Day 31

• I got a bank account today! Yea! Now when the company direct deposits my paychecks it will actually go to my bank account. Last month I got an email saying that they deposited my paycheck into my bank account and it took me two weeks to figure out where the money went and to get it in cash instead.
• I am getting much better at reading Korean. I practice when ever I take the subway. When you ride the subway train a screen shows you the next stop written in Korean, and then it will show the name in English. So I sound it out in Korean and see if I’m on the right track when it shows it written in English. Then it will announce the station in Korean so if the train is not too crowded then I can hear how it is pronounced too.
• Tonight after work I went to Hye Jeung’s house for dinner. It was so nice! Her mom is a Seventh Day Advantest and because of this she is a vegetarian. Her mom went to a vegetarian shop near her house and bought me fake ham and stakes so Hye Jeung would have some food to offer me. Hye Jeung and I cooked dinner together, I made the bean curds stuffed with purple rice and she made the fried crab/radish/fake ham kabobs. I call the rice purple because that is what it looks like to me but she says it’s called black rice because they add black beans to it.
• Today was the first snow of the season. I said that it was cold enough for me and that I don’t want it to get any colder. The girls told me not a chance, when it becomes winter it will be -20 at least!
• Hye Jeung told me that Koreans drink coffee after every meal. Unlike me, they don’t drink it first thing in the morning before breakfast. That means coffee shops don’t open till 8 or 9 am!

Day 30

• I have been learning so much from Mike; I am so grateful that he has come to work with me in the office. Now do I not only have company during the day, but he teaches all kinds of useful information. For example, we were walking home after work (he takes the subway near my apartment so he walks me home after work Tuesday through Thursday) and were searching for a Tae Kwon Do studio and he pointed out the sing for a brothel. Apparently a red and blue spinning barber pole does not indicate a place to get your hair cut.
• Mike also told me about how I can order traditional Thanksgiving dinner. There is an army base in Seoul that you can order a complete dinner including: turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, dinner rolls, stuffing, gravy, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie. It will feed 10-12 people and it’s cooked and ready to go. It is suppose to only be for the army personal so they only deliver on base. But Mike found that they don’t check ID and they will deliver it to the front gate because that is technically still on base. So we are going to order it and Richard will go pick it up and bring it to work so we can have Thanksgiving dinner at work.
• Guess what! My bus pass works for not only buses, subways, and taxis, but it will also work at payphones and as a debit card at the convenient stores! There is no reason for me to carry cash; this is my kind of country! (Don’t worry, I always carry a little cash on me anyways.)
• OOOOOoooo! Sunny taught me how to hula hoop! I have never been able to do it before but she taught me how and now I can! I was so excited! I know Dr. K, hula hooping champion, would be very proud. So would Jen, she used to carry her workout hula hoop in the back of her car everywhere she went!

Day 29

• Yea! I got my foreigners card! I’m officially legal here! I can now open a bank account so I can get direct deposit for my pay checks. I can get internet ordered for home so I don’t have to go in to work every weekend to use skype or the internet. And perhaps most importantly, I can get my portable router so I can use my iphone.
• Today I went to the doctors because my eyes are really irritated. Turns out that I have allergies. I got antihistamine drops to use when ever they get red. I might be allergic to the fall weather since I’m not use to leaves falling, or it could be the small amount of shrimp that they put in everything. Apparently everything uses a Korean sauce that has a small amount of shrimp in it. Who knows, maybe being exposed to tiny amounts of it will help me build a tolerance to it, like getting a vaccine.
• I went to the gym after work today and taught Sunny how to box. She taught me to say “dong jong” which means hurry or faster. So now I say “dong jong” and she says “I go” in response to my training methods.
• After regular school kids go to “hogwans” to study English or math etc. I want to go to Hogwarts to study! Well, maybe not. Kids in my apartment complex don’t come home from school till 11 pm. It’s illegal for hogwans to stay open till midnight but many of them still do. By the time kids are in high school they are lucky if they get 3 hours of sleep a night. There is actually a Korean prober that translates to “if you sleep more than 3 hours a night you are wasting your life.” They take school very seriously here. Now I feel like a true Korean student because I stay up late at night and practice Korean using a computer program Mike gave me.
• Melissa, did you know that when we would chase down the Kogi truck we were chasing the meat truck? Kogi means meat. I think it is so funny for me, a vegetarian, to be chasing after the meat truck. It’s pronounced “koo-gee.”

Day 28

• Today was my first day working with my new co-worker Mike. He is British and has been living here for 3 years. He has a Korean wife and an adorable baby girl. Like me he set up photo collection on Facebook. He has one collection for politically incorrect cartoons and educational materials. The other is photos of things that aren’t breakfast although served as breakfast by his wife. And like me, his apartment was dirty when he moved in. He said Koreans think it is bad luck to clean someone else house; it will curse them. He also said he thinks its just plain lazy, but that would explain why my place was so dirty.
• Mike tried to teach me everything he wishes he had known when he first got here. He showed me a website he uses to order English books and another for ordering western foods. They only charge $2.50 for shipping too! He also showed me an online class that he used to learn Korean so hopefully I can get signed up for that soon. He also showed me some interesting things to check out while I’m here like the area that has the most dinosaur foot prints in the world. And he also suggested I check out pizza in a cone. That’s right, pizza served in an ice cream cone. Check it out http://www.conepizza.co.kr/ Click on the second button at the top to see the picture menu, it's fantastic! I don’t know about pizza cones but I am always up for fossil hunting.
• We got a humidifier for the office. The heaters are on all the time now because it’s about 0C or 32F everyday and the air is really dry. Hopefully the humidifier will help because my face is already starting to get flaky eeeeeew. Mike suggested throwing water on my warm floor at home and letting it evaporate. I guess that is what they did at their house before they bought a humidifier for the winter.

Day 27

• I forgot to tell you all about the politically incorrect sporting goods store at the base of the mountain we were climbing this past weekend. Right next door to the North Face store was the Red Face store. No joke! It’s a legitimate Korean out door gear shop. I’m kicking myself for not taking a picture of it. I think I was just too tired to pull my camera out at that point.
• So instead of working in the garden or taking cruses around the world, when Koreans retire they spend their free time hiking. Some of these old men and women were blazing past me on the trail and climbing like spider monkeys over the difficult rock course. I was shocked at how agile they were. Now I really want to be an old Korean woman when I grow up.
• Lucas, I keep forgetting to tell you that they have a commercial on TV for some kind of drink, or maybe it is soy sauce, but anyways, in the background they are playing Regina Spektor’s “On the Radio.” Every time I hear it I think of you. Oooooo.
• I just found the Korean Jon and Kate plus 8. Actually it’s a Korean family with 4 or 5 toddles. The dad just put some tooth paste on the kid’s bug bites; I wonder if that works to stop the itch or not?
• Angela, you will be proud. Even though I was very sore from the hike this weekend, I went to the gym with the girls tonight. I just did a little walking on the treadmill and some stretching to help with the tightness I feel in my thighs and calf muscles. Its fun because the girls know nothing about fitness and regard me as like their personal trainer. When ever we are doing tough exercises I always say “oh, this is my sister’s favorite.” They think you have way too many favorites, and they don’t seem to like them as much as you or I do. And they do not follow the “when you can’t do any more, do five more” rule. They just collapse and say “I go” which is Korean for ‘I’m dying.’ Ha ha ha ha, I miss working out with my sis!

Day 26

• Today was a lazy day. Ever since I arrived here I get up early and go in to work to talk on skype with my family. I needed a day to sleep without waking up to an alarm clock. I slept 11 hours!!!! I guess I was really tired after the hike yesterday and needed to rest.
• Today Chin and I went to Lotte Department store. We got some groceries, and Chin helped me get the needed supplies to make my favorite Korean dipping sauce. It uses sesame oil, sweetened olive oil, soy sauce, sesame seeds, black pepper, and chopped green onions. It is soooo good! I ate my octopus pancake leftovers with my homemade dipping sauce.
• Oh man! At Lotte Department store they have Panda mice! The mice are black and white with little nub tails, like hamsters. It reminds me of Gary and Brandee’s favorite movie “Royal Tenenbaums.”

Day 25

• Today I went hiking with Steve and Sehyung. Apparently, because of the cold weather and the difficulty of the trail everyone else from our work’s hiking club didn’t show up. But the two guys that did go were really nice, and their English was very good. The mountain we went to was about a 40 minute drive from the city and our hike took about 6 hours to complete. Chin’s hiking boots and climbing poll worked wonderfully! We passed many beautiful temples and even saw some of the monks getting ready to make their winter batch of Kimchi. The hike was around 7.5 miles round trip, and had a really difficult rock climbing section. I am the first woman from our work’s hiking club to ever complete the rock climbing section of that hike. There is a metal cable that runs along the ridge line to help you hang on, and sometimes the guys would have to put a foot up against a rock so I could have a false ledge to step on, or give me a hand to pull me up and over a rock, but other than that, it was all me without any ropes or harness. It was extremely difficult, but I am so proud to hold the title of first female from our hiking club to accomplish this task that I feel it was worth the struggle. As we were making our decent off the mountain someone was being airlifted out so you know that rock climbing section is not easy.
• Last night Sunny told me they don’t have the saying “piece of cake” to imply something is easy. Instead, if something is easy they say it’s like “cutting a radish.” I will take cake over radish any day! They love there radishes here. Radish is served at every meal. There is even a credit card commercial on TV with an animated radish that gets a credit card swiped between its butt cheeks!