Drunk old man, sewing machine and shitty banks

Hello again!

First of all, I would like to add a correction to my last post. The picture of the massage parlour is actually a karaoke place, commonly called a noraebang ("noh-ray-bung") in Korea. However there are girls there that you hire to serve you drinks and such and they also usually have "extra services" off the record. Sorry for the confusion!

Anyhoo, yesterday I spent the day with my friend Jeremy from Seoul. He was awesome helping me with finding my way around and figuring out which buses to take. While doing that, I came across this underground shopping centre in Seongnam which was enormous. The picture shows how you can't see the end, it's crazy.

                                     

For the first time I was harassed by an old drunk guy at the train station which was interesting. Thankfully Jeremy was around to shield me from that a bit. I'll know for next time to avoid them completely. Apparently the trick it to avoid all eye contact.

I successfully managed to set up a bank account which is awesome, however they wouldn't give me a debit card until I have been here for 6 months. Grr. I talked to another bank and as soon as I have my alien registration card, I'll be able to get an account with a different bank and have access to a debit card :)

Jeremy and I watched Wolverine and finished the day off with Stone Cold Creamery. If you haven't had it before, you are missing out. They take your chosen flavour of ice-cream and mix it with your chosen topping i.e. cookies, cookie dough, pie crust, different sauces etc and then smoosh it all together. I had cream cheese ice cream with pie crust and strawberry sauce for a strawberry cheese cake ice cream.

Thanks to Jeremy, I now know all my buses to and from Seoul!

Today was fun! I started out the day with Popeyes...bad idea. I now love their food and it will be a struggle to go past that place and not get something to eat

After lunch I went to the Emart with my new friend Fiona. We trawled around attempting to decipher the different foods and marvel at the prices of things we find cheap back home and are expensive here and vice versa. For example the canned tomatoes are in the 'International section' and are about $3 each, triple what you can get them for in NZ, and I bought almond milk, 2 4 1 for $4 which I can imagine is HEAPS cheaper than NZ. Along the way you often find so nice examples of Engrish.

Fine Quality of Life - Some excellent engrish at Emart

This evening I managed, with Fiona's help, To get to Bundang to go and visit the Culture Complex where I sat a small Korean test and signed up for free Korean classes for the next two months!! I'm so excited to start on Monday night. The people were lovely and really helpful. I have to admit, I'm a little nervous about it though. I'm slow at reading in Korean and it was embarrassing at how slow I was when tested which was frustrating. Luckily the guy was really encouraging and did his best to make me feel comfortable. Hopefully after two months of learning I'll be much better!

This is my Korean text book, I'm so excited to start learning!

Lastly I met Jieun in Bundang for dinner. We had pho and nasi goreng which were both amazeballs. I'm loving all the food here in Korea and it's inspiring me to branch out a little more with my own cooking.

Nasi Goreng

Seafood Pho

It was really nice to have dinner with just Jieun this time. I love hanging out with Jae Hyun as well but it was cool to get to know a bit more about Jieun. I feel like we are going to be really good friends and we are going to bond as family while I'm here in Korea and this was something I wasn't sure I would ever be able to do if we never lived in the same country.

I have never relied so heavily on one piece of technology as I do my phone while being here. This has also meant that my battery on my phone drains super quick so a quick trip to the apple store and i have a new gadget!!

Portable battery charger

This thing is going to be SO handy!!

Finally I arrived home to my other new gadget: a handheld sewing machine!

I bought this a few days ago on the G Market website (like ebay but for companies only). As I have lamented to many of you in the past, Korean clothing is hard to find in my size and when you do find it big enough, it's often misshapen or unflattering. So, I took some inspiration from YouTube and starting looking at ways that I could adjust things myself. G Market also had full size sewing machines available for delivery for about $60 but I figured I would give this a go first as it's portable and I wouldn't have to get rid of it at the end of the year as I could take it with me! Once I have done my first project I will post about it so you can all see how my first attempt using this device works. It also means that if it goes well, I can buy some and post them to you if you would like one :)

Lastly, just because I thought you might all enjoy this, I saw this in the window of a shop on my street. The shop is called Mini Me and is dedicated to matching outfits for mums and daughters...so cute!

Much Love,
Ally

My First Week and a Bit in Korea!

안녕하세요 - Herro!

So it's been a big week...I'll start at the start...

I arrived on the 17th at about 9:30pm korean time which for me felt like 12:30am. Jae's mum and sister-in-law picked me and brought me to my new apartment. 

My apartment is a one room jobbie with a small bathroom and laundry. I'm slowly getting used to the bathroom situation....Anyone who is not familiar with a korean bathroom see below.

Front door with restaurant advertising

Kitchen/dining/living room

Bathroom with door that doesn't open fully as it gets
stuck on the sink...

This is my shower....notice no actual shower area?

View from the bathroom

Surprisingly, apart from getting used to the bathroom size. it's actually quite comfortable for one person. My lovely head foreign teacher had already dropped of some food for me in the morning which was awesome. 

My first day was me observing the current foreign teacher and checking out how everything worked. I met all the kids and my other teachers. Hannah, my korean co-teacher, is pretty cool and she learnt english in Australia so she loves my accent (I know not australian but no one here knows the difference). Turns out the kids are not so fond of it and they think I say their names wrong sometimes... :(. I am officially called Ally Teacher in the class. I found this so weird as the korean culture is based so much around respecting those older than you I naturally assumed you would be known by your surname name as this is respectful in my culture. Clearly I'm still learning A LOT.

Lunch time with Hannah Teacher

The weekend consisted of me kitting out my apartment and attempting to unpack. I'm not going to lie....I may still have one of my suitcases open on the ground... I went to the Emart (enormous all purpose store) to get some food along with a microwave and blender for my morning smoothies.

Jae's Brother and his Wife helped me with my phone and I went and had dinner with the family :) We had chinese (korean style) which was awesome....sorry no photos...

I also made a new couple of friends via a facebook group for foreigners in Gwangju and we went out for Galbi - korean bbq type stuff.

BBQ meat (can't remember if beef or pork with egg slow cooking around the side. SO GOOD!!!

I also went back to the Emart and got myself some super awesome scuffs. It's totally normal to wear a really nice outfit to school and then change into you scuffs for class. Particulary with socks. SO if you can't beat them join them.

This fancy handywork was thanks to a health check I had to do in order to get an alien registration card. I can't do anything without it. No bank account, no internet, no phone. 

Anyhoo...so the health check was awkward as hell. None of the staff spoke any english and i was shunted about with some pretty poor charades. Chest xray, blood work, urine test, hearing test, eye test and ECG. I wish someone had explained this to me earlier...

Fancy bruise from a terrible blood test

Thursday we had David's birthday party. All the kids have English names and here are a couple photos of them at the birthday party.

From L-R, Paul, Edwin, David and Kevin

From L-R, Lynn (Director's daughter), May, Rachel, David, Lucy,  Ellie and Elin.

Drawing time after lunch!

 Friday was Summer Camp (not much of a camp as opposed to a school fun day) and we all went swimming and played sports. All the kids got some "awesome" face painting done by me and the other foreign teachers.

 Followed by a few after work drinks and snacks.

After the work drinks I went into town and met up with the local foreigners and met some awesome new people. We meet every friday at the "Self-serve". This is a cool little bar where everything is in bottles in the fridges and you help yourself...as the name suggests. Then at the end you take up your empties and pay. It's super cheap as well.

'The Other Gwangju" group on facebook is a welcome source of support when i'm confused about stuff and they are great for helping you out with all the bits and pieces you need to know to get places. They have made settling in here much easier.

Saturday I went with Jae Hyun, Jieun and Jieun's family to Yong Pyeong in the Kangwon-do province. This is where the winter olympics are going to be held in 2018. As you can see the ski fields are not on mountains like NZ but rather on hills where they have cut a path through the bush. Ski fields literally go right up to the resort themselves so you don't even have to drive to the fields.

Korean ski fields in the summer

On Saturday we went to the swim park nearby with Jieun's two younger cousins. Note to self, buy a rash shirt to avoid awkward stares. Once again I was uncomfortable as hell in the changing room. Korean women have no problem being naked around each other and even when they have the ability to cover up they don't. This is something I will get used to eventually however it's going to take a while...lol

We all went out for korean BBQ and it was amazing. I also discovered the despite not really liking soju before and definitely not liking beer before, I really liked somaen which is beer with a shot of soju in it. Had this while sitting outside watching an ajeosshi (middle aged man) dancing on his own to the singer. He had some rad moves. His moves were closely followed by the other two ajeosshi slow dancing together.

Today we all went up the mountain to go riding the Alpine Coaster. This is a single cart roller coaster that you control your self. It was crazy but really fun. While waiting for our turn we hung out at the petting zoo.

Alpine coaster cart

Petting zoo at the top of the mountain

Geese - my long lost family according to mum

View from the top of 'mountain' 

The three hour ride home was painful. It's summer holiday season at the moment and everyone still goes to the ski resort during the summer as there are small water parks and the resorts are cheap. This also means an awful lot of traffic both there and back.

Finally arrived back in Gwangju and met my new Canadian friend Fiona for some Woo Sam Gyup and Samgyeopsal . This is another type of BBQ meat stuff (I love korean BBQ). Woo Sam Gyup is thinly sliced beef that is BBQ'd with garlic and pepper oil and comes out like beef bacon. Samgyeopsal is pork belly BBQ'd. Both you cook and then wrap in a lettuce leaf with sauces and kimchi. AMZEBALLS.

Menu shot

Cooking shot

Finally walking home about 9pm and I noticed this on the way home. This is supposed to be a massage parlour but i somehow think there might be extras...

I'm sorry this was such a long post. Hopefully i'll keep the rest a bit shorter and update a couple times a week.

Please comment on the blogpost if there is anything you would particularly like to see of my adventures or places you would like me to take photos of and I will do my best :)

Much love
Ally

First Post!

Yay! The blog is set up! This blog will basically be about anything and everything we do & eat...or anything else we think might be interesting to other people..

Hopefully Ally will upload all the photos she's taken so far along with interesting tales.

For me, it will probably a little while until I have interesting enough things to put on the blog...probably not until I get to NY.

Let the blogging BEGIN!!!!