busan adventures.

Today was productive. Kate, the director, took me to open my very own Korean bank account where they issued me a nice purple debit card. Teaching was easy today because the students were taking the PELT test (similar to the MCAS) for most of the day. I got to leave early because Kate was taking me to the immigration office in Busan to get my Alien Registration Card. She actually paid for my card as a token of appreciation to my efforts all week. How nice was that? She's great. She had a meeting after that (but first I repaid her by treating us to smoothies!), so I got some free time to explore the area of Busan we were in. It was great. There was a giaaaaanttt shopping mall, but she kept calling it a department store. The entire first floor was a food court and then a grocery store. It was really neat. When it was near closing time, all of the mini restaurants started plastic wrapping up their food and putting them on trays labeled "on sale." They must make all of their food fresh every day and try to get rid of it at the end of the night. You could get three sushi rolls for $10. Or pizza. Or a lot of things were $3 - like rice balls, or a package of dumplings. There were

sandwiches, and bakery items. Everything. What a freaking bargain. Speaking of a bargain, I somehow managed to find myself buying a 24-pack of dried seaweed sheets. I was just looking around and this lady was trying to get me to buy them. Then she kept giving me free samples. The way it happened was funny and I was literally laughing out loud. I had to buy them. Dried seaweed is delicious though, but who on earth needs 24 packages of it? Maybe I'll wrap my tofu in it. Ha. Ohhh, also, the mall had this super cool water show. There was water falling from the ceiling with lights shining on it, making it look different colors. It went in tune with music. They do it every hour on the hour and it lasts about ten minutes. I felt like I was in Vegas watching the show in front of the Bellagio. 

I ventured out into the streets, which were lined up with restaurants and stores. There was this one long strip but there were dozens of side streets branching out from the main road. I got to this one section that turned into a street market. There were dozens of stands of fresh fruit and vegetables, fish, and meat. Then, down the middle of the alleyway, were little food stands. There were all different kinds of small, cheap things. I didn't know what a lot were so I resulted to what I thought was a hamburger. Granted, it didn't taste much like a hamburger but it was still good. The lady cut it into pieces for me and put some special kind of sauce on it. Delish. I also went into a bunch of beauty shops and they had a bunch of cute things. I saw my hotel roommate was using a mask every night so when I saw the masks, I bought one. They look pretty cool. There's different types - ginseng, aloe, collagen, honey, vitamin c, etc. All for only $1. Maybe I can get some clean Asian skin. ;)

There's a few things I've thought about today. One being that I just realized that the language is different but the usage of numbers is the same. I wonder why that is. Also, the highway signs here are green like at home and the roads are marked with the double lines meaning you can't cross over. It's just so strange to me that cultures can be so different from one another but for the most part, we all follow a same system all over the world. Ya know what else is weird here? EVERYONE drives nice cars. And when I say nice, I mean Mercedes Benz kind of nice. It's more common to see an Benz, a BMW, or an Audi over your typical Honda or what have you.

Anyways, I'm outta here. Goodnight from the future, mom! (She's probably the only one reading this)