the first of many updates to come...

Sorry it's been so long since I've updated this blog. I've been having problems with beta.blogger - it's been crashing things...

Today I went to Daegu with the sole purpose of going to Costco. One of the teachers that I teach with in my middle school, he was kind enough to drive us to Daegu, it's his hometown and he was going there for a wedding on Sunday. I'm pretty sure that he thought we were crazy.

I know it sounds strange that we'd travel to a city an hour and a half away just to go to Costco, and turn around to come straight back, but they have oodles of western stuff - I am now the proud owner of 8 cans of green beans, about 2 kilos of hard cheddar (real cheese!), some salami, 32 oats and honey granola bars, about a kilo o'salsa. And a few other things. When my co-worker was looking through our purchases, he didn't recognize the green beans, salsa etc. etc. so you can see, our trip to Daegu was clearly to obtain elusive western items.

The fun part, as always, was the journey. Car ride was quite fun... my coworker was so kind (and such a gentleman!)

So Rachel and I, we thouroughly enjoyed our Costco shopping (should we buy a 2 year supply of ketchup? no, we can get that in Ulsan... I think people at Costco also must've thought we were nuts, the way we were laughing and exclaiming at things!) Totally unexpectedly, my coworker called (!) and asked if we were done, could he pick us up... and we said, "Sure, we'll take you for dinner! To thank you for driving us to Daegu and to Costco (nowhere near where you're actually heading!)

So my coworker comes to pick us up at Costco (did I mention how awesome he is -- came in and met us at the cash!). Checked out our groceries (green beans? what are those? and why did you buy big jugs of tomato sauce? no not tomato sauce, salsa! and green beans are, well, beans that are green?). And drove us to his 'hood, Dongdaegu (east Daegu). Where we went to an AMERICAN chinese restaurant. You don't understand, sometimes it seems that they only have two types of food in Korea, Korean food and Korean-style foreign food. Which is Korean food, essentially, with foreign names, but Korean ingredients. So, WOOOOOOO! American Chinese food! We totally dug the sweet and sour chicken!

And then, we got into an arguement about the bill. Rachel and I pulled out all the Korean cultural stuff we could (ie. I'm oldest, I should pay... and We invited you out, we should pay...) but it did not work. My coworker thus ended up paying for the dinner that we took him out for, to thank him! Clearly we're going to have to kidnap him and take him for lobster (or as people commonly refer to it here, "robster") or tuna or something...

Dongdaegu is beautiful, the streets are treelined and the city is so lively! I'm not sure how else to describe it but the feeling was just completely different from Ulsan. I am looking forward to going back, but alas, our trip was done, and to the bus station we went. My coworker saw us off (waving at the bus, literally!) and thus almost ends my fantastic day. It actually ended at the WA bar, where I had a few pints with Thomas and a Korean, Ellie, who speaks amazing English. And second high point of the day (first being the awesome trip to Daegu!) was that Ellie has agreed to be my Korean tutor! I will speak this language if it kills me, and she's totally willing to help :-)

So, that's today. After reading that epic, aren't you glad that I don't write every day?