I have anything against God, I am a Catholic myself albeit not a very good one) and watch the Superbowl. I assume that people from the South don't have all their teeth and have names like Cletus and Mary-Sue. And that people from California are blonde and tanned. I also didn't think they seemed like friendly people, rather, that they would be obnoxious and rude.

What I have discovered is something else entirely.

The American's I have met are warm and friendly, welcoming and helpful. The other teachers I have spoken with are outgoing and happy, and have come to Korea to shake their lives up and do something exciting. They are super fun. 

The military guys are proving to be both what I expected, and also not what I expected. They are rowdy and flirty (I went out to Songtan drinking with one of my AWESOME new girlfriends and we didn't need to buy a thing) and have weird drinking chants that involve guns and ammo or something like that. If they had started shouting "USA! USA!" it would't have surprised me. But they are also really polite. Well, the guys we met were polite anyway...

 

So I have learnt something about myself since coming here.

I am a serial generaliser.

It doesn't matter what it is, I will make an unfounded blanket statement about it. I used to joke around with one of the guys at my old work, we would play the 'Generalising Game' in which we made terrible statements like "Well he has an Indian sounding name, he must smell like curry" and other inappropriate things. It was a fun game... 

But it is a good example of what I am like. I don't ever generalise to discriminate, I am not that sort of person (even though I see I am coming across that way) it's more I don't know enough about something or someone so I make an educated guess. I had done it already about Korea too. In this case though my assumptions and generalisations have been pretty accurate. But that's for another blog...

Its an easy thing to do (generalise, I mean) but its also the lazy thing as well. So my new 'thing' will be to try and understand more about something before I jump ahead and call a spade a spade. Because it might be a shovel. 

In other news...

I am slowly starting to make some friends. I have met some really cool people from Pyeongtaek. I won't name names, cos i'm not sure how ok people are with that here, but I went out for dins with a group on Wednesday night and it was super fun. We ate Shabu Shabu (I think thats what it was called??) which is soup that is full of veggies and all that, then you throw meat in it and the meat cooks in the soup. Then once you have eaten all the meat the lady brings out noodles and puts them in the soup, so you wait for the noodles to cook then you eat the noodles. THEN she brings over rice and cooks it in the soup pot. It was souper tasty (see my play on soup? HAHA i'm hilarious ey?). Then a couple of the girls went but 4 of us went back into Pyeongtaek to meet up with another girl and her bf for Honey Bread. I capitalise this because of how awesome it was... To me, it tasted kinda like fresh toast without the egg and waaayyyy sweeter. It was the most fatty and delicious thing I have eaten since coming to Korea. 

 Every meal you get here comes with side dishes included.

 Honey Bread

Approx. 3 minutes later...

And last night was an awesome night! Shanda and I (I hope she doesn't mind I have named her - apologies if you are not cool with it I will update the blog ASAP) went out for dinner first here in Songtan then went boozing around the strip. We played beer pong, bar hopped and danced the night away. I bought our first drinks, but soon realised I really didn't need to bother. Everyone wanted to buy us a drink. Being in Songtan on a Friday night is an experience in itself, the military boys are out in force and getting wasted, the boy/girl ratio is about 20:1 and they just wanna party. And they were good fun for the most part. They fully acknowledge that they buy all the drinks, one guy even said something along the lines of "it must be nice to not have to buy any drinks when you go out". Shanda said she wants to take me with her all the time, i'm a "military magnet". I think its just they haven't seen a blond chick in a while. 

I was totally drunk, and ended up refusing drinks cos my belly literally couldn't take anymore. And then they boys bought us water instead :) so that was nice of them too. 

By 12:30 the party wraps up, they need to be back on base or they get into trouble. So we stayed for another song, and stumbled back to my little room and tried to sleep off the grape soju. It was a really fun night with a new friend :) So shout-out to Shanda!

Tonight hopefully it will be back to Suwon to go out with Mia for a party, its a friend of hers birthday and 15000won for all you can drink cocktails. Thats about $15 for the people playing at home. So probably another messy night.

Right now I am sitting here waiting for my washing to finish washing so I can put it out, i'm gonna have a shower and then go to E-Mart cos I can. And then come home, maybe have a nap and then head out again I guess. 

Oooo, and there is apparently a big typhoon coming on Monday, so hopefully it will be huge and I can have a day off school! I will keep you informed about the typhoon... I have never been in a huge storm so I am actually pretty excited. 

Thats really it for now...

xoxoxo