Who stole the toilet??

Eating Macaroni with chopsticks...mmm

Behind us is the mountain we climbed... all the way up!!

At The German Bar for Suzy's "Birthday"

It is now Sunday night and Suzy just left to go back to Seoul. We had a great (and interesting) weekend together! Friday night I picked her up from the Gwangju bus terminal, took a cab back to my apartment and started getting ready to go downtown. The first bar we went to is called The German bar and a very outgoing Korean man named Song, owns the bar. Since it is Suzy's birthday on Thursday, we thought we would celebrate it early in Gwangju. As soon as Song heard this he pretty much fed us free shots the rest of the night. What a sweet man! I mean, he might have had other intentions (to bring Suzy home with him) but nonetheless, it was money less spent! Did a little bit of karaoke and bar hopping, and then headed home around 5am.

Saturday we woke up bright and early to ensure we had a full day of shopping at the Lotte outlets about 15 minute walk from my apartment. We had planned to go hiking on Saturday but it actually started to SNOW a little, so we thought we'd save it for today. As I have mentioned before, Koreans are very anal about germs and staying healthy (some think that Kimchi can cure cancer, and hence why all my students where masks). One of the stores we shopped in had clear disposable plastic bags to put over your head while trying on a shirt... so no germs come in contact with their clothes.

After our shopping excursion we relaxed at my place, watched a movie and decided to go for a nice romantic dinner at an Italian restaurant near my apartment. The video pretty much says it all (you can check my facebook page, it wouldn't let me upload it on here - maybe thats a good thing though..). If anyone knows me, you know I am more than willing to try just about anything!! I love seafood and thought the seafood risotto would be an appropriate choice for me... that was until I saw a tentacle poking out of the rice. When I moved the rice out of the way, the sight I saw was almost horrifying. I will try and paint a picture for you. Think of a live octopus with a round black oval shape head and EIGHT tentacles with little bumps on each one coming out of its body. Well that is exactly what was on my plate... six of them! The thought of even poking my fork in its head to pick it up out of my plate made me quiver! I ended up eating the accompanying soup and salad and picked up a roll of sushi at the 7/11. It's kind of amusing to witness how some Koreans spell English words... especially on a menu. At dinner, Suzy and I had a choice of soup... either cream or Vag (Vag=Vegetable).

I realized that the restaurant we ate at was the first eatery to offer us utensils (rather than chopsticks). The other day at work, my head Korean teacher gave out slices of cake...with chopsticks. That was definitely a first for me! I'm not going to lie... it's kind of fun eating random foods with chopsticks! Suzy and I made Kraft dinner the other night and thought we would try it out...! Today we decided to go on our hike up one of the larger mountains just behind my apartment. It took us about 40 minutes to climb up and the view was phenomenal! Afterwards we walked around the resevoir and stumbled upon a pretty waterfall as well as an outdoor gym/playground for adults. They have a bunch of cool work out contraptions and they also have a stack of hula hoops that surprisingly enough, nobody steals! Sadly, that impressed me the most. It was a perfect day out today and we took full advantage of it!

Anyways, Friday was my first full day of teaching and it went pretty well. I met a couple more students with more interesting names... such as Michael Jackson (it's too weird to call him that so I just refer to him as M.J), I also have a Lady gaga in my class as well as Elvis. Apparently I am a teacher to an eclectic group of well know (and long dead) pop stars. My co-workers and I were joking around that we should give one of our class old lady names such as Beatrice, Doreen, May, Ronda, and so on, just to amuse us! haha

So weirdly enough, Friday was the first time I needed to use the washroom at school. I walked in, opened the stall door and was shocked by what I saw (or didn't see). My first reaction was that I had accidentally walked into the boys bathroom! I quickly stormed out to look at the sign once more. When I realized that I had made no mistake and that I was in fact in the ladies washroom, I felt even more confused! It literally looked like someone had stolen the actual toilet and all that was left was a hole in the ground!!!! (You can view picture number one again and use your imagination) So... I did my best. Lets just say camping in the forest has really paid off... the only difference is I don't need to bring my own toilet paper to school.

Write more soon.

Signing off,

Gillian