Lazy syn. peter

so as mentioned I think in every post, I do not have furniture yet. The only reason I do not have furniture is because of Peter, yes the man who is synonymous with laziness. Basically he has not gotten me furniture because he is waiting for the teachers leaving to move out and then he will have that furniture sent over. He does not seem to care A) I have been here for almost 2 weeks B) he has known about my arrival since Jan. 1st and C) there is a basement full of furniture at PSA he could give to me. 

Anyways in the last few days I have witness first hand how lazy Peter really is and I felt that I should probably share it here. First off, on Monday he took a couple of us to get our medical check up (which was totally crazy but thats for another day). After that we went to the bank right next to school. As we finished up at the bank we started to walk back to school. Now Peter starts walking up the hill which is in the direction of the back entrance to school but not the most direct route. He then stops. I ask Peter why we have stopped but then notice he is under the bus stop!! We are literally 1/6 of a mile from school! I could see the front entrance from where we were but he was going to wait for a bus and then pay a dollar to ride it!! 

The other instance that gave me an insight to the life and thinking of Peter was today. He came to me at 1030 during graduation telling me he needed two photos and my passport so I could apply for my Alien Registration Card tomorrow. I told him it was in my bag upstairs and I would bring it to him in a couple minutes. By the time graduation was over I had forgot about it and several hours later I remembered and ran my stuff down to his office. When I walked in he was shocked and then said to me "oh you were so fast! I did not think you would get this to me so quickly!!". At that I just kind of stared at him, it seems his slow slow pace he thinks everyone follows!! 

I have a feeling this will be a long long year with Peter.

Live Octopus anyone?

On Saturday I met up Vehlow and some of his friends at the fishmarket. The fishmarket is this HUGE area that

 has vendors selling fish (yea I know pretty obvious) but what was different at this market then say the famous Seattle fishmarket is that most of the items for sale were still alive! Many of the stands also had a restaurant. So you picked out what you wanted and then they would bring your newly killed fish and you to the restaurant. Then the people would prepare your food as you got yourself settled. After you eat your food, most people do shashmi, they bring out this stew with all the left over parts of your fish that you did not eat! 

Anyways, we went there because a bunch of people wanted to try live octopus. I decided against since A) I do not eat live things B) rumor has they suck on your mouth as you eat them and that they can kill you if you don't eat them with oil.

So we went to the market to pick out our octopus and fish we planned on eating!  We walked around for a good 10 minutes just looking at all the crazy stuff they had! Finally we picked out what we wanted and headed to the restaurant. 

At first they just brought the octopi out in a bowl....

I guess the Koreans who were with us had said we wanted them whole. Then after everyone watched them a bit and saw how they were climbing over the bowl we asked for them to be cut up, except for one. Even when they are all sliced they are still moving around and their suction is not at all impaired. 

The one octopus that was left 

whole was passed around the 

table with everyone saying they would eat it. Finally, Justin decided he would eat it whole. After a good 10 minutes of prepping he finally threw the whole

 thing in his mouth!!! Though it did put up a fight as you can kind of see from the picture, that last tentacle would not go into his mouth. Unfortunately for Justin, getting it in his mouth might have been the easiest part. He chewed the octopus for 20 minutes!!! And for all 20 minutes he looked like he was going to die, or at least puke. 

All and all, the fish market and eating was a great experience. The rest of the night was a blast as well! So far, I have been very impressed by Seoul and everything there is to do!

attack of the killer ants

So it seems that my issue with bugs has followed me to Korea. If you dont know, which you probably don't unless you're my parents, my house in Libertyville has always had bugs. It was not unusual to find bugs in the cereal if you had not shut the airtight container!

My second day in Korea I noticed small things crawling on the sink. I looked closer and realized they are tiny tiny red ants! The couple ants have now turned to dozens of ants. I have bought traps and i have literally set up 4 in about a 3 foot radius. One is on the kitchen wall right in the path of the ants!!

Today though while I was watching the ants... I like to watch them sometimes, willing them to walk through the trap and not around it..... I noticed the ants were walking UNDER the trap! The stupid thing are so small that tey were just walking under it!! So now I have taped the traps down!! Hopefully next time I post there will be no ants and there will also be furniture in my apartment!!!

I have added a picture of my ant playground. I am not sure really how to work the pictures with blogspot so the picture will stay at the top of the post. On an exciting note, I think they might be paying off, I only saw three ants when I went over there a minute ago.

Why I want to be a Korean woman in my next life....

In the few short days I have been here, I have come to the conclusion I want to be a Korean woman in my next life. There are a multitude of reasons why I have decided this but I will just share with you 3 very very good reasons (I am just going to skip the whole fact they are all about 4lbs because that is just a given) right now....

1) Korean women wear the most amazing shoes. It does not matter what time it is or where they are going, Korean women are always tittering around the streets of Seoul in 3 to 4 inch heels. The shoes are not just black pumps either, they are always very fashionable and beautiful heels. I want to be able to wear heels for hours on end without my feet ever hurting. And if for some reason I do break a heel on these very uneven streets, I don't have to worry because there will be a cobbler in his little makeshift store somewhere on the road!! LOVE IT!

2) Korean women have Korean babies. Korean babies turn into Korean children!! I want my child to be Korean, they are quit possibly the cutest children on the earth!! I can't wait to get my own class of them in one week!!

3) Some how they have figured out how to control their boyfriends/husband to the point where they will even carry their purses!! I have seen very few women carrying their own purses, the man always carries it. They not only carry the purses, they will also carry any shopping bag as well!!

So basically in my next life I will have banging shoes, adorable children and a husband who will carry everything for me. Doesn't sound too shabby.... 

PS I swear pictures are coming one day soon!

Seoul Living

So I have been in Seoul for almost a week! The week has gone by super fast and so far it has all be great!! This is a very very brief run down on some of the basics. Later I will describe some of the more fascinating parts of Korean culture!

MY APARTMENT

Originally I was warned it would be super small studio and I was okay with that because really did I have a choice? But I was pleasantly surprised when I got here and I actually had a kitchen and then you walk through sliding glass doors to the bedroom. I have a full sized bed and have plenty of room for additional furniture.... unfortunately at the moment I have NO other furniture but I am promised furniture by Saturday so we will see! Oh I also have a little room for a washing machine, when that comes too. The only other downside is that my apartment is like 2 degrees but it should get warm soon so that wont be an issue! All and all I love it.

MY NEIGHBORHOOD

I am right next to the area called Gangnam. This area has EVERYTHING! It has 5 starbucks within 10 minutes from my house. It also has tons of restaurants, bars, grocery stores, clothing stores, salons.... etc. Most of the places are actually open 24 hours! It is so crazy how things are open at all hours! I love how I can get anything I need just minutes from my house! I also dont have to deal with tons of noises because I am about 3 blocks back from the busy road where it is all residential! Its the best of both worlds!!

MY SCHOOL

This is probably the best part of everything so far! I LOVE my school! No I am obsessed with it! The kids are so cute and smart! Not just like oh look at the smart kids they can count and say a couple english words, cute.... No they are 6 years old and can diagram sentences, they will have very in depth conversations with you and tell hysterical jokes. I would put any of these kids in a 3rd grade class in the states and they would hold their own. It is just so amazing to see everything they can do!! And they don't study all the time. They don't just sit there and parrot back what is told to them. The kids have play time about 3 times a day. This is 20 minutes of just playing with legos and toys in the room. They also have prep classes like art and music. They actually only spend a couple hours a day doing reading, writing and grammar. Yet, even though they have all this unstructured time, they are still thriving! I really think that US school officials should come to my school and just see how it works! 

 

So, so far so good! I will try to be better about updating this with more interesting information! 

In Transit

so for some reason blogspot hates me! I typed a nice long message on the plane and it wont let me cut and paste it into here! It keeps putting it below the post! So here is the shorter version of what I wrote:

Packing was miserable as I thought it would be! I managed to get all my stuff into 2 bags and 2 huge carry-ons but I feel like I left my children behind!! 

The flight was no where near as bad as I thought it would be! There were about 50 movies that I was able to pick from and I ended up watching 5 movies! The food wasnt too bad either and they fed us 3 times! I ended up eating a traditional Korean meal, which was my first korean meal ever. I think I should have waited till I was in Korea to eat their food because the meal was a little scary. There was seaweed soup which was gross and nothing like seaweed salad! Then I had some rice dish was decent. 

I am now here in Seoul and I will write later about some of the more exciting stuff! But so far everything has been great!

6 days to go...

So everything is finally set. I have a ticket to Korea and I pick up my visa on Monday! My flight leaves on Thursday the 12th and is direct to Seoul. It is a 14 hour flight which might be the longest amount of time that I have sat in one area!

 But the 14 hour flight is no where near my biggest concern. Neither is moving to a foreign country nor not seeing my parents for 6th months. No my biggest fear is packing.

For those who dont know me well I really like clothes, I also really like shoes, purses, scarves, jewelry, hair product and anything else that can purchased. I have a closet packed full in my room, half my brothers closet is full of my clothes,  a bed in the guest room is piled with my coats and i have two boxes still packed in the hallway. How am I supposed to chose what goes into one of my two bags?!? It is like choosing which of your children to save from a burning building. 

As of now I am not going to think about packing. I am going to take my 6 year old mentality which is if I dont think about it, it does not exist. So for right now packing is a non-issue.