A Successful Two Days

On Saturday I cooked my first meal in my apartment. :-) I have a gas stove which makes me a little nervous because I don't want to forget to turn it off. First meal was an egg and cheese bagel with a banana.

Delicious. I bought salt and pepper at E-mart on Friday. It is essentially the same as in the states but a little different. I then went downstairs to meet the 3 other teachers from my school that live in my building and headed to the grand opening of the Seocho branch of Lex Kim. The two new girls I met are Grace and Jennifer. Grace has been at Lex Kim for a year and Jennifer a few months. Grace is Korean and Jennifer is Korean American. Grace was born here and lived here til she was 9 then moved to Honduras and lived there til she was 17 and then moved to the States for college. Her dad owns a clothing company here in Korea called Tate. The Seocho campus was wonderful. The food was displayed beautifully. There were rice cakes with flowers wedges in between. They had a traditional cookie boot which they decorated with gold flakes. (Sorry I didn't take any pictures. I didn't want to be too cheesy.) I met Lex Kim there and he seemed nice. He is very proud of his school which is cute. I didn't know it was a family run business. Shoomee is his wife and the secretary is Shoomee's sister. I don't normally drink tea, but I tried Chrysanteumum tea. It was pretty good. 

We received gifts on the way out which contained a few coffee mugs.

I then went with Adrienne, Jennifer and Grace to get a subway card and then we went to COEX. A huge shopping center. I got a book to help me with my Korean. 

Jennifer left and then Grace asked if we wanted to have dinner. Adrienne had plans with a group she met on meetup.com so me and Grace went alone. She seems really nice and intelligent. She went to Penn State and then grad school at U Penn. She took me for another traditional Korean meal called Samgyetang. It is a whole (but little) chicken stuffed with rice in soup. It came out boiling and of course with a bunch of sides. Among them were kimchi and then squid kimchi. I tried the squid kimchi. It wasn't too bad. :-) The meal itself was delicious.

 Chicken Soup for the Seoul, anyone?  :-P

While at dinner I mentioned wanting to join a gym. Grace told me she saw this place that was 60% off. She wanted to join too, so we walked over to the gym. I got a tour (in Korean) and Grace translated for me. At the end, the man said it was only 50% off BUT it was $200 a month with a minimum of a 12 month contract if you wanted to get the 50% off AND it had to be paid all at once. I can't afford that, but Grace signed up. Something different from here and America. In America you would go to the gym, ask them how much and decide. Here they sit you down and lecture you about health for about 20 minutes. They are very thorough. After that we went to this bar on our street called Cream Bar and had a drink. Grace told me that her best friend used to live in my apartment and went to Lex Kim. She just moved back to America. She said we could do this after work often which made me happy. 


I woke up early again on Sunday. Around 7am. I saw everyone's facebook statuses about the FSU/Oklahoma game and decided I was going to take a risk and go to Itaewon (a very westernized area of Seoul) on the subway and look for a bar playing the game. This was highly unlikely since the game would start at 9am my time. It took me about 30 minutes to find the subway station near my place. Haha. A man at a bakery drew me a map to find it. :-) I got to Itaewon and began to walk around. It is so Americanized. Here are some pictures. 

Maya!

This was quite shocking.

I was taking pictures when an old man sweeping the sidewalk started to speak to me in English. He invited me into his tailor shop to have a cup of coffee. We sat and drank coffee as he told me all about Korea and life. It was quite cute. We talked for probably about 30 minutes. I continued walking when I saw a bar open called Rocky Mountain Tavern. I went inside and they were playing the UFC fight. I asked if they could change it to the game, but she said the owner told her to record the fight for later that night. She was extremely nice though and got the game on the internet for me. All I missed was the first half! 

I sat and drank alone when two guys came in. One wearing a gaytor shirt and one Texas Tech. I started talking to them a little and we watched the game together. They are both in the military stationed here. I mentioned that my brother played for the gaytors and then later that he was a kicker. The Texas Tech kid said the law school kicker? Haha. YUP! When the game ended we went to another bar called Scrooges where everyone was watching Rugby. I guess Rugby is really big over here. We played darts, drank beer and got nachos and chicken fingers. The beer pitchers here are huge.

Sammy's friend Rob then met up with us. He has been really nice helping me out over text and facebook. He said he would show me around Itaewon. While we were walking around we ran into a Korean who asked us to write this on a white board.

Very cute! Haha. I hope she says yes! While we were walking we ran into one of Rob's friends, Elena. She used to work with Rob, but now she works at a different school. She seemed super nice and Rob told me that she knows everyone. I found that to be true within minutes. She knows all the shop owners and bartenders and they love her and give her free stuff. Ha. She seems like a good person and a partier. She said we should go to the foreign market so we all went. Look what I found here.

Old school Herbal Essences!!! We had to imitate the old ohhh yesss yessss (hands in hair) commercial. So funny. I told her I hadn't had Soju (Korea's favorite liqour) yet. She was all about it and bought a bottle and told me to use this chaser. 

It legitimately tastes like those candy bracelets from childhood. The Soju tastes like nothing! I see why they say it is so dangerous. It has a tiny sweet after taste but tastes like pure water before. Before I drank it Elena told me to get mentally prepared. Pretend I have been traveling in the desert for months with out a drink and then chug it haha. She's a trip. 

We then went to a few more bars and Elena told me about this Expat Festival next weekend. It is 10,000 won (a little less than $10). We bought tickets together and she told me to meet her at her house next week before we go. The ticket (which I just actually looked at) is to a soccer game at the world cup stadium. FC Seoul vs. Daejeon Citizen. I am excited. :-) On the subway ride home I saw this advertisement for plastic surgery. I don't know if it was the drinks or not, but I found them very silly.

This doesn't really do it justice. There were a BUNCH of different photos all in one advertisement. Anyway, that is all for now. I am off to get ready for my physical and first day at Lex Kim. Love and miss you all!