Cousin's Visit

In the middle of September, my cousin Joanne came for a visit. She had planned a three week trip to South Korea and decided to visit us for a part of it. While she was here, she came for a brief visit one weekend and joined our house party. She got a tour of our place and the room where she would stay. After the weekend, she went back to Seoul to continue her tour. A week later, she came back down to join us. 

One of the best part about Korea is it's transportation system. It's so easy to take day trips across the country. On the KTX it took Joanne about 3 hours to get to Gwangju (4 hours on the bus). We took her to Yumsem for breakfast and she did a daytrip to Mokpo. While she was here, unfortunately our working hours left her a lot of alone time. We did manage to show her the joy of home delivery - mmmm chicken. On the weekend, we went downtown and had sol bing and did some make up shopping at Innisfree and Etude House.

I absolutely love the free samples from these makeup stores! I got 10 free samples of paper face masks, some serums, some lotion, some cotton pads and make up samples too! It's so amazing. One day I'm going to collect all my samples and take pictures of them. 

House Warming Party!

After settling into our new place, Neil and I decided to have a house warming party. We invited all our foreign and Korean co-workers to come. Unfortunately because it was on a Sunday and it was the only day the Korean teachers had the day off so none of them showed up. But all the foreign teachers showed up! Lily even bought a homemade chocolate cake. It was really delicious. The other teachers also bought some drinks to share. 

Before the party, Neil I had made sure we cleaned up the place and prepped some snacks and drinks. Neil had some chili, I made some cocktail sausages, cucumber sandwiches and yogurt soju cocktail. There was also chips and veggies and dip. 

The game of the night was Cards Against Humanity. It is one of our favourite games and some people has never heard of it so we were really eager to introduce it to them. Joanne made a real strong impression by winning a lot of the cards. If you don't know what the point is, it's a game that showcases our worst thoughts. Each person gets a set of white cards that contain phrases and words. Each person gets to turn over a black card and which has a sentence with blanks. These blanks are filled by a white card. Everyone puts their choice in a pile and the person who turned over the black card picks the worst choice or one of their choosing. Whoever is chosen gets to keep the black card. Once a person collects 10 black cards, they win the game. This is a simple explanation, you might be better off googling it. :) 

Boseong Green Tea Fields

A month after our arrival, my friend Jini from Daegu came to visit us in Gwangju. She offered to take us out to Boseong Green Tea Fields in Boseong. Jini and her boyfriend picked us up from our apartment and drove about an hour to reach this place. She's only been there once and I'm not sure if her boyfriend's been there before. They used their GPS which looks like a video game, it's so detailed and colourful!

It was a really nice day and we parked in the lower parking lot and walked along the path to reach the entrance. Entrance fee is about 2,000 won each, pretty decent. We walked towards the fields and it is built upwards. It winds upwards so it's not that steep, but parts of it was still very steep. We saw a sign that said "ocean" and decided to follow it. I was excited because I thought we were by the ocean but the path kept going upwards?!? It turns out the path leads us to a look out point where we can see the ocean. So what happens when something goes up? It must come down, so we trekked back down. I felt bad for Jini because she was wearing heels. Good thing I decided to wear my runners. It was still very difficult.

The best part of the field was the green tea ice cream! I had the green tea ice cream while Neil, Jini and Jini's bf had the green tea yogurt. It was the best green tea ice cream I've ever had. It didn't have the chalky aftertaste I find with most green tea ice cream. If I could eat more, I would've eaten more and buy some home. 

But instead, we went to look for some real lunch instead. We ended up at a samgupsal place where the meat and dishes were green-tea infused. It was so much food! But super delicious! Jini generously paid for our meal.

First week of work

Even as I write about our first week of full-time work, I still need to take a breath and remember it's all over. We had decided to forgo cooking during this week since our place was still not quite ready and set up yet and we doubted we'd have enough time this week to do it. On top of many other things that happened, this was a great idea!

After the BIG move, we spent almost every night cleaning and rearranging things. We moved the furniture in the bedroom around. I set up my make up desk/table. The dining table originally in the living room, we decided to put it in one of the spare rooms to create more space. We dubbed this room the dining room. There was an old fridge that didn't work, we moved that out on the balcony and only kept the good one. We also placed our toaster oven on top of it. One of the spare bedrooms we made it into a guest room. We stacked the two single mattresses so we'll have more room. We can separate the mattress when we need to. We really dislike the colour of the couches and leather is a terrible material in this type of weather! We ended covering it with some blankets to make it softer and more comfortable. We cleared out the long tv stand and discovered so many guide books for Gwangju, Korea and even Seoul. All things left behind by our predecessors. All of this is only a portion of the changes we made. I can't wait to do the video blog of our new place. We're also looking forward to inviting new friends and coworkers over. We're really proud of it now and this apartment is very nice!

We didn't get any of the classes we had previously. I got whole new sets of students and course books. On the first day, we also had to hand out books to the students. They are super heavy! I managed to wrangle some poor unsuspecting students to help me. Unfortunately some of my books were messed up for two of my classes and it caused a bit of a confusion. With the new books, Neil and I had to get to work pretty early to make sure we find all of our books and then figure out how we want to prep our lessons. Some were easier than others. But 2 hours to prep for 7 classes is not enough time. Especially when some didn't have a guide on how we should teach it. It's a bit of a bummer. Good thing some of the older teachers were able to help us and give us some insights. We felt pretty bad having to ask about every little thing, but we didn't know :( So for Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, we have one set of schedule. For Tuesdays and Thursdays, it's another set. So some students see us once a week, some three times and some even five times a week. We don't teach on Saturdays but for those that we teach on T/T, they also have classes on Saturday taught by Korean teachers. It would have been fine if all we did was school/work but we had to get our bank account set up as well and go to our Korean classes.

Neil and I signed up for Beginner Korean classes with the GIC (Gwangju International Center) and our classes are Wednesdays and Fridays from 10am-12pm. Theres only one other person in our class. An American named Nick. He's super friendly and nice and he also lives and works in the Sangmu area. We would probably end up meeting each other one of these nights. He's been here about two months longer than us and is so helpful to us. The Korean classes itself are really good. We really like our instructor, she's very energetic and happy all the time. Even if I'm tired, it perks me up with her abundant energy. The first week was basic Hangeul so it was a breeze. I started learning this stuff two years ago so it was more of a review for me. But it's good to confirm what I know.

On Wednesday we get into work and Mr. Lee gives us our Alien Registration Card. He proceeds to let us know that his friend has a deal on phones today. We can get a phone for free if we sign up for a two year contract today. But first we need to open a bank account. It'll cost us $35 per month with 500mb of data, lots of text and 100 minutes or something. A basic smartphone plan. It's an LTE phone so it's not 3G. But Internet here is pretty fast already so it's not bad. Although the phone only has 8gb, there is a microsd slot to increase your memory capacity. I doubt I'll use it for anything other than messaging, map, emails and quick info search. All my games are on my ipad.

We opened up our bank account with KEB because we heard the transfer and service is really expat friendly. We didn't have our passport so we had to go back the next day to get our debit cards. It's funny for every service you want, you have to sign a form. To open a chequing account - one form. To get a debit card - one form. To use Internet banking - one form. To transfer money - one form. We still have to do the last two items.

Yeah...it's been a really busy week. We cancelled our plans for Seoul and decided to stay in Gwangju to relax instead.

The BIG Move!

Before the move, we didn't do anything interesting. We just wanted to rest and do nothing before our big move and first week of full time classes. So on Sunday we prepared to make our move two subway stops away.

We started moving around 2:00pm. We had our big suitcases and some bags. We proceeded to roll them to the subway and from the subway to the new apartment. I got us a bit lost on the first try and went a block too far and had to turn back. Oops! When we arrived, Rob and Carly were still packing and had just finished cleaning. We dropped off our stuff and went back to Sangmu to grab more stuff. After the second trip, Neil would do one last trip solo so I can start moving things around and prepping our place to sleep that night in one of the spare rooms.

Neil had to do one last sweep of the old place before coming back so I picked us up some snacks and drinks. We finished moving everything around 5:00pm. Rob and Carly took us to an Indian restaurant in downtown called The First Nepal. It was pretty yummy! We really enjoyed our meal and will definitely go back. After the meal, we looked for a dessert place. Ended up at A Twosome Place and had some cake before heading home. Neil and I were really tired so we fell asleep pretty quickly. After all tomorrow was our first day of full time work with new classes and books. We wanted to make sure we were in tip top shape.

Rob and Carly left that morning and thus began our weeklong task of moving in and reorganizing everything to our liking.

Neil's birthday and first time in Seoul Part Two

After a good night sleep on a slightly more comfortable bed (no springs!), we set out to have a bit of breakfast before meeting my friend Christy. Since we're meeting back in the Hongdae area, we decided to go to Dunkin Donuts for some breakfast sandwich and donuts. When we met up with Christy we went to EatYourKimchi's You Are Here Cafe. Christy with handy map got us there in one piece. The place is really nice. Very trendy looking and very clean.  I see the EYK touches. Since it's a collaboration with TalkToMeInKorean, we see some books and such as well.  The milkshake was really thick and it took a while before it melted enough to drink properly. Otherwise, it tasted pretty good.

Afterwards, we decided to head to the 63 Building. Neil and I wanted to check out their wax museum (we love wax museums!) and invited Christy along. I had to make a pit stop to pick up a charger for my ipad because the converter I was using (non-Apple product) was too slow. The legit Apple product made a difference in the charging speed. Then it was off to the wax museum we go! We took a cab and it was only about $10. Considering how far we went, it is really cheap. It was a busy place with lots of kids since there's an aquarium and other attractions there. We got our tickets and went down to the basement where the museum was located.

Poor Christy helped us take a bunch of pictures, but she got into some as well! I hope she had as much fun as we did. Next we headed to Gangnam area and went for some Ddeok Galbi. Basically there is a giant hot plate in the middle of the table. You order what type of meat you want and one of the servers will help you cook it. They also throw in a bunch of sauces, spices and veggies. And you can also choose what you want. We decided to have some noodles. There's a lot of red pepper sauce so even at its most mild, it was still very spicy. Neil is definitely learning to eat his spicy food. A cool thing about this is everyone has to wear this red apron to protect our clothes from the bouncing oil and such. At the end of the meal, you can also order a bowl of rice and they will cook it in the same mixture of meat for you so with what's left over, you have Ddeok Galbi fried rice. We were super full after that!

Christy left to meet her friend and see a soccer game. Neil and I tried to kill some time by walking around we were pretty tired so just found a coffee shop to sit in. Oh yeah before Christy left, she helped us take a picture using the media poles in Gangnam. Apparently these poles (looks like light lamp poles) allow you to take pictures and send it to yourself. It's pretty laggy. Good thing she was there to help us.

We stayed around Gangnam because we wanted to go to this comedy thing Neil found on facebook. But when we got to the hotel, people were confused what we were looking for. The events bulletin board had nothing as well. I decided to send an email to these people to ask about getting tickets but no response. Even today, no response. Is there a joke there somewhere?

We mad our way back to Hongdae area (again) and decided to have some chicken and beer to celebrate Neil's birthday. After getting dessert we headed back to our hostel to rest. The next day is another long trip back to Gwangju.

On Sunday, Seoul was a bit overcast and slight rain so we didn't think much of it. We kept our umbrellas out and made our way to the bus terminal. We used one of those short term lockers to put our bags and headed to Itaewon area for breakfast. It was such a long trip from our hostel to the bus terminal to Itaewon, we didn't have much time to explore. I found a market that sold lime leaves and that's pretty much all we did. Oh and have brunch.

When we got the terminal, it took us a bit of find the right terminal. The terminal we arrived at is the not the terminal we leave to go back to Gwangju. But they are just across from each other, so it wasn't that hard. We finally got our tickets and this time got the extra comfy one. While Neil waited with our bags, I went in search of his favourite drink: Fanta Pineapple. It was hard to find that flavour in Seoul. They had orange, grape and even cherry but no pineapple. I finally found one! When I got back, our coworkers Rob and Carly was also there. They got a bus just 15 minutes behind us so we said our goodbyes as we boarded. thus began our journey home on a 3.5 hour bus ride. It started to rain pretty the closer we got to Gwangju. This should have been a sign :( By the time we got back, it was torrential rain. My umbrella ended up having a hole so I had water dripped on me the entire time. We had to pick up some stuff from E-mart (to make Neil's bday soup) so we didn't take a cab. Also, the cab line up at the bus terminal was massive! We decided to walk. My shoes, bottom half of my clothes and most of my hair was soaked. So was Neil. We were a wet terrible mess. I was not happy. We were not happy. After lugging all our stuff back via the subway, we proceeded to dry ourselves and make dinner.

That night we also discovered something was wrong with our hot water tank and we did not have hot water for three days :( We ended up showering with boiled water from a pot. It reminded me of when I first went to China as a child. I didn't think I'd have to do that anymore. After three days, we got an unexpected knock/ring at 10am. Good thing we were already up and having breakfast (and dressed!). It was someone from school to help us with the hot water tank. He also got some plumbers to come by too. It was too early for me to put my makeup on so yeah...that was a bit of a gong show. But by the time everyone left, we had hot water again! Yay!

Neil's birthday and first time in Seoul Part One

In August we got a three day holiday, which coincided with Neil's birthday. (In Korea, he's a year older because Koreans are one year old once they are born.) So from August 15 - 17, we went to Seoul.

From the big bus terminal (U-Square) we were able to take a bus to Seoul. There are two types of buses, one that's super comfy with only about 20 people on the bus and takes 3.5 hours, the other is a bit more squishier but still roomy for me and takes about 4 hours. Both buses do make a pit-stop at these rest stop places that has washrooms, food court and vendors. They are quite interesting, I wish I had taken a picture of it, next time.

We arrived at about 10am and made our way to the bus terminal. It was quite busy, I get the feeling this place is always busy. With no knowledge of Korean, I got confused buyiing tickets and ended up having to change windows and got the cheaper tickets instead. Oops! It wasn't that bad for me because I don't need a lot of leg room but poor Neil could use that extra space. We waited only 15 minutes before our bus left for Seoul After two hours, we made the pit stop. Neil tried to nap while I listened to the Beattles and looked out the window. I find it hard to sleep anywhere...bus, planes...etc. 

As we neared the city, the traffic increased, and I'm convinced we would've arrived earlier but got caught in traffic jam due to an accident. The buses were in special lanes (HOV?) and was able to move a bit more than the normal car. It reminded me a bit of LA traffic. I'd hate to be driving in that. After arriving at the Seoul Express Bus Terminal, we had to navigate to our hostel. The subway system reminded me a bit like New York's except the trains are much further apart rather than one or two floors away. 

It took about 15 minutes to twalk to the train station we wanted to get on. Since we didn't have any internet/data, it was hard to check where we were. At one point we had to transfer to another train and had to take escalators to it. I swear the escalators were at least three stories high. I thought it would never end.

There is an inner circle line that brings you to most of Seoul's attractions. Our hostel (ShinChon) was along this line so it was very convenient. It was minimal and basic with just the things we need. The receptionist spoke perfect English and was able to tell us what we need to know about getting in and out. This hostel is pretty small so it was stairs only. We were on the third floor. Our room was double occupancy but it was two single beds instead of a double or queen. LOL. The A/C was good which was necessary since it was hotter in Seoul than Gwangju. We relaxed a bit and browsed through the TV (we didn't have cable). After relaxing, we made our way to Hongdae.

Hongdae is really a nickname of hte place. The name comes from the fact that area is near Hongshik University. There's tons of people walking aound. Mostly young teens and 20-somethings. The whole area is mostly pedestrian but some cars do try to make its way in. It's a bit ridiculous if you ask me. Neil was able to book a hair appointment so we went to the salon first. I wanted a wash but it's not as cheap as I hoped. In China, you can get a hair wash and blow dry for less than $5 but it's like almost $30 here :(. To bad. After the salon, we walked aroud the area. Some buskers around, again mostly young people. And we finally settled for some Korean BBQ for our first meal. You order the food by the plate and it actually came out pretty small. It was still very yummy! We walked around some more and called it a night. We were pretty tired from the long bus ride and journey to the hostel. The next day we were meeting my friend Christy.