So what is everyone thinking????

I have been blogging for a few months and I know a lot of my friends and family are reading regularly to keep up on my life here. The problem is I don't know what you guys are thinking. Leave me some comments to let me know you are there. Maybe there are questions you have about what I doing here. Write them in a comment and I will let you know. I am coming home in November and I know you probably think that sounds kinda far away, but honestly it's no time at all. It will be November before we all know it, and I will be back in sunny, blue skies AZ.

Good News for Liz

Well first of all I leave for THAILAND in three days. I am going with my good friend Jennifer and we are beyond excited to go. It will be her 23rd birthday the day we leave, and I think its a great present for her to be able to go to Thailand with ME, hahaha!!!!!! But really I am so excited. We fly into Bangkok and will sleep there for the night, then we'll wake up early to do a little shopping before we hop on our second flight to Koh Samui. We are going to stay in huts on the beach (that have locks!!!!!) and drink tropical drinks. After we are there for five days, we will head back to Bangkok for two days of fabulous shopping!!!! Three weeks after we get back my good friend will be heading back to Canada :( But luckily for me my friend Jamie will be coming and taking her place. It will be so nice to have someone from back home here with me. I can't wait to show her around Seoul and take weekend trips with her around Korea. Then two months later, its time for me to head home back AZ!!!!

Carne Station

My co-worker Sara invited me to a huge dinner gathering at Carne Station on Saturday night. I invited my brother to come, since we like to get together atleast once a week. Everyone was from The States or Canada and there was about 24 people total. Carne station is the best deal around. For 22,000 won ($22.00) it is all you can eat and drink. When when I say I drink, I am talking about cola, juice, soju, vodka, whiskey, wine, and beer. We arrived at 7 pm and jumped right in. In Korea, at a lot of restuarants you cook your own food on a grill at your table. This was the same thing. You picked out your own meat from rows and rows of meat in a supermarket type refridgerator. There was a bunch of different kinds of beef, pork and seafood. Then load up a plate of veggies, and marinades for the meat. Bring it back to your table and you can start grilling. Go to the drinks area and help yourself to whatever you want to drink. We stayed there for three hours drinking and eating. Everyone was pretty drunk and getting a little rowdy, so they decided to go out to the clubs. I felt like I had enough so I went home early to sleep it off, especially since the night before was a little crazy. If you ever come to Korea, you definately need to try this place, it was awesome.

You never know

Friday after work I was talking to B and I was telling him that I absolutely had no plans for the weekend. Since my weekends are usually jam packed I was kinda relieved that I could just relax. He asked me why didn't I have any plans and I said "usually people asks me to do stuff and I just go along, but nobody has invited me to do anything." Then he told me that I should just try to make plans with people so I wouldn't get bored. I said "no, I just want to relax this weekend." Wow was I wrong, my weekend ended up being extremely eventful.

Right after I got off the phone with B, Sok Hyun called me and invited me to his hometown that is about 20 minutes southwest of Seoul. At first I really didn't want to go, but since he got a new job he has been really busy, I didn't know the next time I would see him, so I agreed to make the 50 min trip to go see him (I live in Central Seoul). His city is called Sanbon and I really liked it. It is much quieter than Seoul, but still has the bright lights.

We went to a local bar and had my favorite drink. Bamboo Soju!!!!! This alcohol tastes so good. It is kinda like a flavored vodka and you take shot of it. We drank two small bottles and then decided to go to the park for a walk. It was a small park, but it was really nice and clean, so different from Seoul. I wanted to go back home around 11pm, just to make sure I would make it all the way home on the subway. Sok Hyun said I didn't need to leave till 11:30, and I trusted him. He walked me to the subway and then he headed home. MOM MAYBE YOU SHOULD NOT READ THE NEXT PARAGRAPH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I called B because I hate just sitting on the subway by myself. Suddenly this foreign guy (foreigner is American, Canadian, Australian, anything but Korean. It's so weird I call myself a foreigner). Walks from one car to another and spots me. He sits right across from me. Normally I am really friendly with Foreigners, but he looked creepy and I decided to ignore him. I thought if I stayed on the phone then he would just go away, but I was wrong!!!! I moved to another seat and he followed me. Then the train stopped!!!!! I was about five stations away from my house and I had only about $10.00 to get home in a taxi, plus this creepy guy was still around. I walked to a door that was farther away from my seat and the creeper followed again!! I told B I was starting to get nervous, and he told me to give my phone to the guy and he would tell him to leave me alone (haha, how cute is that). I kinda laughed at B and said I rather not hand over my phone to some creeper. The doors to the subway opened and I bolted, the guy followed close behind me and kept yelling "hey where are you going?" Then he grabbed my shoulder to turn me around, I yelled "Don't touch me!" B kept asking if I was ok, I was starting to cry cause I could hear the guy right behind me, and no one was offering to help me. I just kept walking as fast as I could with the small crowd of people till I got on the street. I was looking for a taxi and then the guy bothered me again, but I jumped into a taxi quickly. I handed my phone to the driver so B could explain my money situation, and the driver said it was no problem and brought me home.

Oh how I have changed!

Anyone who knew me back in the States knew I was a picky eater. I would never eat shrimp, hotdogs, fat on meat, shellfish or basically any seafood. All that has changed since coming to ROK. I will eat almost anything and I really will try just about anything in front of me. It started a few months ago when I was with these really hot Korean guys and they ordered raw oysters and octopus. When it arrived to the table I refused to eat it, but they force fed me the food and it actually wasn't that bad. Since then I really have been trying to open my mind about food. Last Monday I went to lunch with Sok Hyun and he knows I am not a seafood fan, but he ordered seafood anyway because he is determined to make me change my mind about food. When I stared at the RAW JELLYFISH in front of me I asked him "What exactly is this?" and he replied "eat it it is good for you." I listened to him and actually it was ok, not something I would order but definitely would not refuse it if I was hungry. Then Tuesday Wednesday night I met my friend Jade for Samgypsal (a very fatty pork), basically it is all fat and you fry it. There was hardly any meat on it, JUST FAT. I was nauseated when I watched it cook in front of me, but I tried it and you know what...... I hated it!!!!! But again if it came down to it, I could eat it. I now no longer have an 'I don't eat list' and I am sure my parents will be glad when I go home to a shrimp dinner and I don't pout about it. I actually really love shrimp now. Bring on the Dog soup, I am ready for it!!!!

Mud Mud Mud

Wow, what a weekend!!!! I traveled about two hours out of Seoul to a beach city called Daejeon. This city is where they hold the annual Mud Festival. That's right, a festival about mud. Basically its a bunch of people that get drunk on the beach and roll around in the mud and walk around and participate mud related games. I think this had to be the absolutely the best time I have had in Korea. Jen and I went to Daejeon with a tour group called Adventure Korea. This tour group is for foreigners in Korea. For about $80.00 we got a round trip bus ride and our hotel that was right on the beach. I seriously mean, a two second walk and you were on the beach.

We arrived in Daejeon about noon on Saturday. Jen wanted to participate in a military like training on the mud beach, but I wanted to get right to the party, so we separated for the day. Luckily Jen and I got some kick ass roommates in our yogwan (Korean hotel, where you sleep on the floor). One of them named S wanted to go to the beach instead of the training so we hit the beach together. Weirdly we ran into some of my already drunk co-workers and this girl I see at the bars sometimes. They directed us to go to the mud pit ASAP. Right when he step into the pit, some big army guy grabs both of us and tackles us. Now if he would've been hot, it would have been ok, but well he was not, even covered in mud. After we were covered we met up with some guys from the airforce, now they were pretty hot and I was a lot happier. We hung out with them, drank some beer and participated in the daily activities. At about 6 I walked back to the hotel to get ready for the night activities. It reminded me of being back in my sorority with the five girls getting ready all together, made me really really miss my DDD girls.


So we went out for night with dinner and drinks. Then we headed out to the beach and watched the absolute best fireworks display I have ever seen!!!!! It was like a finally for twenty minutes straight. I wanted to get some sleep for the next day so Jen and I headed back to the room and tried to go to sleep, but since Jen is a snorer (Yeah, and now I am traveling to Thailand with her), I literally got no sleep.

I got up around 9 am to eat breakfast. Jen and I went to the corner store and bought yogurt, fruit and Ramyen. That's right I will eat ramyen anytime of the day. We sat on the beach and just relaxed. Then we went back to the room to pack our stuff and start drinking before going to the beach.

We went crazy on the beach and there were plenty of photographers to catch our craziness. I think everything I did was caught on film, which I hope doesn't turn out bad. We played and played until 3pm and then we had to head back to the bus. It was a great time and I am so glad we went.