Making My Home in Korea

Another week down, 40 some more to go. Don't get me wrong, I am in no hurry for this to end. Especially now that I feel like I've finally got the final touches for my apartment and everything is coming together. It's strange what little things can really make a space feel like a home, no matter where you are. For instance, a coffee maker. For some reason I've been dicking around with these stupid instant coffee packets that the Koreans love for 3 months now. I'm sure they have more sugar than coffee in them and absolutely no legitimate caffeine. This particular brand below is the staple of my school, I probably consume around six of those tubes a day, and I don't even want to know how many calories are packed into each one.

But not anymore! After getting paid on Friday I woke up Saturday morning and walked about 20 minutes to the local E-Mart (imagine a multi-level Super Target but without all the cute clothes and shoes to spend your entire pay check on) and I got my shop on. In addition to the coffee maker I also bought hangers. Yes, hangers have also made my apartment feel like home, now that I'm not shuffling through my clothes piled up inside my wardrobe. Unfortunately this trip took longer than necessary because I stared at the minuscule cheese section for about 15 minutes debating on whether to spend 10,000 Won on a can of Kraft Parmesan cheese. I weighed the pro's: I could now put the finishing touches on of my one overpriced staples here, Spaghetti with Classico tomato sauce, I could also add it to the many pizza's I order here, or I could just make do without it. Is the suspense killing you? Did I buy it, or didn't I? Well, I didn't. But that is not without much regret. After realizing that such a delightful flavor is available on this side of the world I will be sure to spend my money unnecessarily on a can of Parmesan on my NEXT trip to E-Mart. While I was there I also bought a much needed SECOND pillow. Yes, I now have two pillows. I now can sadly cuddle my second pillow every night! Plus, the pillows really do make it more like home. Back in Minnesota I had probably 8 pillows on my bed. Here, I have 1.5 (the second one is just a smaller square shape). To top off my home enhancing purchases I bought Starbucks coffee for.. dun dun dun.. 15,000 Won. But it was worth every penny (or should I say Won?)

On to something more interesting, I hope. Saturday night was much like any other Saturday night here, except there were a few new additions. In the last week or two I've met two new gals (one Canadian and one Minnesotan!) and it's exciting to see their reaction to life in Korea. First we went out to dinner and got Samgyupsal, aka fatty delicious pork belly that's fried and you roll it up in leaves. We ate on the floor amongst a sea of starving and staring (at us) Koreans. Now, to exemplify something I frequently write about, the homogeneity of Korea, I will tell you, or rather show you, what happened during dinner. A nice Korean couple came up to us and wanted to take a picture with us for the pure fact that we were foreigners. Yes, that's right. A group of over 3 or 4 really grabs their attention. On the plus side, she ended up bringing a beer and two soda's over to us to show her appreciate for the photo, it's just a bit strange. Could you imagine going up to some Korean's back home and asking for their photo? No. Dominique saw this as a fine time to also take a picture of the group. Remember, no picture is complete in Korea without the peace sign.

I also got to introduce Dominique, the Canadian, to her first sip of Soju (which definitely ended up being like 200 sips) and introduce Jessica, the Minnesotan, to her new favorite bar. Meeting new people here is such a common and great thing and really makes me think of how little I broadened my social circle back home. However, back home you have that comfort zone, and theres no need to step away. Here, there really can be no comfort zone, and we all have one universal commonality, Korea. For most of us, we all cried our eyes out to our family and friends, we all stressed for weeks before moving, and we all saved and researched and made that big choice to leave everything we know for Korea. This being said, we are all VERY different too. I thought for sure I'd meet the same person over and over again here, but no. We come from different countries, different social classes, different majors in college, and in the end have very different goals in life, but we all thought Korea would be the best choice for us now.

Anyways, after dinner we headed to the three main bars in Gwangju and I got to explain to the new gals how Gwangju may be quite large, but still a very small town for us foreigners. One of Jessica's friends was visiting Gwangju from Busan (originally from Chicago) and the three of us came to a mutual agreement that Gwangju really is the Minneapolis of Korea, while Busan is the Chicago, and Seoul or course is the New York city.

Here's a glimpse of Saturday, me looking lovely, Fliss looking drunk, and Dom looking serious:

Sunday was almost as exciting by our new discovery, BREAKFAST! Yes, you really have no idea how much the simple pleasure of a breakfast food can make us Gwangjunians (spelling?) happy. Recently a restaurant was opened by foreigners here and their dinner menu has been splendid. Now, they have a Sunday BRUNCH!!! I LOVE BRUNCH!!! The food was really good and it's also fun to have a good Sunday morning chat with your friends over real brewed coffee and recap the mayhem that was the night before.

I'm pretty sure that's the highlight of my week. Well, actually I've been doing really good at studying Korean, and I really love it. I've been working on 10 words a day and it seems to get a lot easier the more I learn. I'm also getting close to paying off one of my 3 credit cards, so life is good. This weekend I should hopefully be taking a day trip to Mokpo and get some good pics of the beach (about 45 minutes away) Bye bye!