update!

Hi! Sorry for the lapse in entries! I've been busy, running all around the city... Okay, so I guess I'll go back to last week. The 4th was Jooeun, my host sister's 6th birthday (5 years old in America). We went out to a Chinese restaurant for dinner and had cake later at home. I gave her a Hello Kitty purse full of candy, which she seemed to really like. She's so cute when she wears it!

I started classes on the 4th. I really like them so far. I have class from 9-1 every day; writing for the first hour, speaking for the next two hours, and reading/listening for the last hour, with three different teachers. There are roughly 15 students in my class, some come and go through out the day, although most are in all three of my classes.
I really like the emphasis on speaking. Hopefully my speaking will improve!... My classmates are from all over. There are about 4 or 5 from Japan. Two from Canada, one from Sweden, one from Taiwan, one or two from China, and me and this other guy from America. Peoples' ages are all over too. At Yonsei, my classmates and I were all relatively the same age. In my class at Sogang, I am one of the youngest and the ages range up to 65 or 70! But in any case, I really like all of my classmates.

So, I generally (try) to get up around 7 and leave home around 7:50 to catch the subway to school. I have one transfer, and its pretty crowded because its rush hour... Sometimes people pack in so tight that I seriously think if I "sat down" or picked up my legs, I wouldn't fall to the ground. Its gross. Thankfully, most mornings its not quite that bad. I've started tutoring two families (their children, rather) in English. One lives pretty far from school; it takes about an hour from school to get there and then another 10-15 min. walk from the subway station and then about an hour and a half to get home. Its a long day...
Last Monday, my first time, I didn't get back home until 8:30! But the kids are cute. There are two boys, a 7 year old and an 11 year old. I tutor them for 3 hours. They were both pretty shy last week, but I'm sure this coming Monday will be better! They want to play games. haha.
The other family lives in my building, which is a heck of a lot closer! I actually tutored them for the first time tonight. They are a brother and sister and I tutor them at the same time, as they are only a year apart (10 and 11) and have similar English levels. Very cute! I had a lot of fun tonight! and thought our lesson (hour and a half) went very well. We went over introductions, continents and countries on a world map, directions, read an entire book together, and played hangman and word bingo.

Last weekend I met up with a two of the Korean staff from camp, and Kyungmoon. I met Kyungmoon at camp two years ago, and she is now studying abroad at Yonsei on the same program, CIEE, that I went on. I met the two unnis (what girls call other girls who are older than them) and we went out for dinner. We had shabushabu, or hotpot. They ordered the seafood style, and they were extremely entertained by the fact that I had never eaten a mussle or crab before and that I was scared of the shrimp, which still had its shells and legs. I tried everything once, but I wouldn't say I'm a fan...

seafood hotpot

Junghye unni and me

Then Kyungmoon joined us and we went to Junghye's house, which is near where I live! It's so awesome, her husband is a director (he directed the show JUMP, which is in one of my entries from the last time I was here) and she teaches drama classes to children! She drove Kyungmoon and Yunjung to their bus stop back in Sinchon and then was going to drive me back to my house. But we got lost! She was using her GPS, but it hadn't been updated in a while and kept freezing up on us! She is quite possibly the cutest adult on the face of the planet so it was really funny to watch her call the GPS pabo (stupid).
We were so close, like within a 5 mile radius, but we were lost for a little over an hour! We had had tea at her house, and tea really makes me have to pee... I thought I could hold it until I got home, but when I realized we weren't going to find my apartment anytime soon, I had to ask her to pull over to find a bathroom. How embarrassing!
We went to a GS25 convenient store, but they didn't have one and the guy told us to go to the PC bong (place where anyone can come and use the computer to play games etc.) on the second floor. Since Junghye thought I really really had to pee, which I did, she ran. Not good! But I made it! and luckily the guy was really nice and helped us look up where we were on the internet without charging us!
We ran back to the car and turned on the GPS, but it froze again. It took us another 20 min. and a few times up and down the street to find my house! A memorable night to be sure, and good thing I didn't wait to go to the bathroom!

On Saturday I met up with Kyungmoon again and we went to Myeongdong to go shopping. I didn't really actually have any money, but whatever. Then we met my host family at Lotte World, a giant amusement park. Sooo much fun! I hate scary rides, but even the "safe" rides were awesome! Plus, Kyungmoon and I pretended to be 18 and got in with a teen discount. My favorite ride was the hot air balloons that take you around the entire inside of the amusement park, which is both indoor and outdoor (there is an ice rink inside!). The laser show was also pretty cool! There were flames and fireworks, all inside. Kind of seemed like a huge fire hazard to me, but whatever. It was cool. I could feel the heat from the flames!

Kyungmoon and me above the ice rink

my host family

in front of my favorite ride!

On Sunday, I met up with Susie and Mark for lunch. It was fun seeing both of them at the same time! and weird to think that we were in a different country, not MN. After lunch Susie had tutoring and Mark had to go get his apt. stuff sorted out. I actually translated his entire real estate transaction! Obviously not word for word or perfectly, but I got the main point across to both parties. I have no idea how that happened. Seriously. But I have to say, I was pretty impressed with myself. lol.

Mark chilling in his new pad

A few days ago it snowed! Yes, snowed. Weird, because I thought I left that all behind when I left MN... It was kind of a freak thing here, because normally the weather is warming up by now. But on March 10, we got about 5-6 inches of snow! And of course the city isn't set up to handle snow the way I'm used to in MN, so the hundreds and thousands of people trekking on the same sidewalks packed down the snow into ice. Awesome. It was really fun walking to school that day. But everything looked very nice and clean and pristine.

people use umbrellas when it snows...

view from the subway station near my house - don't you love the yellow house?

The tenth, Wednesday, was also Kyungmoon's bday! We met up that evening for dinner with two of the Korean staff members from camp. I waited for 20 some min. in the cold hoping someone would come to the area that we were supposed to meet. Not having a phone sucks. But I finally found Kyungmoon, and then we found YunJung unni, who then pointed us in the right direction and we met up with Eunji unni.
Dinner was fun. We went to this Italian restaurant in Sinchon and the manager guy spoke English and gave us a stack of photos to look at to choose our dinner, since the entire menu was in Korean. lol! Oddly, he lived in Rockford, IL for a few years! which is about 20 min. from Beloit and where Sarang went to church. Weird!

mooncat looking at pictures of possible entres

After dinner, we went to 치우 bar; the bar that my classmates and I used to go to every Friday after class! Everyone there could hold their liquor pretty well except me. We ordered 3000 cc of beer and a bottle of soju (Korean version of vodka). Yunjung unni poured the bottle into the pitcher of beer and mixed it all up. When there was about a 1/4 of the pitcher left, they all concluded I needed to finish it by myself and they ordered another 2000 cc of beer and another bottle of soju. I tried, but couldn't do it.^^ I still had to get myself home and get up at 7 the next morning for class. I did get pretty tipsy though... I will not make going out on a school night a habit, although the next day in class, about 4 or 5 other classmates had gone out and were feel the same as me. lol!

Yunjung unni & Eunji unni

Kyungmoon blowing out candles for her 21st bday!

why oh why does my face turn so red!?

unnis again

So, until today I did not have a phone, which is EXTREMELY frustrating in a country where it is common to see 4 and 5 year olds with their own cell phones. Ironically (and unfortunately) one of my friends was in the same predicament as me. He had gone to the immigration office, spent about 5 hours waiting and then was turned away (by a really mean clerk) because he didn't have his school registration documents, spent about $40 on taxis running around the city trying to get a hold of his papers, come back the next day and got the same clerk, and wont get his card until Monday. In addition, just like me, he also did not go to the bank to deposit his travelers checks prior to handing in his passport for his immigration card, and was without money for the past two weeks... ugh.

As a kind of continuation of my immigration card saga, I couldn't buy a phone until I received my alien reg. card. Today was the day that my card would be ready! Last night I had called one of my friends from my Korean class at Yonsei, who is now attending grad. school at Yonsei to see if she could help me get a phone, as her Korean has become very good. Coincidentally, she used to have a part time job at a cellphone store! So, she knows the ins-and-outs of how to go about buying a phone and said she would help me out.
I left class an hour early (I missed reading class...) to make sure I had enough time to go the immigration office, go to the bank and deposit my travelers checks, meet Dewi in Sinchon, get a phone, all before my 5:30 tutoring job (its takes me 40-45 min. to get back home from Sinchon).

Luckily, I got my card in about 5 min. at the immigration office! I went to the Woori Bank next to the immigration office and got my travelers checks deposited no problem. Then I took the subway back to Sinchon and met up with Dewi. We went around to a few phone stores to check things out and I found a phone I really liked, the Samsung B8850D. But it was almost $300! Plus all of the stores were telling me that I could not buy a phone as my immigration card was only good for 6 months and that Dewi couldn't put me under her name (shes Indonesian), as foreigners weren't allowed to do that! Arg!! So, we kept looking and came across a store opening. We went inside and saw the phone I liked. The retail price was $449 but it was crossed off and said 공짜 aka FREE. awesome!
 

phone et al.

After a few phone calls, the sales man concluded that he would let me go under Dewi's name since my visa was too short. Interesting how different places and people tell you completely different things... Two other places said it was impossible. ha. It took forever though! and I was running out of time before I had to leave for tutoring!
We ran into some problems because I guess my bank account is still set up under my old immigration card, which no longer exists, as they took it at immigrations 2 years ago... So, they couldn't access my account, even though I had deposited a lot of money in it earlier today. So, Dewi and I had to run to her boarding house and grab her bank book so that we could set it up under her account. I can switch it in two weeks to my own account. Whew. I don't know what I would have done without Dewi! Seriously.

with the antenna to watch TV

Not gonna lie. My phone is pretty awesome. I really wanted white, but they only had black. As long as its free, black is fine by me. I can watch TV on it! It comes with a little antenna that I can screw into the phone when I wanna watch TV. People do it all the time on the subways. haha. It also came with headphones, an extra battery, and a battery charger! Bank. So, I now have a phone, a (semi-useless) immigration card, money in the bank, and my passport back. Life is good.