Day 24

• Today was a rainy day but Hye Jeung and I went out for lunch anyways. I wanted to treat her because she had let me use her phone when I needed to take the subway to the Y’z League office. I needed to get out of the office and wrap my hands around a warm coffee. My office is freezing because it is separate from the rest of the floor. We shared an order of garlic cheese toast. Its really interesting because they serve it covered in honey or maybe corn syrup, either way it was really sticky and sweet flavored garlic toast.
• So after lunch I went back to work and Chin came in and saw that I was freezing in the office so she called someone to come up and fix our heater. A man came up stairs to check the heater but he said that because our office is separate from the rest of the floor we will not get heat like the rest of the office does. The man saw that I was sitting at my desk with the little blanket that Hye Jeung gave me and felt bad for me so ten minutes later he reappeared with a mini heater that he parked next to my desk! I was soooooo happy! I emailed Hye Jeung right away to tell her the good news; she wrote back and said that I saved her $20 because she had just ordered one on line for me! How sweet is she!?!?!?!?!
• After work Sunny and I went to a wine bar overlooking the Hangang River. Both the view and the prices were amazing! They sold wine by the bottle and the cheapest bottle was $60. The only wine by the glass they offered was the house $12 wine that tasted like it was from a box and then watered down on top of that! I was defiantly not impressed with the place. We ordered an assorted cheese plate for $30 and I was horrified when they brought out a tiny bowl with ritz and saltine crackers along with some cheeses wrapped up like candy or throat lozenges. I told Sunny that I wasn’t paying $30 for that crap and she started laughing uncontrollably. Apparently that was just the bowl of snacks that they put out at all the tables, and wasn’t our assorted cheese order after all. I was so relieved when a platter with very good cheeses arrived minutes later. Yet, I have no plans to ever go back to that place no matter how good the cheese or the view was.

Day 23

• Oh lord!!! That “Real World Zoo” edition is on again. Now it’s 2 baby monkeys, like 10 piglets, 2 baby goats, and one baby kangaroo. Seriously, it’s a house with toys and playground equipment in the living room. Oh no! The monkey is pealing the wall paper off the wall and throwing it down to the goats that are eating it. Oh crap! An orangutan just showed up in a dress. She is grabbing all the toys and throwing them over the gate so the pigs and goats can’t play with them anymore. Now she has an inflatable mallet and she is running around smacking all the animals. I will say it again, who in the hell thought it would be a good idea to put these animals in a house together?!?!?
• Today after work Chin took me out to dinner; we ate clam noodles and octopus pancakes. Good thing I started eating fish and sea food again otherwise I couldn’t survive here. We’ve both been working hard and stressing over our deadlines so Chin ordered drinks with our meal. They didn’t serve beer so she got what I can only describe as alcoholic Horchata. Not bad, in fact, it was way better than the booze juice boxes I brought back in January.
• I decided to create 2 photos collections. I will collect pictures of creatures that seem very happy to be considered food. The second, is inspired by the “No, David” books. I will collect pictures of children doing things that they shouldn’t be doing. Like that picture of the kid licking plates, or this one of the baby happily eating beauty products.

Day 22

• You know what I miss? (Asides from my wonderful family) I miss fabric softener. My clean underwear feels like it is made out of cardboard. There is just something wrong about having clean clothes that can stand up on their own.
• Today was stick day! I gave a box of sticks to both Chin and to Hye Jeung. It really is like Valentines Day here. But instead of people walking around with boxes of chalky conversation heart, they are walking around with boxes of chocolate covered bread sticks. Since I couldn’t find pretzel sticks to make Jane’s famous chocolate covered pretzels I just bought some coffee flavored sticks to give out instead. Without knowing it, I picked the box that says true friend in Korean.
• You know what else I miss? (Asides from my wonderful family, and fabric softener) I miss wearing flip flops every day. I hate wearing high heals! Argh! Apparently, girls wear high heals year round here. Even in the winter when it is snowing women wear high heal boots not flat, safe, comfortable ugs. My feet hate Korea.
• Today I took the subway all by myself! And I didn’t get lost! Ok, I almost got lost. I almost got on the wrong train. Ok, I almost got on the wrong train twice, but it’s really tricky. The subway line that goes to my house is actually a ‘u’ shape so you need to make sure you take the correct train when you get to the fork in the road. I went to Y’z League to mentor some of the teachers there and help them with the writing projects I assigned them. It takes 2 subway lines and about 45 minutes to get there. Hye Jeung let me barrow her cell phone so I would have access to help if I needed it.

Day 21

• Today I went out to lunch with Hye Jeung, we went to a Thai food restaurant. Although it smelled like Thai food, it was just more Korean food. I really wanted eggplant, tofu, and basil leaves, but instead got more soup, rice, and kimchi.
• Oh my goodness Angela! They have a yogurt drink here that tastes exactly like red skittles!!! Oh, it’s my new favorite! You would love it!
• Speaking of things Angela would love, tonight was movie night at my work and I saw a movie that she would love. After work the staff went to the roof and watched the movie “Once.” It was such a great movie! The ending is so good because it’s not the typical happy ending; it’s more true to life. Angela would love the music; the whole movie is practically sung. Apparently my work has movie night twice a month and provides snacks like roman noodles, beef jerky, popcorn, and even beer. Although the movie is played outside in the garden I was wearing my super warm coat (the one with the huge cigarette burn on it) so I wasn’t cold. I also had a little lap blanket that Hye Jeung gave me to use at my desk to keep warm when I’m in my office. It’s great, now I have a little blanky and slippers to wear when ever I work at my desk.
• When I got home today I had a new refrigerator! And yesterday someone came and fixed my water heater and I got new hoses for my water pipes so they won’t leak any more! Everything’s coming up Millhouse!

Day 20

Day 20
• Today I sat with a man at work who belongs to the company hiking club. I asked him if he had trouble finding my email address in the company listing because he was suppose to email me information about the club. He said it was his first day back to work in a week. His daughter caught H1N1 and apparently if someone in your family gets it my company makes you take a week off of work and be quarantined too. With mandatory ear thermometer checks and quarantine periods I’m not too worried about catching the virus. Watch, now that I wrote that I’m going to contract H1N1.
• So I was headed down to lunch today and the elevator door opened revealing an elderly Korean gentleman. I said hello in Korean and bowed my head. He asked me in English what floor I was going to and I said it was lunch time and I was headed to the cafeteria. The doors opened again letting in two managers who work with Chin. They began talking to the gentleman in Korean but I recognized my name and Chins name. He then turned to me and said, “Oh, so you are Renee.” I said, “Yes, and you are?” He smiled and the two managers were dumb struck by my comment. Once one of the managers recovered from shock he informed me that, “this is Chairman” and I realized my error. The Chairman, founder of Yoon’s English Academy simply smiled and got off the elevator. I was absolutely mortified! Chin called me a few hours later to say she received a phone call from Chairman Yoon. I told her how embarrassed I was. Apparently he said I seemed nice. Chin said it was good that without knowing who he was I said hi in Korean and bowed my head; it showed I had good manners. Luckily he didn’t get a chance to see my table manners eh mom?
• After work I picked up 2 items that my local dry cleaner tailored for me. Grand total… $6 U.S. Now I know where to get all those suits dry cleaned, what a deal!

Day 19

• Nothing too exciting today. It was raining for most of the day so I stayed inside and cleaned the apartment. When the weather did clear up I went to my favorite dollar store and bought a few items. I just had to take a picture of the socks I saw there. The white girl is saying, “Hi Tom,” and the black boy is saying “Hey, yo baby.” Can any one say “stereotype?”
• The rain seemed to keep the Christians at bay today. Usually as you walk by all the churches on Sunday people try to stop you and hand you tea so they can talk to you about how great their church is. A lot of youth groups will stand out on the streets and sing much like the Hare Krishna's at the airport. I guess there are a lot of churches in my neighborhood and they are very competitive against one another.

Day 18

• Today I went to Cambridge Day held at Korea University, Seoul. At the door there is a person who takes your temperature with an ear thermometer to make sure you don’t have H1N1 to give to everyone at the conference. Sunny and I went to a few lectures on English Language Development. It was very informative and I even got some good ideas to use at work. I was shocked to find that the English Language exams given for students to enter the Universities in both Japan and in Korea are actually at a harder reading level then their first language. That means that students are required to read much harder texts in English then they are in Korean, which is ridiculous when English is your second language!!!!
• Today I went to E-mart with Chin and Richard today; it seems to be our Saturday ritual. I got to the checkout with all my food and Chin insisted on buying it for me because my fridge had broken and spoiled all my food. I told her I would only let her do it if she makes the company reimburse her for it. I thought it was really sweet of her to do that. She also gave me some plates, bowls, utensils, pillows, and blankets from her apartment because she is moving and didn’t want to take everything with her. She also offered to give me her refrigerator next week when she moves to replace the one that broke. I have a little college dorm size fridge for now, but once I have her refrigerator I will bring the little fridge to our office.
• On the subway today, Sunny taught me how to read a few characters in Korean. Now I can recognize: D, D’oh, ‘ee’, ‘oh’, ‘oo’, and ‘r’ which is kind of an ‘l’ sound. I felt like I was three years old; every time I recognized a letter I would point it out and say the sound. Sunny would just laugh and said I was learning so quickly.
• Sunny also taught me that 11/11 is just another made up holiday corporations came up with to sell more crap. They also celebrate Valentine’s Day, and two other Valentine’s Day type holidays, white day and black day. I can’t remember which is which, but one of the days the girls give presents to the boys, and the other day boys give presents to the girls. It’s just like that Simpsons episode… “Happy Love Day everyone!!!”
• I am so glad that I am the kind of person who just presses buttons until things work. It’s good that I never look at instructions, because here the instructions are in Korean so they wouldn’t help anyways. I was getting really frustrated because I couldn’t get my washing machine to drain the water. But after 10 minutes of pressing different buttons it finally did what I wanted it to do.