11 and 12 of 293

Glad I'm not Ciara and Brock.  If I didn't say it before, I'm saying it now, I am so thankful that I got eased into the Korean pace that we call life.  Ciara and Brock did not have it so easy.  Neither did Mrs. Riley, while I am at it.

Ok, so we woke up Saturday morning and got ready to go to Seoul.  Caleb and Kathrine were going to show us around a new part of Seoul and then we were supposed to meet Pastor Kim for dinner at some point.  Leaving for the day we had no clue when or where we would be meeting them.  We were hoping for an early dinner!!!  While Daniel, Christine, and I had already been through a few of the firsts that happen when moving to Korea, the others still had to do some.  So they first got to take the walk from the apartment to the Subway.  Mrs. Riley knew what she was in for, but the others didn't.  Don't forget that Mrs. Riley is still wearing the boot.  She was a super trooper!  Once at the subway we had to go through the whole process of getting our subway passes.  I don't think I have explained the process yet, so why don't I do it know when we have the most people trying to do it.  Korea has this awesome system where you can buy a subway pass through a prepaid card, or your credit card, or your phone.  Caleb and Kathrine get to enjoy that perk all the time!!!  However the only way to use that system is if you have and ARC card first, which none of us have yet.  Hopefully this week!!  So, if you don't have the ARC card that enables you to then get a prepaid card, credit card account that issues the T-card (Transportation card) or phone service, then you must buy a single trip card every time you go to the subway.  If you live in Deokjeong, like we do, then you can not be more than like a thousand won over, or they will not be able to give you change.  A subway card, normally cost between 1500 won to 3000 won.  American dollar approximately $1.50 to $3.00. Not that bad, and you get 500 won for returning the card each time.  So, it is about $.50 cents cheaper than that. I'm sure that is really interesting for you few readers, but it is what it is.  So there are 5 of us trying to get our card, and we are all trying to get as close to the right amount as we can, so that we can actually get the card.  Sometimes we have to buy two single trip tickets together and pay each other back, so that the purchase amount can be something that the kiosk has the change for.  So we then go to the turnstyles, hover our card, and walk through, but wait.... it didn't register right for someone...alert! alert!, so they try again....nope, denied.  (You see the trick is that if it doesn't work the first time, you have to back totally out and then try again, otherwise, it will never let you through.  I know this because I am an old pro at this point. :)) So, finally they back all the way out, then hover the card, then green means go and they go!  We take the stairs to the top and wait for the subway.  I know I have discussed the rules of the subway, and if they read my blog they already know them, but Brock, I don't think he read my blog.  SHAME!  But, maybe he did, and he is just too polite anyway.  I will go with the second option, because seriously is has the gentleman-ly thing down.  He opens doors for ladies, and everyone really.  He lets everyone else sit first.  He is just too polite, puts all other guys to shame.  He would probably hate that I am even pointing it out.  So anyway, I only point this out now, because it comes into play later.  So we get on the subway, and of course, there are no seats.  So here we are, 9 Americans riding the subway.  Eventually seats become available for most of us, but poor Brock, he is just too nice!  He didn't really seem to mind anyway.  We get to Seoul, and where do we go first, Starbucks!  Thats right!  Then off to a street market.  By the way, let me just describe what this part of Seoul looks like.  You should all know what Time Square looks like in New York, well, where we got off in Seoul looks a lot like that main intersection you see that creates that "Y".  We go down the crowded market and they have vendors of every kind imaginable.  It was hard to even really want to stop because it was just so crowded and full of stuff.  We did stop at a few places though, Kathrine and Ciara go some crazy pants, don't really know how else to describe them.  Sorry Kathrine and Ciara if that offends you.  Christine got some things for grandkids.  Ciara and Daniel bought this cinnamon thing, that was pretty good.  Then we got to the Alpha store!  This is the best store I have seen for teachers, doesn't have everything that you would want, but it has more than anywhere else.  It also has lots of other stuff as well.  All of us girls bought a few things there, while the boys went off to do I don't know what.  All I do know is that they ate Korean food and we ate McDonalds, well everyone except Kathrine who had Smoothie King.  After the Alpha store, Kathrine led us to the Palace Station (pic on fb) and then back through the market to do some more shopping.  Ciara, Kathrine, and Mrs. Riley all bought some clothes.  Then we were all pretty much tired and wondering when we were going to meet Pastor Kim.  About 3pm, after being in Sould for about 4 or 5 hours, we back up with the boys and go to a movie, we found out that we were not meeting Pastor Kim til 6:30.

We decided to go see Non-Stop with Liam Neelson, "Mary" from Downton Abby, some guy from House of Cards, and some other people.  7 of us were in front row seats, but I guess as compensation for having to be in the front row, we got these amazing foot rests.  I want one!!! It was agreed by everyone that it was just what we all needed.  So the movie is in English with Korean subtitles.  Nice! right?  The only problem, and don't get me wrong, I appreciated the English, the only problem was that there was a lot of texting in the plot of the movie, and all the texts were posted in Korean instead of English, so we never knew what the texts said.  It doesn't seem like a big deal, but a big portion of the movie happened through text.  Still liked the movie.  I didn't totally guess the ending.  It still surprised me!

We leave the movie and find out that we are going to a different place, which is further away, to meet Pastor Kim.  We get there about 7pm and sit down to a fancy Korean meal.  Luckily I am by Sally, who takes good care of me when it comes to Korean food.  She lets me know what is or isn't spicy.  They had a salad that was amazing, it had a sesame dressing.  YUM!  Instead of pork, which we usually get, we had steak.  The plain steak was delicious.  Of course we had all the other stuff, which I did not eat, except for rice.  When we got there, we thought we were going to be eating on the floor, but when we actually got to the table, we found that we could let our legs hang down under the table!  Thank goodness!  Upon leaving, we found out that we got to take food home, each apartment got to take home what we had just eaten to cook at home later (FYI- haven't cooked it yet)

We then took the subway back home, walked to our apartments and crashed for the night.

The next day, we all got up and went to the church that Caleb and Kathrine have been going to.  Which required another subway ride, much shorter.  Seoul takes over an hour, this was only like 20 minutes.  We stopped and had coffee, then walked to the church.  It was pretty good.  He preached (in English) against compromising with sin.  He used Jehoshaphat as the example.  It was pretty good, like I said before.  Afterward, many of the people talked with us.  We were kind of a big group, couldn't just get overlooked.  We found out that they have an international school as part of their church as well.  I don't think it is all grades like ours, but I could be wrong about that.  We then went to eat at a food court in a mall.  I got Burger King (the Burger King food I have ever had), everyone else got Korean food.  I figure I need to take advantage of the opportunities to eat food I really like when I can.  We headed back home after eating and then later went to Caleb and Kathrine's for pizza.  Which was pretty good!  Kathrine made a chocolate cake topped with strawberries and sugar that was pretty darn good.

We all headed home to get plenty of rest for our first full week of work!  School blogs...coming soon to a computer screen near you.