My First Weekend in Korea!

Sorry for the delayed update everyone! It took me two days to figure out how to update my blog and find English settings rather than Korean. So I survived my first weekend in Korea! YAY! Friday Jason introduced Andrew and I to a bar called "Long Life." It is my new favorite bar and anyone who visits me better be prepard to go drinking there! I will soon have the pictures uploaded to this blog to show you how truly wonderful it was. The drinks are named after playing cards, so there is an Ace, King, Queen, Prince and another one I can't remember. The glasses are all shaped funny and I HIGHLY recommend trying the Ace at least once! It was massive....probably about 3 feet tall!!! They are certaintly an adventure to drink, especially near the end when a big bubble threatens to crash a wave of Hite beer into your face! Long Life is a very chill bar with dim lights, booths with couch like seats and individual beer coolers installed into the table! Genius! My extremely large beer was never warm!!! If America had bars like these they would never be empty!!!! We met two other western teachers who live near our area. They seemed pretty cool. They bascially confirmed that being an English teacher in Korea isn't nearly as good as it used to be. One of the guys was from Ohio. He told me that any American could go and eat  & buy things from the military base in Pusan. He said it was pretty cool to do that for the holidays.....then listed all of the American meats that they have. *Sigh* I guess being a vegetarian isn't very easy in any country! We spent the rest of the night exploring the university campus of Hadan, Pusan. It is a beautiful campus spread throughout the mountian!

Saturday Jason, Andrew and I woke up at a decent hour to try our luck at Lotte Mart. This is basically a three story version of Meijer or Walmart in the States. After walking about 40 mins exploring the town of Hadan (where I live) we finially reached our destination. Lotte Mart is only about a 10 minute walk from my school. It is located on the water and surrounded by mountains! We successfully purchased a ton of things that we needed to live.....cleaning supplies, bed sheets, trash can, laundry det (which was an adventure since we can not read any writing on the package!), soap and food. We had to take a cab ride home, wich only cost about $2.00! It is amazing how cheap the cabs are in Korea. After returing our stuff to our apartments we decided to explore a more downtown area of Busan called Samyeon. It was freezing!!! We were outside and walking all night. Korea is very overhwhelming and stimulating because every street has a ton of flashing lights, K-pop music blaring, random people singing karaoke, and stores/bars/salons going up to the (at least) 5th floor of every building! Since I have been either vomiting or starving since we arrived to Korea I almost feel to my knees when a Turkish man pulled us inside his Turkish restaurant!! It is very sad when the sight of non-sugary white bread and hummas bring tears to your eyes. I had the most wonderful dinner of falelfel & hummas! After that we went on a 45 minute quest for a bar called "Thursday Party" where apparently all of the western teachers go to. We finially found it bud decided it sucked and was over priced (plus we didn't see any other teachers!). Since we are all still really jet-lagged and exhausted we came home an crashed around 11pm.

Although I threw up again this moring- today was a great day! I got to actually speak with my family AND we went to COSTCO!!! HA! It is only a 40 minute subway ride away. In relation to being able to eat....I actually felt like a human being today. While the Busan Korean Costco is the largest Costco I have even seen- they have a lot of the same things as we do! YES! I now have a backup plan.....a means to protein... a way to survive being a vegetarian in Korea with the unfortunate current language barrior! ! !  I ate two huge slices of Costco cheese pizza lol and a smoothie while at the Costco. I purchased almonds, cereal, peanutbutter, bagels, cheese, cream cheese and crackers. These are things I can not find in Korean stores, and while some items were extremely overpriced, ($14 for Kashi cereal..) I am so happy I have them. Andrew says it is the first time I am acting like myself since I arrived! Poor Andrew- he has been so helpful throughout all of this! OH and Korean's are EVERYWHERE in Costco! It is a mad house...and they WILL run you over with their shopping carts! It is like driving in NY. Andrew almost crashed into a cart with two babies things got so out of control! Madness.

Today is Sunday and I am already dreading going to work tomorrow. :-( I'm sure it will be fine but I have to go to the hospital for a checkup (requirement of the school), we have a staff meeting, I still have to learn what lessons I have to teach on Mon/Wed/Fir and I have to confront my director about missing last Firday! I am supposed to have sick days but when Andrew explained that I was vomitting the dirctor was shocked and basically implied that in the history of the school no one has ever taken a sick day. ugh. yeah right. I will let you all know how it goes!!!!

Good Night Everyone!! Miss you all!!! XOOXOXOXO <3