shopping shopping shopaholic

so my first official paycheck was wired into my account yesterday.
along with the settlement fee.
time for some shopping~! :D

i think i'm wayy more into shopping since coming to korea. but let's face it- korea has bigger selection of accessories and cute clothes haha. and after cleaning out my desk, i've realized that i have a collection of bows now :0 i have a feeling i won't be wearing them back in the states, but i am wearing one on my head as i type right now. gosh i hope i buy more stuff that i can wear back home... which means, more shopping for meee :D

but before that, i will be heading up to seoul this weekend to visit my grandpa's grave [that i haven't visited in over 11 years]. since i'll be at my aunt's house, i probably won't get to hang out w/ people near seoul :( then hopefully stop by my other aunt's near busan and grab a suitcase full of my winter [well, winter in cali] clothes! the weather's getting colder here in daegu, and i've only packed 2 cardigans and a jacket in my summer suitcase.. oh but i heard it's terribly hot back in california? HA HA. please excuse my lack of sympathy, but i've suffered the heat with HUMIDITY in korea for the past months lol

shoot i just realized i don't have much time until my train leaves, so i'll end the post here.
hopefully i'll have time to shop around in seoul!

granola & yogurt

yummm
i was never this happy about going to costco haha
it was good seeing all the food i used to see back home, eating free samples, and eating american pizza! of course carrying a big box of granola, yogurt, banana milk, and 2 cartons of orange juice back to my dorm was a workout, but i'm definitely going back :D i really wanted cheesecake too but i decided to wait till thanksgiving for t

anyways, the inner-hobo experience seems like it happened too long ago, so here's the short version:
after walking for about an hour looking for an open restaurant [while taking a detour at a historical king's grave], then going to the train station, then back to the bus station, only to find out that it was closed, we [well i at least] slept on the bench outside the bus station. thank you tim for staying away and guarding us haha. i woke up and hour later and by then, the bus station was open! so i found another bench inside and slept.. it really wasn't hard to find my inner hobo- i was way too tired. after knocking out on the bus, then taking a short taxi trip back to my dorm, i got ready and went to my elementary school. my mentor teacher told me that korean teachers can drink and party all night, but they're ready to work again the next day, so i decided to keep the same mentality haha

now!
this week was filled w/ many many familiar faces again, w/ TaLKers from gyeonbuk, gyeongnam, & jeonnam & ALICE! unni from seoul :). i also got to visit my uncle's for chuseok and see my cousin who i haven't seen since her wedding [9months ago]. i also got to see the national ssireum [korean traditional wrestling?] tournament which was interesting [i just cheered for guys in red :D]. i was really sick on monday so i called in sick and ordered porridge but i'm almost all better now :)
and i have all these comments about things that i find interesting in korea, but i guess i can write about that next post ;) time to clean my room for the dormitory festival! apparently the dorms will be open for visitors this mon-wed [and i didnt even know about it till last night -___-] so if you're in daegu and want to see how i live, come visit me tuesdayyy :D

busy, busy

i know that the inner hobo story is long overdue, but ive been terribly busy haha
with working at elementary school 3 times a week,
with university classes everyday,
and the new bible study group i've joined,
not to mention that it was welcome week this week,
yea i've been busy haha

so the korean word for club is dongari, and students normally stick to one club throughout their 4yrs in college.
but i decided to just join a bunch and try them out :D so i joined the basketball, taekwondo, and catholic club.
i also wanted to borrow a football but ended up going to a football game today [you would be proud, johnny].
i met so many new people this week, and i'm just dead tired right now. i think i caught a cold and my throat is killing me :(
so please excuse my lateness and wait couple more days for pics&hobo story :D

now i shall drink some green tea and take a nap before the football group outing..

"find your inner hobo"

that's what mike jokingly said when mint asked where we would be sleeping after the concert.
or at least, i thought he was kidding.
but turns out, it wasn't so hard to find my inner hobo haha

well, this weekend started off well, with the Daegu Lions vs. Lotte Twins baseball game. the game itself was ok, but i really enjoyed the atmosphere & cheering crowds. the fact that the Lions won after a tie in the 9th inning helped too ;) but anyways, i got to see alot of TaLKers this weekend. including woei :D who i haven't seen since the closing ceremony in jochiwon. he said he'll be back soon though so no worries [&we still need to go bungee jumping!]. now the other TaLKers? they were all at the Hallyu Dream Concert.

as i mentioned in the earlier post, the concert was free for all foreigners who signed up. so after arriving in gyeongju with other Daegu scholars, we got our FREE tickets & wristbands. ooh and i saw ukiss & t-ara members walking out of their cars. it my first time seeing celebs in korea haha. but anyways, after waiting in line for hours [...or getting friends to save your place and walking around...] we were finally admitted into the gyeongju sinae sports arena! i could see the young idol fans sitting in the 2nd floor seating, and many many foreigners around me.

oh! TaLK people! i saw soojee, gina, & ashley :D then the ulsan people! including ben, tiffany, clara, jihee unni, & others [&shayna, you too, but you're not part of ulsan :P]. and of course, we ran into richard & the gyeongbuk people again [after seeing them the day before and the weekend before] & many many more TaLKers! it was good seeing them after almost a month of separation.

well, now on to korean celebs! the concert was emceed by heechul, kimminyoung [actress], & taecyeon.
& in order, we saw...
ukiss, miss a, chosinsung, flower, nine muses, seo in gook, 4minute, eru, t-ara, mblaq, 2pm [minus junsu], secret, after school, davichi, beast, ft island, kara, sondambi, 2am, 2ne1, shinee, seven, & super junior.
i was really surprised to find out that shinee got more cheers than 2pm :0 & i really liked davichi&after school's perfs, and 2ne1 performed two of their new songs! there were some malfunctions so shinee&super junior had to perform again, but that was totally fine haha. in fact, since super junior was the last group to go, lots of people were leaving the arena [mind you, it's midnight and little kids were there with parents as well]. so mint and i got to go all the way up to the front to see the sorry sorry perf :D

NOW!
let me talk about the whole 'hobo' situation...
but i gotta get ready to go to my elementary school so i'll just write more when i get backkk ;)

first day

i have a feeling this will be a long post.. so here it goes!

i started classes [knu college lecture classes] last week. on the last day of daegu orientation, i found out that i must work mon,tue,wed to match my co teacher's schedule. well thanks to that, i had to drop many of the classes that i wanted to take before coming to korea. which means that i now have to take History of Korea. taught in english. by a korean professor. oh joyyy. well, since i wanted to take something other than history, i sat in on couple other lectures, but no luck- education classes i sat in on were for 4th years [studying for the teacher cred. exam] and phd students OTL. well, so i missed the first 2 lectures of hist. of korea, and hopefully the professor won't be too mean about that...

moving on, i have been doing lots of shopping! of course, i want to buy more stuff :D but i will have to wait until i get my first paycheck... or until my flight reimbursement comes [this week!] >:D mm, on a side note, i think i am turning more feminine here. like so many people wear pastel pink frilly dresses on daily basis. don't worry, i haven't changed 180, but i do have more blouses and skirts now [since i don't want to wear just Ts and jeans while teaching]. and i don't feel out of place wearing skirts here in korea lol.

ooh! a random fact about korea: there are no buttons you need to push before crossing. the lights just turn green for pedestrians where ever. mm and another fact? drivers don't care about pedestrians at all. i thought cars had to stop, AT LEAST at the designated cross walking zone [where the painted white lines are], but no~ us walkers have to run for our lives when a car is approaching. & i think it's worse in daegu than in seoul :/

wow, this is getting long. but now onto my first day of teaching!
after planning what to do with my coteach on sunday [and having made my super awesome self-intro presentation beforehand], i wasn't nervous about my first day. i thought, i've already taught kids before. besides, how bad can they be? well, they weren't too bad. but handling EIGHTEEN 1st&2nd graders as my first class, while pretending not to understand a word in korean, that was a little hectic. my second class [3rd&4th] and third class [5th&6th] were much nicer since the number of students did not exceed eight in both classes. i got around to do everything planned for the day in the later 2 classes, including learning the students' english names.i did get some not-so-common names like apple, wiw [will?], pheonix, shine, happy, super mario and peach. one of the girls wanted to be called cutie and i got her to change it to katie, and there was a little boy who said his name was daisy, but i persuaded him to change it to david :)

Now! i should be looking up more alphabet song videos, but i decided to just write this post since i haven't written in the past week. at this very moment my laundry is being washed [i know how to do my own laundry now! ooh and ironing too!], and i really should get rid of my giant suitcase that is sitting right next to my bed [the room is too small D:]. i have no idea where i will put my second luggage [that's at my aunts house atm] which contains my fall & winter [well, winter in cali] clothes. have i mentioned? my closet is one of those sports lockers that football players have. perfect for stuffing all of my clothes right? laskjf mm and i haven't been able to put anything on my wall yet, since the tape keeps on slipping off D: i gotta get stronger tape that isn't sold at the dorm convenience store... ooh another thought on dorm- dorm food isn't too good. well, i guess i can't really judge since i've only eaten there 3-4 times, but it wasn't too good then. but i will actually wake up early tomorrow and try their breakfast for the first time!!

now that i'm thinking of dorms, i have much more things to write haha. so, i share room w/ another knu student & we get along :). she's a grad student here, so she's out most times, doing research in the labs [&other times, hanging out w/ her bf (;]. i have a curfew [1am-5am] and she said that if im late, she can just open the door for me since grad students don't need no curfew :D. the doors! the doors to the dorms have a vein recognition system, so i enter my code, then put my palm up to the scanner thingy! i thought that was pretty cool since i've never seen it at another place.

this is a super long post, compared to my other ones right? kudos to you if you read all of it :D
now, i promise to upload pictures onto fb by tomorrow [gotta be a good teacher & do more lesson planning now!] & hopefully i will be back soon to give more details about my life here in daegu, korea.

OOH! I ALMOST FORGOT! going to a hallyu concert next sunday :D
it's FREE for foreigners like meee & kpop groups like 2pm, 2am, kara, miss a, beast, 4minute, afterschool, &sondambi are coming! hehe i have no idea how i will be able to teach & attend lectures the next day, but i'm excited! sigh, my life never seems to take a break! haha