What is commonly referred to as Monsoon Season

Last Friday night, it finally happened. The plug got pulled. :( I no longer have any internet access at home, thanks to kblsi having secured their wireless network and the internet company asking for their modem to be returned. It was fun while it lasted! Fortunately, I should have my alien registration card in a week--then I can get a bank account and internet once again. Woo hoo!

While all of this was happening, though, I was busy at Mr. Pizza with a few of the other Kindergarten teachers. Mel, Heather and I met Yuria, Alice, and Cindy for pizza at Mr. Pizza (made for women). I'll post the sign when I have more time; it's hilarious. (Actually, most of my pictures can be found at Flickr, now, but not all since I'm only allowed 100 MB per month. Apparently they did not get the memo that I moved to another country and have very important food pictures to post. How rude.) While the foreigners enjoyed a good old fashioned combo pizza, the Korean teachers shared a shrimp pizza whose crust was stuffed with sweet potato. It was delicious! Afterwards, I went with the Korean teachers to get coffee from the place Sarah showed me of my first day. I enjoyed getting to know them better. Yuria, it turns out, specialized in Russian literature here in South Korea. Who would have guessed a Korean fluent in English has a passion for Russian literature. The thought makes me smile.

Saturday morning I woke up bright and early with one goal in mind: go downtown and return on the correct bus. (Haha!) I picked up all of my letter writing materials and--shoot! I just realized I sent Tracy's letter without an address yesterday. ... Sigh. It's probably a good thing, I just blabbed about a guy for like two pages. :D The more things change! Anyway. Nothing too horrendous happened on my way to Starbucks, other than it began to pour buckets of rain! A picture is also on Flickr. :) It came down hard for an hour, too, so I sat and watched it, read, wrote letters, it was a wonderful time for me. Partly because when I was done (and the rain was cleared up) I had gone through a good chunk of my stationEry which meant I could buy more! I hurried off to Hello Kitty where I got a bright umbrella (just to guarantee the rain was done) and $10 worth of paper, stickers, and pens. The woman remembered me, so I got a pen for free. Woo hoo!

Something awesome about Korea is that often times you get something free. Dinner = 6 to 8 free side dishes. Mascera = blow up sun tan lotion bottle, sun tan lotion samples (SPF 50 rules!), and a bottle of corn-flavored tea. What the heck? but good.

With a fresh stock of paper (and stickers!) I headed back home. On the right bus. I was smiling like an idiot when I got on the bus, but fortunately for me most strangers here do everything possible not to make eye contact, so it was okay. The bummer part was when I got off the bus a mile early on accident. :( And it started to rain. Again. :( Fortunately, Footlocker wasn't far off, so a pair of sneakers later (free socks!) the rain had stopped and I made it home safe and sound.

That night was a party of foreign teachers at Chris's apartment (the view from which is awesome at sunset; if you haven't looked at Flickr, yet, GO DO IT!) Ashley cooked fajitas and 7-layer dip and nachos and sigh. It was good food for sure. We were all so happy and chatty, we didn't get out of the apartment until Midnight to make it downtown where we danced until far too late. I discovered that I had more fun without the soju (go figure ;)) and lasted much longer (4 a.m.!). The other girls were out until 7:30 a.m., so "lethargic" was the name of the game on Sunday. I finished a book, watched bad TV, and wished I could read Korean so I could YouTube search for some of the commercials I saw. They were hilarious! There was one for some doctor's remedy for constipation, and they showed endoscopic procedures and demonstrated intestines working improperly and properly.

My one outing of the day was to the OK! Mart, where I stocked up on drinks and eggs. One soda I had to get was a "cheese ice cream" flavored soda. FYI, it's not a misprint for "cheesecake." It tasted like sweet cheese, and wasn't entirely delicious.

Soon there will be pictures of adorably rotten children to view; hope you come back soon! (The thunder that just clapped would scare poor Gus into the grave, so I'll see you around!)