Monday, January 26, 2009
January 17th&18th
For Anthea's birthday on the 19th, we went to TGIF in COEX mall to eat (celebrated the weekend before). We also met Anthea's friend Frank, who's here for one year in the navy marines (or something like that), and hung out with him in Yongsan, Insadong, and one of the palaces. Ashley and I gave Anthea the last cat from the three smelly cats, Kuro and gave her hand warmers to put in Kuro. I have Kuta, Ashley has Mike, and Anthea now as Mike. We also got her a Green Tea Icecream Cake from Baskin & Robbins. I thought there would be some cake in the icecream cake, but no.. their cakes are completely icecream. It was a gigantic ball of green tea icecream.. It was good though XD
Since my last post, I've gone on 3 snowboarding trips!! They were all super fun :D First one, Ashley, Anthea, Jack, and I went to Konjiam (곤지암). To get there, you go to Gangbyeon station and take a bus from there all the way to Gonjiam. From there, you take a shuttle bus up the mountain but I think we got off a stop too early so we ended up taking a taxi (only cost 5k won though). We were cheap so we didn't buy lift tickets, but it was ok b/c the courses were really really short. We were able to walk up the mountain every time to go down it. We're all beginners so it's not like we needed the super slopey ones anyway :D We were extremely tired after that day though.. lots of exercise climbing up over and over! The lift price was 41k I believe for afternoon and then rental for the board and boots was 27k. Pants rental costs 15k.
The day before Gonjiam, Anthea, Ashley, and I went to Anthea's coteacher's house for the Lunar New Year's dinner where you eat a bowl of rice cake soup. After you eat the soup, you gain a year in age. Ashley came back to Guri with us and slept over at my place so we could head to Gangbyeon together. After Gonjiam, Jack and Ashley crashed at my place again :D I like it when people stay over! My place is too big and lonely.. I download so many tv shows on my computer now because it's too quiet without something playing all the time. Anyway, the next day Anthea and Frank came over and cooked spaghetti and meatballs! It was yummy :D I didn't have a can opener at the time so Frank showed us his useful army skills by cutting open the can with my knife lol......January 27th
The next day we all met up for some samgyetang (sp?). It's an entire chicken cooked with sticky rice in ginseng soup. It also has a jujube which adds flavor but because my mom forced me to eat too many of those, I kinda don't like them so mine goes to Ashley everytime :D We met Jack's friend Jihun and Jihun's friend but I 
don't remember his name...... Ashley and Frank also ate some bugs. I think she said, "YUMMY" and downed one really fast. Ashley is weird. I like what Anthea said in Chinese: "You have bugs in your stomach." Anyway, after that, Ashley and I went to take some pictures of ourselves in Hanboks at the tourism center. The first picture makes it look like Ashley is the daughter and I'm the mom :( Everyone else went to the Seoul Tower (Namsan?) but I'm scared of heights so I didn't go :p We ended the night at the Dokbokgi street with some really good cheese dokbokgi and seafood dokbokgi.January 31st & February 1st
Our next snowboarding trip was to Jisan. It was a really fun trip because we decided to spend the night there :D Jihun, Frank, Anthea, Ashley, and I spent a night in a tiny pension sleeping on the ground. It was really close to the slopes so oh well.. it was an interesting experience anyhow! Jihun taught us how to play this Korean game with 4 sticks and a board. It was a lot of fun, especially when Ashley goes, "Ok I'm on Jihun's team." and he goes "Ok let's make teams." and then she goes again "Ok I'm on Jihun's team." and he again denies her lol. Anthea and I bought a package where you get lessons for 2 days and it also pays for rental and lift fees for 180,000 won. It was totally worth it! Both days we had one instructor dedicated to the two of us.. so it was pretty much private lessons! We can both go forwards and backwards and do beginner turns now. I'm still really bad at turning from forwards to backwards though. We both busted are butts and knees the two days. It was expected though.. if you don't go all out and bust your arse practicing and doing whatever the instructor says, it's a waste of money!
I ended up getting Jihun to take me to the medical center before we left because someone had run into my hand with their snowboard (ran into me completely but board hit my hand) so I just wanted ice. They used something called "Mentopas" (we call it menopause :D ) that's sorta like a very liquidy bengay/icy hot. Since the lady had a ton on her hand and asked if anywhere else hurt, I decided to get some on my knee. Oh my goodness it hurt soo bad when she started applying it. She didn't just lightly apply it.. she freakin rubbed it in! And then she wrapped my leg up extremely tight so that I couldn't bend my knee at all and it smushed my bruise @_@;.. I think I'll wait for ice next time. It was more painful that falling on the knee. Penny came to ski with us on the 2nd day so we went back with her to her hotel to spend a few days with her. So for how much we spent on everything: Taxi there shared by Frank, Anthea, and me because we missed the bus - 85k/3; Lessons/rental/lift - 180k; hotel - 24k; food ~ 20k.. = 242k. Not bad :D
Penny's hotel was really nice! I got to take a really nice hot bath @_@ It felt soo good. Anthea and I had some problems sitting up b/c we strained our neck muscles way too much from having to get up so many times after falling. I had to claw the wall to sit up from the bed lol. I figured out a better way after a few times though. If you use a hand to lift your head up from your neck, it's much easier b/c then you don't need to use your neck muscles! During our time with Penny, we went to COEX, Myeong-dong, and Hongdae with her. We also got some interesting sticker pictures XD A bunch of these pictures were taken with Penny's phone.. it has a lot of interesting settings >_>
February 7th
Unfortunately b/c my school seems to have short breaks or something, I had to go back to work on the 4th (Wednesday) so we couldn't plan anymore trips/outings that week :[ But Frank, Ashley, Jihun, and I did meet up on Saturday to go to a free Korean class at Sookmyung University station (kongbubang.. if interested, look that up in google) and then to Yongsan to shop afterwards.
February 14th (VALENTINE'S DAY!!)
The weekend after, Anthea went home to NY, and the rest of us met up again on Saturday. Jihun and I had lunch together, and then Frank joined us for ice skating. Ashley was sick :[.. but we still met up for class. We went to Wolfhound pub in Itaewon for dinner because Reach to Teach had a gathering there, but we were a little too early so the pub people didn't let us sit at the tables. So instead we just had fun sitting at the high tables and ate a yummy dinner! The hamburgers are wonderful there by the way. They're seasoned very well all the way through and the portions are large so the cost was very reasonable. After dinner, we went to say hi to the Reach to Teach people before leaving to get some ice cream at Coldstone. Ice cream is good..... :D
February 21st
Our very last snowboard/ski trip was last Saturday :) Ashley was still sick so she stayed home and read a billion books on her ereader instead lol. Frank invited one of his friends so we had 4 in total (perfect for the # of discount tickets we had). We ended up paying 7,500 for rental and 31,000 for lift for the morning and afternoon times. It was super cheap b/c the bus ride there is free as well :D Jihun was really nice and stayed with me the entire time, even with me going down as slow as possible. As Frank says, "That's not snowboarding." Jihun had enough patience to wait for me XD. The slopes were pretty clear in the morning so I could go down without being too scared of being hit, but the afternoon session brought a lot more people and I started getting run into. I got hit 5 times.... I only got hit bad 2 times though, other 3 I managed to fall as hard. It was a really good day! Because of the lack of people in the morning, Jihun and I went 
down the two hardest slopes one time each. I ended up going down completely straight on the slopiest one though b/c it was soooooo scary!! Closer to the bottom it's not as scary but when you're at the top it's bad.. I slid at the top b/c the snow is more packed/icy from the faster boarders/skiiers and couldn't get back up for a while lol. I kept sliding everytime I tried to get up b/c it was too steep and icy. But just to say I have, I've gone down the steepest slopes at Jisan thanks to Jihun :D I wanted to start on the easier slopes but I was DENIED. The New Orange lift broke down while we were in line so we ended up going to the Blue and Silver lifts. The right most slope is fun :D It's really curvey but it's super long and fluffy. The snowboarders do their tricks on two parts of that slope so it's fun to watch them. Next time, I don't think I'll go snowboarding if my knees are still messed up though. I think I strained them more purposely trying to not fall on my knees b/c when I got home, everytime I got out of a chair or my bed, my knees would give out lol. Yesterday was bad.. so I tried to stay on my feet all day cleaning instead of sitting down. Everytime I sat down and stood back up I had to use my desk to push up and had to keep my knees bent for a while before they could lock properly
Our very last snowboard/ski trip was last Saturday :) Ashley was still sick so she stayed home and read a billion books on her ereader instead lol. Frank invited one of his friends so we had 4 in total (perfect for the # of discount tickets we had). We ended up paying 7,500 for rental and 31,000 for lift for the morning and afternoon times. It was super cheap b/c the bus ride there is free as well :D Jihun was really nice and stayed with me the entire time, even with me going down as slow as possible. As Frank says, "That's not snowboarding." Jihun had enough patience to wait for me XD. The slopes were pretty clear in the morning so I could go down without being too scared of being hit, but the afternoon session brought a lot more people and I started getting run into. I got hit 5 times.... I only got hit bad 2 times though, other 3 I managed to fall as hard. It was a really good day! Because of the lack of people in the morning, Jihun and I went 
down the two hardest slopes one time each. I ended up going down completely straight on the slopiest one though b/c it was soooooo scary!! Closer to the bottom it's not as scary but when you're at the top it's bad.. I slid at the top b/c the snow is more packed/icy from the faster boarders/skiiers and couldn't get back up for a while lol. I kept sliding everytime I tried to get up b/c it was too steep and icy. But just to say I have, I've gone down the steepest slopes at Jisan thanks to Jihun :D I wanted to start on the easier slopes but I was DENIED. The New Orange lift broke down while we were in line so we ended up going to the Blue and Silver lifts. The right most slope is fun :D It's really curvey but it's super long and fluffy. The snowboarders do their tricks on two parts of that slope so it's fun to watch them. Next time, I don't think I'll go snowboarding if my knees are still messed up though. I think I strained them more purposely trying to not fall on my knees b/c when I got home, everytime I got out of a chair or my bed, my knees would give out lol. Yesterday was bad.. so I tried to stay on my feet all day cleaning instead of sitting down. Everytime I sat down and stood back up I had to use my desk to push up and had to keep my knees bent for a while before they could lock properly
February 24th
Jihun's birthday! Jihun opted to celebrate his birthday at my place so that we could do the cooking thing on his list of things to do. His mom made chopchae (sp?) and he brought over ingredients for dokbokgi! We also ordered a pizza and I cut up a bunch of veggies to eat with dip & washed some strawberries. We also ordered a sweet potato cake for him. I'm not a huge fan of sweet potato and Ashley isn't either so we made sure he took the rest back home with him XD We watched "Secret" while we ate everything. It was a really good movie! Parts of it was kinda creepy (especiailly the opening music) but it was a nice story and I liked the piano parts. If you haven't seen it, I recommend watching it :) Jay Chou is the main character and he's also the director/one who wrote the movie. For his presents, Frank paid for the pizza (wa ha ha), Ashley bought him a LED light thing that was shaped like a person that had suction cups on its hands and legs so you could stick him anywhere. It was pretty cool :D Jihun definitely had a lot of fun playing with it lol. I made a crochet cat for him with "POSCAT" on it. Jihun had this weird story where he says POSTECH has a club called POSCAT where they observe cat behavior. Their campus has a ton of stray cats so it's really easy for them to study the cats. But in reality, that's not true.. there is no such club that observes cat behavior but everyone believes him b/c POSTECH is known to have a ton of cats -_-;.. It's the name of the club he's in and it actually stands for Postech Computing Algorithm Team. LAME.. Anyway, we walked Jihun and Frank to the station and Ashley came back to my place to stay the night :D Jihun being in our group makes me feel even older. When I was picking up the cake and the lady asked how old for the candles, I automatically said "24" and had to correct myself to 21.
Saturday, January 3, 2009
Anthea and I at the beginning of the stream :)
Anthea asked me whether I wrote about it on my blog yet and nope.. I hadn't yet. It wasn't the most memorable experience but since I've done it 2x now, maybe I'll just comment :p There is always a long line for women's restrooms, especially in coffee shops because there is only one stall. While for the men's restroom, there is one stall plus one urinal. So if you gotta pee, you're just in and out. Those that need that stall don't need to block the others from doing a number one. While for women, the line just gets longer and longer. This time it was another emergency-- it was almost time for the countdown for New Years! Happy New Year by the way! I had 10 mins (or 15? don't remember) when I started waiting, by the time there was 4 min
utes left and the men's restroom was pretty empty, I went over there and had Anthea block the door for me. We made it in time for the countdown but I think wherever we were, it wasn't the place the website says. The website says theres a big screen TV and a light show. Well, we were at the mini fireworks/scrolling light stuff but there was no TV in sight! I think Anthea was kind of disappointed :p But it was fun still!
We walked up and down the stream that night, took a bunch of pictures, got to watch a live concert of CAN, Park Ji Young, and some other duo that was popular 20 years ago. We also found a super cheap ice skating rink! We ended up going ice skating for our New Year's Day plan :) The rink is at exit 5 of City Hall station. It's really big, you can't miss it. It's much smaller than the picture online, but hey it's super cheap. It's 1000 won per hour to enter plus you get skates. If you need gloves, its 500 won to rent. Lockers are also 500 won. You buy a ticket for a 
time slot (to control the crowd.. there are a ton of people) and then line up for skates when it gets close to time. They redo the ice every hour cuz it gets scraped up like crazy with the amount of people but it's a good amount of time. I usually take a break at the hour anyway :p
cowfish~
The next day (1/2) we met up with Ashley at COEX for the aquarium to see fishies! COEX is a huge mall with a lot of high end stores, restaurants, coffee shops, and it also has REALLY awesome restrooms. :D The aquarium was fishy fun like always but it didn't only include fishes. It had frogs, tarantulas, alligators, "korean squirrel" aka chipmunk, monkeys, and many other things. The exhibits were a lot more crowded than the aquarium back at home in Atlanta, but they were very interestingly laid out. One room turned all household appliances, sinks, water tanks, phone booths, bed stand, toilet, anything you can think of into mini aquariums. It was really neat :D Once you get to the last souvenir area and exit that, you're completely out of the aquarium and back into the mall. It was an odd feeling.
Anyway, since we had past by a dimsum and noodles restaurant we wanted to try earlier, we went back to that to eat. It was Jackie Chan's restaurant. Really :p There's pictures of him doing kung fu poses on the outside too. There wasn't a long wait for seats, but they were understaffed so things moved a little slow. They also ran out of a lot of food and it was still only 4:30pm. All the dimsum items I wanted to try (though overpriced) were already sold out. I ended up getting "SangHong" or however you spell it. It had a crispy outside (like a fried spring roll) but the inside was some sort of sweet potato paste. It was pretty good :D Ashley's and Anthea's meals were pretty good too.. we need to go back there sometime! As the waiter said when I asked him 'What is Sang hong?' he replied, "It's delicious."
New gadget I bought that lets me turn my laptop into a tablet!
PNF Duo~ 69,000 won :D
They voted on the best turkeys from each table~
Hmm so what other important dates did I not blog about? Let's see..
11/27: Thanksgiving! Awesome Turkey day! I taught my kids about Thanksgiving all week and about how we call it “Thanksgiving” and not “Thanksgiving Day” like the stupid book teaches it. My coteacher helped explain it by telling the kids you say Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc. without adding the –day usually while for things like Memorial Day, President’s Day, Labor Day, all regular words? you add a “day” to it. At this point they would do the “Ahh..” to indicate they understand. The 6th graders had a chapter on it but the 4th graders didn’t so I made 
them draw turkeys and listen to some funny turkey songs on youtube. http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=B0GWAwV5uBY and http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=hd4h5xKLGuE . However, because they watched these, the kids gave the turkeys sunglasses, dragon tattoos, and afros.. They did learn the proper sound a Turkey makes though: Gobble gobble! Or .. Turkey turkey! ;D That night, we went to Doorae Church in Guri for Thanksgiving dinner. Sarah, another teacher in Guri, invited us to go eat with them. It was soooooo good. We even got to take home leftovers. I was in heaven :D
11/29: My birthday! I had to work that day (Saturday class) so I met up with Anthea and Ashley at night at Gangnam to go eat at Outback Steakhouse! Outback Steakhouse in Korea is all about service. While we were waiting in line, they handed each of us a small bowl of cheesy fries with ranch dressing (I think). And then at the end when we asked for boxes, they boxed everything up separately into nice bags and gave us each another loaf of bread sealed in plastic and a ball of butter. My steak was super awesomely yummy! If we ever go back, I'll probably get the steak again. It was the flame grilled steak I believe. Ashley's ribs were completely worth it too. The full rack was definitely a full rack, unlike 
back at home when I got the "full rack" it was smaller than a half. After eating, we walked around Gangnam and had Tanner buy me a scarf and a hat. We wanted to shop around more but unfortunately since I didn't get back from teaching till kinda late and Outback Steakhouse was farther than I remembered (saw it one time when I walked to the next station to look around the area on my own), we ran out of time. We separated around 11? Anthea went back home and I went to Ashley's place to sleep over!
Ashley donated a dollar at Myeong-dong and we ended up with a bunch of
fruits!I got the pear I wanted! yay!
11/30 Ashley invited me on a field trip with her school to Suwon's Hwaseong Fortress. I got to meet her awesome 6th graders, got my name written all pretty, and got to shoot some arrows :p If I have enough money, and I'm living by myself or not with children yet, I want a house with a large large lawn and a fence so I can shoot arrows :p Ashley's school treated us to the entire tour and even food at Lotteria after :) Picture on the left is the first day of snow in Seoul.. beginning of November!
12/2 My mother arrived. I left school early after my classes finished and rode the airport limo to the airport. From Guri, it costs 11k one way but it takes you all the way there and it's a really nice nap :p I had been lacking sleep so I totally passed out on the bus. The bus drops you off on the floor for departures, so if you have to go to arrivals, you just take the elevator down to the 1st floor. For some reason, everyone I've picked up so far has come out of gate D but I remember coming out all the way at the end. The bus to go back to Guri is at Gate/Doors 8 near gate D. The airport doesn't have that many restaurants. There are a few really nice ones, but it's all fastfood or small coffee shops. I treated my mom to Cafe Pascucci and happened to lose my Happy Point card there :[ I was super tempted to ask them if they found it one of the 2 other times I had to go back but I was too lazy to try with their lack of English. The bus ride back happened to be the same driver (bus number 5749). The bus ride back to the airport to drop off my mom also happened to be the same driver. I think the bus rides to pick up Tony was also the same dude but I'm not sure.. I remember one time it being a different bus but I went on the same one enough times that he recognizes me now @_@.
Thought this was cute.. so I took a picture.
2nd picture was the result of me taking a picture of the 2 boys :p Oops :D
I took a sick day the next day because the kids had midterms so there were no English classes anyway. Jang and Lee both did the same :D I took my mom to Insa-dong even though she kept complaining about the cold and how expensive things were, how things weren't so different from Chinese things, blahblah, but eventually I was able to convince her to buy souvenirs. I also had to use the whole, think about the exchange rate thing. This 3000 won item is actually like $2. Isn't that cheap?? -_-. After Insa-dong, we went over to Yongsan to experience a Jimjilbang together. It was my first time to one so the whole lets all be naked together thing was a little shocking to me too but I had to be the brave one to make my mom get used to it. First thing we did was shower, then sit in a bath with water massaging things, then attempt to go into a sauna but that plan failed b/c my mom ran away, then dry up and reclothe, then get a massage (I got a sports massage.. never again.. I was in pain for days, my mom got a back oil massage), then get eggs to eat and then.. out of the jimjilbang! There's a lot more to it than we did but I could only push my mom so far. We went to the Dragon Hill Spa right next to Yongsan station so we had dinner at the I Park mall. I think I complain too much in general, but you haven't seen anything yet until you live with my mom and she gets familiar enough with you to unleash her complainingness. Thank goodness I had to teach the next day :p
Our 50,000th christmas cake and the HO bar at Hongdae.
Umm.. so my mom left back to the US on Saturday. Tony arrived here on Dec 9 (Friday) so another weekend of fun came along :D I should post more often so these entries aren't so freakin long. Anyway, to sum it up.. Tony is my Santa Claus. He gave me cookies, a big bag of Sunchips (which I devoured in 3 days), tons of tea, and tea cups and a tea pot!! I was in heaven :D Saturday we met up with Ashley and Anthea at Myeong-dong to go shopping. We're not very good at being tour guides for guys. We're also not in a big rush to do everything since we're here for a year unfortunately, so we actually don't know Seoul too well :x We did end up going to Hongdae (where I had my first men's bathroom experience) to eat dinner :) It was at a nice Chinese restaurant. We also got cool sticker pictures. Unfortunately, I have no idea how to sign up for an account so 
we couldn't have them sent to us by email. The next day Ashley, Tony, and I went to Yongsan to look for the lil LCD screens. But like everyone says here, cheapest way to get electronics is to order online, and even then, it's still more expensive than back home generally. Ashley found what he was looking for on gmarket but since he was leaving on Monday, I'd have to send the lcd to him and it would make it cost just as much as having it imported to the US from some dealer. Tony went back to Japan on Monday early early morning (an early good morning to mr. same bus driver again) and I went to school~.
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