after a rather unproductive morning (well, i did download season one of mad men, that's somewhat productive), i got my rear in gear and sat in a park full of little old men and wrote out some postcards. if you don't get one, it's cuz i either do not love you or because i do not have your address. it was a lovely afternoon, sunny with a slight briskness, the leaves changing colors before my eyes. it felt like i was home, actually. that's the thing about being here; on the surface, things seem so different, but when you get down to it, it's really not a whole new world. the air is still cold in the fall, the leaves still change colors, chestnuts are still roasted on the sidewalk (except here they shell them for you!). the thing that is different is that it is korean. people look and sound different than me, but we are still all people, so it's not that different. im starting to settle into this korean life.
i made my way to my school a bit later in order to get paid for my training. 400,000 won came in and 300,000 won went out to the lad whose apartment i am taking over. he took the place over from another ybm teacher two years ago. said teacher had furnished the place quite nicely and charged my guy 300,000 won. so essentially, it was just paying him for what he paid awhile ago. (although the won was likely to have been worth a helluva lot more two years ago) me and my teacher buddy made our way to the post office in order to send off my postcards and some of his gear. we came back to the love shack, where i had packed up three of my suitcases and a couple garment bags full of my stuff. we grabbed a taxi and made our way to my new apartment. it's not as tacky as i remembered it being. it will look quite nice with the pussycat touch. we discussed the ins and outs of the apartment over a beer, such as how to break in if i lose my key. hopefully that will not be necessary, as it would only be necessary if i was drunk, and it does not appear to be the simplest of feats, especially if one was a bit shnockered up.
i made my way home by bus, and as i was crossing jongno samga, i felt this sudden sense of ease and bliss all rolled into one. i realized that i am living in korea and living successfully. i would be lying if i said i was surviving here. i am somewhere between surviving and thriving. i will only be able to say that i am thriving once i have learned a bit more korean and can say that this is my new home. but it feels good to be settling in, making a new life here. it's strange, but i find some comfort in this life, even though i generally do not know what is going on around me. i like it here.
i met up with carla and we headed out for some dinner of kimbap and bibimbap. we managed to get the tuna kimbap tonight, but they still put some bloody ham in there. ham seems to come in every kimbap i order. a fellow teacher dropped by the restaurant and joined us for dinner. she told us about a grocery store in the bottom of the lotte department store. carla and i made that our mission for the evening. i have made several unsuccessful attempts to find said grocery store, but now that i knew it was there, we were hell bent on finding it. we wandered down that way and found lotte. we took the exit that the teacher had told us about, walking past the krispy kreme and lotteria, right into the bag department. i was looking for my lancel bag to show carla, but suddenly, we stumbled upon the food section! i decided that we should turn back to look at my child made of leather, and then we headed back to the food. it is a lovely store, very ritzy and expensive. they do have an extensive foreign foods section, so i will be able to buy nutella, bonne maman, and skippy or jiff peanut butter when i so feel inclined to do so. they have a box of 55 packets of quaker instant oatmeal for 29,000 won (about 24 USD). is that expensive? how much is a box of oatmeal at home? i really want to know this, someone let me know. they also have french wine, which is about 400 times the amount that anyone would pay in france. clearly i will be drinking more soju than beaujolais while i am here.
carla and i made our way back towards our hotel, stopping for some pictures of the jongno tower, all lit up in the night sky. we stopped for dessert at red mango, my new favorite korean obsession. it is a frozen yogurt place, but we are not talking american frozen yogurt that tastes more like ice cream than real yogurt. this is like you took yogurt from the refrigerator and froze it, but somehow kept it whippy so that it can have the consistency of soft serve. you put a few toppings on it and it is delicious. i would take a bath in red mango yogurt, it is that good. red mango is what inspired pinkberry. i have never had pinkberry, but i am going to go ahead and assume that red mango is better.
woohoo only a couple more nights at the love motel!
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