Such an exciting weekend

Actually it wasn't really thrilling by most people's standards, but it had some really good components. Yesterday we went to the convenience store where I made my first Korean purchase: popped corn and water. The popcorn is way different from US, but still yummy in a weird sort of way. Anyway, I'm living pretty frugally for awhile and popcorn, ramen, and water was pretty much my food for the weekend. Oh! And tea! I should get paid this week, so I should have a little more breathing room next weekend and might actually get a Korean meal. Then we watched the movie Little Miss Sunshine - highly recommend it! Sunday we went for a hike up "the mountain". It's actually just a hill, but it's the biggest hill around here - we can see other cities, but Heidi and I don't know what cities they are - but we know Siheung (or the apartment part)- and I think (or can lie and say) that I can find our building. Isn't it funny the way the apartments kinda look like blocks or legos - or Heidi says dominoes and that seems pretty accurate. This is just the apartment section, but there is a factory section (which is much less pretty and doesn't even deserve space on my memory card). Sorry it's so cloudy, I don't know if that's just cuz it's cold winter air or if that is smog. But you can kinda see the actual mountains in the background.

Aunt Sandi will be happy to hear that I saw an actual gas station today. It looked pretty standard. It's surprising how many cars there are here and they are US-sized. No smart cars for this country. Anyway, I have seens tons of cars and now officially one gas station - if anyone wants to make a little extra money, a gas station down the street would probably clean up!

Next we went to a store called Home Plus where I bought more ramen, OJ and some gummy bears. The gummy bears act as a chaser for Korean food - it's nice to have something to get the spice out of my mouth after eating. The other huge benefit of Home Plus is the food samples. Imagine Costco or Sam's times ten. I literally left full. I tried everything from Fish cakes (surprisingly yummy) to dim sum - I love dim sum - to kimchi (still need to get the taste for this - yucky!) Home Plus is a bit like a super Walmart - and a little overwhelming. People with microphones standing on podiums yelling to bring your attention to their station and convince you to buy it. It may be awhile before I go back alone, but I feel like I could find it and get at least noodles and chocolate if need be!

Anyway then I came home and did a Trading Spaces makeover on my room - on the way home we found some furniture by a dumpster and we grabbed a cute little table for my room and a chair for the living area. The table is perfect for the family picture and the picture of Rome from Jocelyn. It's so nice to have just a few things to make the room feel like my room, ya know? I don't want to acquire a lot while I am here, but at the same time if I did no decorating, it would probably be a tough year. Then I hung my "curtain". The curtain is actually just a thin blanket that was already on my bed when I got here and I didn't need. It will allow me some privacy from the apartment buildings across the way and some respite from the sun first thing in the morning, but still let sun in during the day.

All in all a very productive weekend. My first day of class is tomorrow and I am getting nervous, but read something cheesy in an email today that fits this situation perfectly. "I am too blessed to be stressed." It's totally cheesy and I need to convince myself stll, but I am amazingly blessed to have this opportunity in Korea and I should enjoy it as much as I can.

Love you all - more tomorrow after school!