This month is chalk full of days off from school! This week was National Foundation Day for Korea. They celebrate it as October 3rd every year to make it easier. The real day was a certain day on the Lunar Calendar, which would mean that the day would have to change a lot every year, which they don't feel like figuring out. Korea apparently began in like 2333 BC! Amazing how old Korea can be, but how modern it has become! Still, there's so much history here, and it shows. Korea is incredible. So in addition to having Thursday off, my school gave me Friday off to make a 4 day weekend! Thank you school administrators! Gianni had Wednesday and Thursday off because Wednesday was the anniversary of the founding of his school. That means we both taught 1 day each this week because both of our schools had exams on Monday and Tuesday. During exams, native English teachers desk warm, meaning that they sit at their desk and watch videos and/or plan lessons. We both got out at 1:30 those days also, which was awesome! On Monday, we spent 2 hours at citibank muddling our way through opening a bank account there finally! We needed one so we can easily send money back to Boston to pay student loans and such. It seemed like the easiest way. I think we finally got it all set after that long, but now I just have to call the citibank people and talk to them in English to make sure. We'll see how that goes later.
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| seafood pancake |
For Gaecheonjeol on Thursday, we met Maria and Matthew downtown for a movie. They really wanted to see Monsters University, and they had found a time that it was playing in English. Most of the animated movies are dubbed into Korean, so you have to be careful going to see them. Maria and Matthew have tried to see this movie a few times before, but the tickets have always been sold out when they get there. Korean people can buy the tickets online, which puts us at a disadvantage. So we got to the movie theatre 2 hours early to make sure we could buy our tickets, which we did after a few escalator rides trying to figure out which floor was the ticket office. Because we had so much time, we decided to go for lunch at a chicken place Maria and Matthew had seen before while walking around. We ordered a marinated chicken with vegetables and fried rice. It was delicious! They cook the food right in the middle of the table for you. We also got a seafood pancake or pajeon. It had tentacles and other seafood in it, and it wasn't actually that bad. I love the savory pancakes here, so I thought it was really tasty. The side dishes, bonchon, were buffet style, so we could get as much as we wanted. We had plenty of food for the four of us, and it was only like 17,000 won total! Best deal ever! When we were ordering, we had a confusing conversation with the waiter. Originally, we were going to order 1 portion of the chicken, but the waiter said 4. Then we changed it to 2 portions. We figured 1 portion would be big enough for all of us, but I think the waiter was trying to tell us it wouldn't be. I'm glad we went with 2 though because 4 would have been a crazy amount of food. What we got was just right. After lunch, we stopped and got some pretzel sticks from Auntie Anne's! Delicious as always, even in Korea. It's so funny which fast food chains made it out here. Dunkin Donuts, Krispy Kreme, Auntie Annie, McDonald's, Burger King, Outback Steakhouse, TGI Fridays, Subway. On the way back from lunch, we stopped at a place selling really cute socks. I got a pair of Little Mermaid ones and some with mustaches near the toes. I'm very excited about these ones! Monsters University was a very cute movie. Disney/Pixar knows how to make 'em. Gianni really wants to rewatch Monsters, Inc. now. 
After the movie, we went to Dongdaegu station to buy tickets to Andong for Sunday to see the mask dance festival and to buy tickets for Jinju's lantern festival next weekend. I'm very excited about both, particularly because we're staying with Lish, my friend from TEFL, in Jinju. These festivals are both supposed to be really good. The train to Andong was only at 6:15am, so we nixed that idea and got train tickets to Jinju. Then, we went to the bus station to get Andong tickets. We went to one bus station and were told to go to the other one across the street. Then, that bus station told us to go to the one behind it. After 3 bus stations, we finally bought our tickets to Andong. I'm a bit worried because there are various kinds of buses in Korea, some are fast and others are short rides. Andong should take us only like 2 hours to get to, but I've heard of others taking 4 hours with transfers. The tickets don't say how long, and I forgot to ask. I'll check before we leave on Sunday, and maybe I can change it if it's wrong. There were tons of buses that leave each day. I was just worried about getting tickets because so many people are trying to go to the festival. Hopefully, this will all work out. After our bus/train ticket buying, we went home. I made Gage's tin-foil chicken recipe for dinner, which I don't think I've made since I was in LA! It's been a while, but the cooking for myself is happening again!
Friday was my day off, but Gianni had school. I decided to go to taekwondo for the day lesson instead of the night one this time. It was great as usual, but there was a lot more focus on self-defense. We did ground maneuvers and things like that. Very informative. I also learned the second form I am going to need to know to get a yellow belt: il jang. It seems bit more complicated than chonggi, but I'll get it. Although, Mr. Hwang told me that our belt test is next Friday!!!! Only one more week to practice! I'm so nervous! Gianni still hasn't even learned il jang at all! Oh and by the way. Mr. Hwang teaches both ITF and WTF, different taekwondo styles, which is why I need chonggi (under the ITF taekwondo) and il jang (WTF style) to get a yellow belt. Mr. Hwang also gave all of us these really cute gym bags! They are all patent with the gym name and information on the side. They're awesome!
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| My mini apple crisps |
After taekwondo, Serena and I went for Juk (my new favorite Korean food since Seoul). This was a restaurant specifically for juk, so there were tons of different kinds. I ended up with the beef and mushroom juk (rice porridge) and Serena got the Kimchi kind. It was yummy! After lunch, I went home and took a quick run to Daiso, our dollar store equivalent, because I needed to get some kitchen items in order to make my apple crisp! I got the peeler that I needed and some pot holders. Then, I went home and did some dishes and washed the sheets that badly needed to be done before starting on apple crisp. I peeled and cut the apples, but I think I made the topping a little too buttery. I needed more oats and brown sugar. Oh well! This week has been the first time I've tried to use the toaster oven to cook anything besides bread. I did the chicken the other night, and now the apple crisp. I left it uncovered for a bit, which is usually what mom does, but because it was so close to the top of the toaster oven, the top oats all burned really quickly. I covered it and kept cooking on around 225 for another 50 minutes. It actually came out alright! I also made some little crisps in my muffin tin because I had some leftover topping and apples. They are adorable, and I think I cooked them better because I covered them with tin foil the whole time. No matter! The apple crisp is still good, and I'll make it better next time. Adventures with cooking real food using a toaster oven. This is getting interesting.
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