Monday, Nov 20

Opened a Korean bank account today (oh boy). Got a pretty pink debit card with some cute bear character on it. I’m one step closer to getting a Korean phone plan AND FINALLY BEING ABLE TO ORDER THINGS/FOOD ONLINE.

Had a tutoring session in the morning and spent the rest of the day working my way through chapters in the textbook. I’m glad I’m doing this cuz I’m able to see I HAVE learned a LOT. Just not at the pace required to keep up with the class.

Had dinner with my friend in Kondae at a little hole in the wall type of place that serves mainly pajeon (a savory pancake, think scallion pancake from the Chinese restaurant). I got a potato one which was really like hash browns and was dee-lightful. But the best thing about the place was the cool, dark aesthetic. Would be a great date spot cuz it’s very dark, ha ha.

THEN, small world story…so, last night when we were sort of lost and wandering around an unfamilar area with no internet (as usual), we passed a shop (closed) with a big BAGELS sign in the winow and I was like OHHHH BAGELS, I’ve SO been craving carby breakfast foods….but sigh. Then tonight, as I was heading home from dinner, I was standing outside the CU (convenience store “Nice to CU”) digging through my purse for my T-money card and I hear BETTYEBETTYEBETTYEBETTYE and footsteps running towards me and it’s my sweet friend from class who was out tonight and saw a bagel store and she was like, “for some reason I thought you would like this,” and she hands me a bag with two bagels in it! She was headed into the CU to get me a DRINK to go with my bagel! Can you even?? I cannot. She is the sweetest. So now I have a salt bagel and a cinnamon bagel (that smells SO GOOD, way more cinnamony than a NY cinnamon-raisin bagel). I’ve got them wrapped up tonight and tomorrow I will have to find some butter (butter is a little hard to come by here, I don’t think I’ve had butter on anything since I’ve been here – but Korean food is very non-carby/bready) for the cinnamon one, and I already have cream cheese that I’ll use for the salt. If I wasn’t already so full from dinner I’d have one of them tonight.

That was a lot of words for a story about a bagel. But I love that story.

Tuesday, Nov 21

This morning found me up early WALKING A MILE TO GET BUTTER FOR MY BAGELS. Ha ha. Sometimes I don’t even recognize myself.

I enjoyed my heavily buttered cinnamon bagel IMMENSELY. Then I spent the rest of the day studying and doing my tutor homework – of which there was a lot. The homework was to ask him 20 questions using grammar and vocabulary from Ch 1-10 in the textbook. Creating sentences takes me a LONG time. And then trying to craft them into questions for another person adds a whole additional element of difficulty. Level of difficulty? Look, now I’m even losing my English, ha ha.

At 6:30 I met my friend and we walked 27 miles to the train to go on a nighttime cruise she had accidentally bought tickets for…and that neither of us realized til yesterday was at 10:00. AT NIGHT. I don’t really DO 10:00 At Night out in the world. We had only minor getting lost-edness when neither of our phones would connect to the internet, but we had good burgers for dinner…and made it to the ferry place in plenty of time. It was b-r-r-r but we sat indoors with plenty of giant windows to look out of. On the way back to port there was sort of a lounge singer situation, which…I feel like if this happened in NY, people would snicker and leave the room…but HERE, people came in from upper levels to listen and applaud. I thought that was lovely.

She was quite good – on the keyboard and singing. The musical choice was interesting – The Carpenter’s Close To You (why do BIRDS come down from the skyyy every TIME you walk byyy…), which, interestingly enough I have been hearing quite a bit since I came here. Like covers of it, not the original. And it’s been such a long time since it was popular in 1970, hearing it now is kind of nice (though at the time I was like MAKE IT STOP JUST MAKE IT STOP). Then she sang a couple other American 70s songs that I knew but can’t recall right now (maybe one was a Tom Jones song?)…and a few Korean songs.

After the cruise my phone magically worked and I managed to order an Uber and convince my friend that we were taking the 30-minute taxi ride home and NOT the 90-minute bus ride with multiple transfers. I’m a grown-up with a little bit of grown-up money, I don’t need to tortue myself with public transportation if I don’t need to. Plus, we’d already walked 4,2 miles just GETTING there…my hips and feet and I were DONE.

Wednesday, Nov 22

Got up (ridiculously) early for a 6am Zoom with my money guy in the states just for him to say “looks good” and for me to say “than let’s keep doing what we’re doing,” and I was literally off the Zoom at 6:03. But we can’t say these things via email/text, so…we have to find a mutual time…and 6am for me/4pm for him is what worked.

For a moment I thought about getting undressed and getting back in bed but I had a tutoring session scheduled for 8am so it just didn’t even seem worth it. I did a little more studying, spent 8-9am with the tutor, had my second bagel with butter AND cream cheese (oh I am indeed living a luxurious life), then proceeded to work on my new homework til 1:30. Ten sentences using grammar and vocabulary from Ch 6-10…but I wanted it to be a paragraph/story, so it took me that long.

For someone who always wants the easy thing, I seem to always wind up DOING the HARD thing.

THEN I was exhausted and lay down “for just a minute” (you know where this is going) and woke up at 5:30pm. Fortunately I had no plans for this afternoon/evening (I needed a day off walking) so it was not a problem. I spent the next two hours trying to order fried chicken delivery (unsuccessfully) and find an English/Korean keyboard. Fun Fact: ALL the keyboards sold in Korea are English/Korean. Back in the states it was a little difficult to find that and I had to buy an expensive one online…but now I can’t make that one pair up with my laptop, so…a new keyboard it shall be.

Thursday, Nov 23 – aka Thanksgiving

It’s odd being in a foreign country on an American holiday. No one HERE recognizes (or for the most part, is even aware of it) it, and when it’s the holiday HERE, it’s not the holiday yet in the US…so in my MIND it’s a holiday…but in my current environment, it’s not, so…

I’d had plans…but then I was just so exhausted, like…I just kept going back to sleep (til amost 2pm!!!) and then I felt queasy and still exhausted…so we bailed on the plans. I had weird convenience store lunch (Korea has the most unusual sandwich combinations: today’s was ham and cheese with mayo…and blueberry jelly.

It was quite mild so I sat outside to eat, and that was nice. Then come back inside and studied…then bed. Not too exciting, but delightfully easy.

Oh! I got my November package from Katie! Since I still can’t order online here, when there’s something I need (that is not already in my stash there at her house), I order it from Amazon, have it delivered to her, then she packs everything up once a month and sends it to me.I ship 3-5 Day International Blah Blah Blah cuz I WANT MY STUFF, and it takes 10 days to get here. But the boxes are heavy and it’s EXPENSIVE.

This time I got…

A new bra (wahoo), new underwear (yahoo), Theraflu (all the cold medicine here is pill form and I just never feel that works as well as liquid, Shout (cuz me and oily red Korean soups are not on the best of terms. *I* love THEM, but they do not love me), more pens (the hunt for The Perfect Pen continues), string lights (I DESPISE the cold white ceiling lighting in this room), the BEST scent freshener cuz my sneakers get stinky (TMI), a cashmere turtleneck that I didn’t ask for cuz it was too snug when I left, a striped long sleeve that ditto, and my black swing dress…a book about Korean history I’d been reading back home, a new book, some plain plastic bags (very much in demand here with all the mandatory trash separating), my horsey coat, a new canvas cross-body bag…and…drumroll please…A 4.8LB BOX OF MINUTE RICE (aka A Lifetime Supply).

WHY, you might ask, as Katie did, while living in The Land of Rice, in a building that provides free rice 24/7, am I buying MORE RICE? Sigh. Cuz I want my favorite comfort food…the Campbell’s Cream of Chicken soup + Minute Rice porridge thing that my mother always made when I was young…and in Korea, “minute rice” would be considered a national disaster of epic proportions. And in my defense, I Did Not Realize the Box was 4.8 pounds!!! I thought I was buying the same “large box” I used to buy at the market back home. So, $138 for a 10lb box…and the rice was nearly half of that!!!!

Sigh.


This is what the string lights were for. It’s a little 1970’s dorm room but…at least it feels cozier than having the #^^$%!! ceiling lights on. There’s only one outlet available to me, and that’s under the desk, so it’s not like I can put lamps out (put lamps out? have lamps? I can’t even speak English anymore). These are battery operated. Once I can shop online I’ll get a battery recharger so I won’t have to keep buying batteries. But these are nice, they have a remote control so with the press of one button, I can turn all three on. And if I was feeling festive, I could have them twinkle 🙂

Friday, Nov 24

Slept 10 hours straight…even after all my sleep the day before. Had a tutoring session in the afternoon, then went with a couple friends to a different, far-away market that promised a “Western foods” section…and I’m in serious need of some Campbell’s cream of chicken soup (to go with the 4.8lbs of Minute Rice. But that was not to be found. I DID get a hairdryer, woohoo…just in the nick of time as I finally bit the bullet and made a hair appointment for next week. This may become a once-a-month market – the one girl found some vegan ramen she’d been wanting…and I got Tostitos and salsa, which will be a good “in the room” snack…and next time I’ll get the grapefruit mush (I don’t know what it’s actually called, but it’s grapefruit stuff that’s used in the ades here…grapefruit stuff, honey, and either black tea or Sprite. It’s SUCH a good drink! I didn’t get it this time cuz I got a lot of other stuff, and the jar is big and heavy).

Then we had dinner at the Mexican restaurant near home/school and that was that.

Saturday, Nov 27

I took an E-day today and just stayed in and ate food I bought last night. Did homework. WOW did he give me a lot of homework this time. But I love doing it – as long as I have time (not like while class is going on). I really enjoy when I finally understand something and actually retain it to use.

I was in bed at 7:30pm, lights out at 9.

Sunday, Nov 26

Tonight we went to Coex Mall to see the iconic  Starfield Library…if you follow anything Korean, you’ve seen this massive library in the middle of a mall. And now it’s decorated for Christmas, so…

It’s a very popular photo/Instagram spot…tons of families and couples (have I talked about how couple-centric Seoul is??) taking pictures in front of the tree.

This young man was taking his photographer role very seriously. He was in and out, up and down, angling for the perfect shot. I so need a Korean Instagram photographer boyfriend 🙂

Ha ha, these hands are outside the mall…and I just noticed the “Gangnam” impressed on the arm on the right, and realized this is the arm/hand position for the dance that goes to the Gangnam Style song by Psy. NOW they make sense. Ha ha.

via GIPHY

And that was my week. Still another 10 days of break before class starts again. What a luxury this long break is. The usual work 9-day (one M-F and the bookended weekends) break is just not enough to rest, have fun, and do things you need to do that you don’t have time for during a normal work week. Two-and-a-half-weeks is Really Nice.

This week coming up is my friend Arie’s last week here…she has to leave Korea on December 1 to go back home in the states 🙁 We’re both sad. But we’re trying to make sure we get to her bucket list items before she leaves. I’m also trying to finish up going through the second textbook from class – the harder one…so it should be a pretty full week.

Hope y’all had a nice Thanksgiving with…whoever you wanted to be with 🙂