seafood and long tshirts

Hi, sorry it's taken me so long. We have been pretty nonstop and I only use the computer for a few minutes here and there to check my email and see if my grades have been posted, which they havent'...they should be up tomorrow. Hmm well today we all (mong's family and I) went hiking at this mountain behind Masan. We didn't go very long because after a bit it gets super steep and Hwayon can't walk that long. Mong and I went ahead about a kilometer and it was all uphill steps. If we had went the entire way to the top, there is a Budhist temple there. There was a smaller one part way up where we took some pictures. After we went to a little hole in the wall restaurant (most are like that)and ate Chappaghetti---I think its a mix of Italian and Korean food. spaghetti noodles with a korean sauce made of beans and onions.

Korean women (and most men too) are very very concerned about this skin. I noticed this in the Swiss alps with the Japanese women too. They cover every single piece of skin with something. Long sleeves, long pants, or capris with tall socks, gloves, a bandana around the neck or the collar popped up, a hat or more commonly, a huge visor (lots of them were visors with a polarized piece of plastic as the visor part that goes down at an angle so you cna look through it), and then they wear this little face masks. I thought the mask was for allergies but Mong informed me that they are also for the sun. Even in town when we are just walking around, many women use umbrellas (which are all decorated with bows and lace becayse theyre for the sun not the rain)to protect from the sun. No wonder they all look so darn young.

Most public toilets are built into the ground as I said before. Koreans drive fast and crazy, and in one 10 minute car ride I probably hear a horn about 20 times (ironically as I typed this, I heard a car outside honk). They arent scared to use it. They also drive through very narrow allies that in the states would hardly be one way but here they are any-way. For example, the fish market which is about 10 blocks long and probably 5 wide, right outside Mongs apartment building. Koreans also dress very nice. Perhaps being in the city makes a difference, but if you are anywhere besides selling fish in the market, women usually wear heals and look very professional/stylish. Men wear nice slacks and collared shirts. Young people are also very into fashion. The thing here for young girls is to wear long tshirts, with random designs or screen prints on them. The best part is, they are super duper cheap, like 3,000 to 10,000 won each, which is around 3 to 10$. The jeans and pretty much all clothing that isnt brand name is super cheap. You could find some jeans that look like a really expensive brand and they woukld cost 10 or 15$ off the street. At the farmers market they sell lots of clothing as welll. socks and bras are also very cheap. Koreans are also very very respecting people. When you meet someone, you always bow your head and also when you say goodbye. Also, if you are drinking alcohol and someone pours it for you, you must hold the glass in 2 hands and they pour it with 2 hands and when you drink you have to turn your head to the side. Mongs best friend Jongwon came over the firs tnight here and mong and jongwon and mongs dad were drinking beer, and I kept wondering why when Jongwon took a drink he turned his head around and covered the beer with his other hand.

Oh, this was fun. The other day we went to Mongs aunts office to meet some of the kids we will help for English. After we were waiting for her because she was taking us to dinner. Her office was in a 10 or so story building with offices, day cares, tae kwon do gyms, stores, and restarants. On either side of her office there were gyms. We were waiting in the hall and then a bunch of little kids ran by and one little girl looked at me as she was running and said with a huge grin, "hello!!" we went up the the window(the gyms walls to the hall were just huge windows) and watched them. They hadnt yet started practicing because their instructor wasnt there and they were just running around hitting eachother and such. I waved at the little girl and some of the little kids (probably ages 7 to 10 or so) and then they are ran to the windo, clinging to it, like I was some kind of alien. It reminded me of the little turtles in Finding Nemo when Nemo's dad was telling the story and Dory was making the baby turtles get all excited. Then a couple of them popped their heads out the door and I said, "Anyung!" which is hello, and then they all gasped--one of them turned around and yelled something to the others, which mong then translated for me "She speaks Korean!!!!!" Then I became reallly exciting. The little girl that said hello came up so me very timidly and shook my hand, then a couple others followed in suit. it was so cute!!! They were adorable!

Walking through the fish market has been very interesting. i probably took one hundred pictures---there is quite a wide variety of fish and shell fish, lots of octupi and squid of many sizes. Oh, many eels too, which are fun to watch, especially when someone buys eel, becasue then the person selling it, usually women, take an eel, stab a nail through its head and pound it onto a stump or a cutting board propped ontop of something, then fillet it within a few seconds, or they just sell a headless eel. But before anyone buys something, 80% or more of the fish and other creatures are alive, swimming in aquariums or sitting in bowls. I ate octupus last night too. Mong's dad bought it and then brought it back. They were alive and then he insided out the head and pulled something out, chopped of the legs, which then proceeded to squirm even more thatn before. Most of the legs we cut up in luttle pieces, but I tried one squirming leg. Usually people cut them up because otherwise if you dont chew it enogh the suction cups could cling to your throat and suffocate you. Anyway, I took a small leg, started to chew it and it promtly sucked itself to the inside of my mouth, and then just hung there. i chewed and chewed and chewed for a minute or two. For some reason though I just couldn't swallow because I started to gag and sorta throw it up. Well, we are going soon, I'll post pics next time. BYE!

2nd day here

OKee dokee, so I have been here 2 days officially. I don't have pcitures because I haven't uploaded them and I am going to wait a few days...I need to take more. So we got up yesterday and had breakfast: mong told me koreans usually (ok, i just ga ve up on grammar, the keybpard is slightly different and i keep pressing the button that changes from korean to english) eat normal koeran food for breakfast like rice, kimchi, peppers, fish, and other dinner-type dishes. They bought me "toast" which, just like in germany, it is pre-slices white bread that is specifically for toasted, but they call it toast before its toasted. I told mong I'll eat Korean breakfast too, but until the corn flakes and toast are gone, I'll eat that.ㅠㅕㅅ, ㅠ But morea than wiling to try! (thatㄴㅇㄹㄴㅇㄹ what an accident). After that we went to the rehab h0spital where Mong's sister (Hwayon) is staying for her spinal cord injury. When we got there a lot of the patients were in teh physical therapy room with the pads and bars, and stairs and such. She is definitely much further a long than many people--some she said had been there for a few years. One man had fallen from a crane thing (the little box the people stand in when they fix telephone poles) when moveing furniture to an apartment from teh 7th floor--and although he c0uldnt yet, he was acutally learning to walk again with braces and a walker. It was pretty amazing. Most of the people were injured from car accidents. After that we went to Lotte, which is a massive department store: like macys, walmart, best buy, and safeway all in one. Hwayon was getting a swimsuit because she swims mon-fri now for therapy. They went back to the hospital but Mong and I stayed and wandered around. We then wandered a couple blocks away to Changwon's downtown and tried on $10 glasses frames ...made FOR prescription glasses. That sure beats the $200+ frames I was selling at Lenscrafters! CRazy! We stopped randomly at a street food stand and mong bought me tradtional street food: ground boiled fish on a stick, 30 cents each. Tasted interesting...not sure if I liked it so much though.ㅜ \\ They had pieces of tempura also for the same price. COol. ㅉㄷWe went back to the hospital but Hwayon was at the dentist and then we went there and that was one really nice dentist office.It was on the 7th floor or so, and the dental rooms poked out of the building and had windows on 2 sides. They had free coffee from a swiss espresso machine, and tea and mints, and a cpu with internet if you were bored. Then we came back here (oh I forgot, we ate at Lotte and I had something called bulgogi with rice and starch noodles--also tried the cooked octupus with red pepper sauce, it was tasty---the live octopus is set for sunday), and mongs best friend, Jongwon, came over and we all just sat in here and mong's mom made kimchi soup, which was spicy but really good. Oh, and it rained all day, but it wasnt cold, just humid.

Some things I've noticed: KOrean's, like Germans and Finns, also drive fast and make me slightly sickly...but I will get used to it. There are lots of random clusters of huge apartment buildings--near seoul there is a bit of countryside but then you will see in the distance about 5-20 5 block long 15 story buildings, all symmetricaly lined up and inside the cluster its like a tiny downtown--a market and other stores, and lots of neon lights. All Koreans use umbrellas, ALL of them. The only person I saw yesterday without one was a Buddist monk bowing on the side of the road. Ok, I gotta go shower, bathroom is free--we are going to meet Mong's aunt today. BYE!

photobucket

I made a photobucket account to post my pictures on, here's the link: http://photobucket.com/karmesan

on the left side of the screen there is a thing that says Karmesan and then under it there are two album names titled "random germany" and "korea part 1." There are just a few deutschland pics leftover from germany when i made this account ant never used it. It's kinda confusing, and I may end up making a flickr photo posting account because i like the layout better, but I don't want to make a yahoo email when I don't need one... Anyway, here this is.

Mong and I are sitting in the airport, only 20 hours 13 minutes to go till we take off. We''re here early cause we dropped off two other shasta college int'l students at sac airport who were flying today and it was cheaper to travel together and just sleep in the airport. Well, I'm bored and gonna go. BYE!