Day 2

Good Morning! I woke up, looked out my window, and realized, I am in South Korea, and I live here. Random thought, right? LOL. Kristine buzzed my door this morning. I was knocked alllll the way out, like, gone. I had almost been up for 24 straight hours, so I guessed it was to be expected. My buzzer was sooooo loud! I got up, head scarf and all, and let her in. I got dressed quickly, and we met one of her Korean friends for coffee at Starbucks. She is practicing her English to become a teacher. A lot of the Koreans who speak English really cant do so very well. It is a mess, because they are teaching these kids alllll wrong lol. But I guess that is what I am here for, to change the world, 1 child at a time ;-) But after coffee, we went to meet Tarita at the subway station. It was good to see my pooks! LOL, I didn't feel sad anymore, but seeing her made me feel like I would be able to make it for real. We met two other people, who I went to dinner with yesterday. The group of us walked around new Daejeon to a small restaurant. Tarita had Kimbop, which is like sushi rolls. I had this combination platter of Kimbob and these things called rice cakes, which are like chewy thick noodles, and fish cakes, which are like dumplings made of fish and crab. It had this red sauce, and was served with these extra good fried dumplings. The other people got fried rice with egg. The boy who was with us ate the rest of my food, I was stuffed after the 3 of the 10 pieces of Kimbop, and 2 rice cake noodles. Then, after getting directions from Kristine, Tarita and I separated from them and went our own way. I was scared, but Tarita made a good point...if we get lost, we can just take a cab. I had my address written down in both English and Korean, so I could just show the paper if need be, and we would get there. So, we went and walked around, went to Time world Galleria, a huge mall with Louis Vuitton, Ferragamo, Dior, Chanel, Burberry, etc. They have everything else too, separated into sections on each of the 7 floors of the mall. Downfall- the sizes are teeny. Pro- the sizes are teeny. This will keep me from spending money I don't yet have on stuff I don't need. I don't get my first paycheck until August 17th, so I will be out here, sorta bad, until then. We went to Paris Baguette and I got some bread that was sorta sweet, with nuts on top. Tasted like pre-spread peanut butter and bread, with honey. Pretttty tasty lol. We walked to the train, I bought my first transit card, and we hopped the subway back closer to my house. People were staring at us pretty bad. The kids are funny, they just stare. The adults try to act like they weren't staring. We got on the bus, and I had to remember where to get off on my own, and I didn't even mess up! We did pass my house when we were walking, but I remembered, and we just turned around, and I found my way!!! ;-) She is spending the night today, because Amber and Nicole, her friends from the ICC, as well as U of I, went to a beach in another city. Yay! Sleepover! Needless to say, today was a lot better of a day. I wasn't sad, I found my way, and I am in Korea! Good! Yay! We are going for pizza later today, Tarita said she wanted something that doesn't require figuring out too much, which is true. While all of the restaurants have pictures of the food, you still don't know EXACTLY what it is. That is all for now, watching CNN, drinkin OJ, waiting on it to be morning in the states so I can call the parents and the boo ;-)! Ok, almost night time, but r um, me and Tarita went on an adventure! We decided to go to pizza hut, which was a 15-20 minute walk to the train station that we had taken the bus from earlier. So we make it there and everything OK, using Tarita's directional expertise. On the way back, she suggests that we go the opposite direction to get home, since “the streets will be parallel.” So I say “well this city isn't on a grid system like Chicago, so the streets are not parallel, they do what they want to do.” She says, “well lets try it anyway. Worst case scenario, we have to turn around.” So we walk on, she says, “yeah, turn here, remember?” and I am like, “um, no, I don't” she says, “well worst case scenario, we gotta take a taxi,” I'm like, “OK?”. So we walk on, cross a bridge and a river lol. Then we pass a park, which clearly we never passed, and we passed a bunch of shops (I swear every inch of the city is covered with a shop or a person, no vacant lots or anything) that we never passed, and then we randomly found the street that we came from. Tarita is like “I told you we would find it!” and i'm like”right, but we were lost in a city where we don't speak the language,” and she is like “we weren't lost, we knew the general direction we were supposed to be going in”. Whatever, we found it, and another Paris Baguette bakery that had the best mango Popsicle I have ever eaten. Have a nice night!!