Weekend Numero 3

Hello!

So I seem to be making blog posts on a weekly basis right now. I hope that is enough for my readers out there, and if not I guess that's just too bad! haha

I just had my third weekend here in Namchang and it was pretty good. Thursday night I met a few of the other foreigners or "waygooks" that are here. Three of them and I met up and walked around until they picked a restaurant that they liked. This place was pretty nice and had some westernized food. All of the foreigners are from America originally and have all been here for varying amounts of time. Zac has been here the longest with just over a year. He also knows the most Korean which comes in handy. He works at the local Middle School. Joe has been here for about 9 months and works at an Elementary School. And Soma is the last one that I met and he has been here for about 5 months. He works at a Hagwon or Private Academy like I do. They are all pretty nice and were able to welcome me to this city nicely in English. They were also great for easing some of my worries that I was feeling as a foreigner because they felt the same at one point. It will be nice to spend some time with them as my time here progresses.

Friday night was pretty quiet. I did some shopping at the larger grocery store in our area and then made dinner. After that I talked with my parents and some friends over Skype. I also called a friend since it was her birthday. It was really great to hear her voice. My plan was to go to sleep earlier that night as I wanted to get up early and venture out. I ended up staying up super late again (grr) but I set an alarm so that I would still get up. By noon on Saturday I was out of the house and walking to the bus stop. I wanted to check out the Costco that is here. It was quite the journey. I took two buses and had to make sure I got off at the right stop in order to transfer. I checked it out the night before on the map (thank you google maps!). I made it to Costco a little over an hour later and when I stepped through the doors I thought I had teleported home somehow. This Costco looked almost identical to the ones back home. It was great. It was also great that my membership from home works here. The place was a zoo with it being a Saturday afternoon and so close to Christmas. I didn't walk through the whole thing but here are some things worth mentioning. Beauty products such as shampoo, conditioner, body lotion, anything for the face should be bought here because they are a fraction of the price and there are more varieties than at the grocery store. There were many kinds of chocolate and goodies from back home as well which was comforting but I was good and didn't buy anything bad! Electronics there were priced significantly lower than back home. I read up before leaving and was told the opposite but oh well. The biggest difference between the Costco here and home is that they sell alcohol. After all was said and done I walked out of there with a ridiculous amount of white board markers and my favourite cereal from back home. I realized that I did not plan this as well as I could have as I didn't bring my knapsack and I had to take everything I bought on the bus...hence only buying two items.

After leaving Costco, there was a LotteMart beside it that I checked out. I knew I wanted to buy a toaster and a second set of bedding. We don't own a dryer and everything is hung dry which takes a while so a second set of bedding it necessary. The LotteMart was a very large department store with about 5 levels. There was even a Toys'R'Us inside. I was able to find a toaster no problem. Finding bedding was a little more challenging but I got there eventually and the ladies helping me were absolutely great. I pointed to the display bed to let them know what pieces I was looking for and then they showed me the varieties and colours I could choose from. I ended up with this pretty vibrant pink duvet cover with two white cat silhouettes on the front and lime green on the back. It might be meant for a kids bed but I like it nonetheless. It also brings colour to my room and it is pretty white and boring. I need to find posters to put up or something. After all my shopping was done I had quite the haul to bring back with me on the bus. Eventually I made it home and then received a text message from Soma asking if I wanted to meet him and Zac for dinner. We went to this cool place and had a variation of Korean Barbecue. We also had this amazing soup that was delicious and then I realized there was squid in it...and the thing was that it actually looked like squid too, which freaked me out a little bit. However, I "manned up" and decided not to think about it and ate it and did like it. I also tried a little octopus which wasn't too bad either. I actually haven't had anything I haven't liked yet which is good. After dinner we went to a cafe that is a chain here called Paris Baguette. They have tasty treats and good coffee. We played this language game while there that was pretty fun. It's a little complicated to explain but basically you try to communicate with using only Korean or sign language. No English. I wasn't sure how I would do it but we played for a while and it ended up being fun!

Some of the other foreigners were meeting to go to a new bar that opened downtown called JJ's, but I decided against it as I wanted a calm evening and did some chores at home. Sunday was pretty lazy. I caught up on some tv shows and worked on learning some Korean. Its funny how excited my students get when I say anything in Korean.

Here I am awake at almost 3am again...blast! I will get this sleeping thing under control eventually.

Next weekend I am going with Kelly to her friend's wedding and to the director's house to learn how to make kimchi. Should be fun!