May 25, 2009

Swine Day!

Alright don't freak out but we were supposed to start our training sessions at school today but due to a small breakout of the Swine Flu in Seoul stemming from an english teacher we were given 2 days off. So now that i've opened this blog on a high note i'll fill ya in on the goings on since we had the day off!

Nicole and I got up today at 6:30am and made some breakfast before we headed out to find our new gym. Shane and Lisa who are both english teachers at the same schools and seem relatively awesome told us about this gym that is close by so we checked it out but the one guy that spoke english was off so we have to go back and sign up tomorrow. Since we couldn't work out we decided to go exchange out dollas for won at the bank and then hit up emart since we are addicted to it.

Once we exchanged moneys we hopped over to emart and bought a few things after which i realized that a few things must have been quite a few since the bag weighted about 375lbs on the walk home....allright this post sucks, i'm actually boring myself. Fast forward to like 2 hours later when we hopped a cab to Downtown Gwanju to check out the GIC(Gwangju international Center) for some info on Korean Language lessons that are offered. We got the info and met a pretty cool and fantastically excitable guy named Doug who is an english professor at a nearby university. He sat down and with us and our map to show us some hot spots for some future trips which was pretty sweet. After that we hit up the market across the street for lunch which was actually pretty damn good and we were all really happy about our choices, not to mention the price for me and nicole combined being just over $5 for a ton of food.



The market was really an experience in Korean culture with quite a variety of fish, veggies, meats, flowers, sneakers and pig heads. Yup, check it..... The market is full of older women, i cant remember the name they go by either, but they are all very short and hunched over from years of farming. They sell all of their goods in the market. I really wanted to buy veggies from all of them, knowing how hard they work.





We grabbed a cab back and thats about it....we'll probably be off tomorrow as well so we may try to hike it up just outside of town after the gym so we'll hopefully have some great pics to share from that very soon.

(side note) Here is a pic from dinner last night, i can't remember the exact type dining they call it but we had no idea what to order since the entire menu was in Korean (oddly enough) so we had the wait staff pick for us. They set us up with a hot plate of pork and mushrooms that were cooked on a hot plate in front of us and ventilated with a genie type of fan that came down from the roof. We wrapped in lettuce and mixed other various items in with is like garlic, ham, tofu and sprouts. Nicole ate the lettuce ;) Its was pretty awesome and the people were great.

I think we're starting to gain a better understanding of our surroundings and Korean people after only a few days. Its an adjustment learning some of the neuances that exist within the culture but its all very exciting.

2 comments:

Marla said...

THe masks just add something to the netire experience.
Love all the posts. Enjoy your day soff and stay well!
I am going to learn the word of the day.
Every time I look at the clock I think it is such and such a time where the kids are.
Magic won last night!

Anonymous said...

Hi Nicole and Adam,

My name's Greg and I was lucky to stumble across your blog. I've just been offered a job at Reading Town Gwangjin, which is where I think you are working. Would you recommend it? Any advice you might provide would be great. :)

Greg (diglingreg@myvuw.ac.nz)

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