When in Rome

So here I am again... day... 17 I believe and I just returned home from my much anticipated trek to Seoul! I left my apartment Saturday morning at 730am to catch the 8am bus that took me into Gangnam-gu, Seoul. The 3.5 hour bus trip went by pretty fast since I slept most of it away but also had a bus partner which made things more enjoyable. His name was Ashley and I was introduced to him by a mutual friend the night before. After speaking for a couple of minutes we came to the realization that we were both headed to Seoul the next morning (also decided we probably should not have been out that night since we needed to wake up only 4 hours later).. but besides that, we planned to meet at the bus terminal at 7:30am. Once we arrived in Seoul, Suzy and her sister Sherry were there to meet me. Ashley was staying at his Korean friend's house and she (Erica) was also waiting his arrival. So Suzy, Sherry, Erica, Ashley and myself decided to go for lunch downtown. Seoul is a huge city and has become pretty westernized over the past couple of years. So we all agreed that going for some authentic Korean food in Seoul involved eating... Mexican!! We went to a delicious restaurant called Dos Tacos and scarfed down tacos and burritos! Yum!! Soon after the 3 of us split up from Ashley and Erica, did some shopping and touring around Seoul and headed back to Suzy's apartment to get ready for her birthday dinner.
For those of you who did not know, Sherry (Suzy's sister) came in to SURPRISE Suzy on her birthday which was Thursday Dec 10th. Sherry previously sent me an email, which I forwarded onto Suzy's co-worker, who then got in touch which her Korean co-worker who secretly picked Sherry up from the airport and brought her to the restaurant Suzy was having her birthday dinner at Thursday evening. Suzy's co-workers blind folded her and gave her a large gift bag with crumbled up pieces of paper and told her to dig through the paper to find a tangible object. While Suzy was being distracted, searching for absolutely nothing, Sherry walked into the restaurant, pulled up a chair and sat right beside her blind-folded sister. Once Suzy became frustrated with not being able to find anything in the bag she took off her blindfold to see her sister sitting next to her, on her birthday, in Korea!! What a surprise! Suzy was absolutely stunned! It worked out PERFECTLY!
Anyways, Saturday night we had reservations at a Turkish restaurant in Seoul which was actually quite good. There were about 20 of us eating dinner together and after about 2 hours of eating, drinking and chatting, we headed out to the 7/11, picked up some more soju (Korea's version of vodka) and then continued on towards the bar scene. We all had a great night in the city and even popped by a karaoke bar for some end of the night "singing"......or screaming... defiantly would not call it singing (alcohol+singing= bad idea).
Sunday morning we woke up early (kind of) to have a full day of shopping at the largest mall in Seoul called the Cotex mall. It has some really cute stores and the prices were very reasonable. However, I did find that where I live is significantly cheaper than living in Seoul (in terms of food, cabs, etc), I guess because it is a much larger/populated city than Gwangju. For lunch, Suzy took us to this great little pancake house called Butterfingers which is a very popular restaurant amongst foreigners here as we noticed that foreigners made up half of the restaurants patrons and there was a half an hour wait! Seoul also has A LOT more foreigners than Gwangju so it was strange for me not to be starred at on the streets or not to befriend the first foreigner I see. But nonetheless, both Seoul and Gwangju have their pros and cons I suppose.
After a full day of shopping I decided it was time for me to head home, back to my little house in the country. I took the subway one stop to the bus terminal and seemed to find the ticket booth quite easily. However, once I tried to purchase a ticket from Seoul to Gwangju the woman gave me a strange look and pointed to the doors leading outside. I was a little confused because I thought that I was already IN the bus terminal... why would I need to step outside?! I questioningly walked to the doors and saw only buses, a busy street and another building in the distance. I walked back inside, looked around and felt uneasy and confused. All I saw were Korean's walking at a fast pace minding their own business. I realized not only am I the only Caucasian person in there, but NO ONE spoke English. I just wanted to yell out "Does anyone speak English here???" Suddenly, I saw something very rare and foreign to Korea..... I saw blond hair!! haha! There was another foreigner in the house!! With her help, as well as two other very sweet Korean girls, we figured out that I needed to cross the street and enter the other building where apparently buses that go to smaller and farther away cities, depart from. So now I know for next time!
I am now back home in my apartment safe and sound, ready to catch up on some much needed sleep! Even though I have been here for over 2 weeks now, there are still little things that I forget to pick up on. For example, when I used the bathroom in the bus terminal I reached for the toilet paper and noticed that the stall did not even have a toilet paper dispenser in it. Some washrooms you are supposed to take tissue out of a dispenser before you go in.. and that is something I always forget to check for. Another thing, which I have mentioned before are Koreans excessive use of chopsticks!! The other day I brought a soup with me to work so I could eat it on my break. When I pulled out my spoon to begin eating the soup, my Korean co-workers literally laughed in my face as if I were trying to eat potato chips with a fork! My co-worker immediately gave me a new set of chopsticks and told me this would be a better way to eat it. I smiled and said thank you. When in Rome, right?!

Write more soon,

Signing off,

Gillian