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