Waygooks Wandering

This weekend was just what the doctor ordered. Both Gianni and I got in a bit of talking time with our parents, which was nice. But, primarily, we spent a ton of time sleeping! This was the first weekend in about a month that we've been able to sleep in as long as we wanted both days. Saturday, we got some errands done and went grocery shopping before going to see Catching Fire with Lily and Jonathan downtown. It was fantastic! I love the second Hunger Games book. I think it's the best story. I found it more interesting than the last movie, and I like that it gets into the politics a little. On Sunday, we cleaned the apartment a little, and Maria and Matthew came over to play Settlers of Catan. We played like 4 games. It was funny because Maria won practically all the games the last time we played, and she didn't win at all this time. We got pizza at Pizza School with them for dinner, and got some snacks for dessert at the convenience store. All in all, it was a great weekend. Just what we needed. I feel at least a bit more relaxed. Also, our bathroom is finally fixed! The maintenance man fixed our sink pipe, both drains are cleared of hair, the shower is in now mounted on a wall, and it's all clean. The boiler also got fixed so that it, hopefully, doesn't drain water all over everything on our porch area like it had been. I'm really glad everything in the apartment is finally settled.

Gianni and I  breaking the boards

Almost forgot! We basically forced Master Hwang to test us for our orange belts on Thursday. He definitely told us that is when he was going to do it, but when we came in on Thursday, ready to go, he said next week. We complained a bit, and I think he realized he told us the wrong thing, so he felt bad. In any case, we tested for our orange belt and passed! Gianni didn't make any mistakes, but I made 2 :( WOOPS! I know the forms too. I just got a little nervous. Also, he sprang a sparing thing on us that we hadn't learned yet and breaking boards! Granted they are plastic boards that have breaks in them, so they don't take much force to break, but still! We were like, "umm....Master Hwang, we've never done any of this before. You didn't teach us." But we passed, so we're officially orange belts now!!!

This weekend we took the wonderful opportunity to do a temple stay at Jikjisa Temple for free. Typically, temple stays cost around $50 and give you a chance to relax and experience life like the Buddhist monks live it. Our experience was a bit different because it turned out this was a special foreigners trip to basically promote the idea of temple stays and tourism for the area. It was completely funded by the Gimcheon cultural center. Gimcheon is only about an hour away from Daegu, and it is where Jikjisa temple is. So despite not being the peaceful, relaxing weekend we were thinking of, we still got to do some wonderful cultural activities.

We found out that a bunch of our friends were going as well, so it was nice to see them-- Marie, Erin, Emily, Sian, Maria, and Jake. Our train ride to Gimcheon was easy as was figuring out which bus we had to take to the temple (hint: it was the one all the foreigners were trying to get on). We got off the bus and started following people towards the temple. It was probably a 15 minute walk, but we got to go through the culture park for part of it. We didn't get to really check it out, but it had some cool sculptures and looked like a really relaxing little park area. On the way, we crossed over a bridge over a small stream that was like the playground ones you can jump up and down and bounce on. Not sure the name for them or why it was there, but it was fun.

We arrived at the temple where we were given orange, baggy uniforms to change into and wear for the weekend. They also gave us these little gift bags with information about the temple and the area as well as souvenir gray polo shirts (in sizes way too large for the girls--might be a present for someone later), a sewing kit, a tape measure, and a toothpaste/brush travel set. It was a really sweet thing to put together. As we were signing in, there were even these little people mascots! So cute. First thing we did was get changed and do a little temple stay orientation. We watched a video about what temple stays are usually like and the etiquette to follow and promptly realized that our temple stay was not going to be like that. They usually take your phones and things away I guess, 

This is a stupa, and that's a blue roof.

but not for us. I forgot my camera anyway-- :( You also aren't really supposed to talk unless it is necessary throughout the weekend, but we definitely did the entire time. Oh well! I'd like to do another, more traditional temple stay at some point. From the video, we also learned about the structure and buildings in a typical temple. At the entrance to the temple is a 1 pillar gate. It is open and has no doors to signify openness. It is also called the gate to truth, and you should bow with prayer hands when you enter it. After that gate is the gate of the 4 guardians. These are 4 kings who decided to guard the Buddhist faith. Each one represents 1 direction (North, East, South, West) and is holding a different object. These are the massive statues of the guys with crazy faces I've taken pictures of and seen at other temples, so I'm glad we learned what those are finally. After orientation, we got a brief tour around the temple. There was a Korean man doing the tour and another woman who I really don't think was Korean. She seemed to have trouble understanding the man speaking Korean and, thus, an even harder time translating his Korean into English for us. The tour made no sense, and we all just resorted to reading the signs posted outside the buildings to see what everything was. I did hear that the temple was built around the year 400 though! So it is really old! One of our friends from taekwondo did tell us before coming that this temple is significant because it has a building with a blue roof. Blue roofs mean the temple is old and important because the blue roof tiles are not very common anymore, now they are mostly grey or black. Another interesting aspect is that in the main hall where the Buddha statue is kept, there are 1,000 small, Buddha statues behind the big, gold statue. All of the statues except for 1 is sitting down, so it was cool to get to see the one that is standing up. It is a very beautiful temple.


Next, it was time for dinner. For monks, even meals are ceremonial, so, even though we were all starving, we had to do it in the proper way. You get a set of bowls called baru gongyang. Each of the bowl is meant for a specific food with no mixing--soup, rice, vegetables or side dishes, and clean water. You unpack the bowls using only your thumbs so as not to make a lot of noise. The smallest bowl (the side dish bowl) goes on your upper left, the water bowl on your upper right, the rice bowl on your lower right, and your soup bowl on your lower left--I think! It goes smallest bowl to biggest in any case. It was a little hard to follow when I couldn't see the monk very well from the back. You aren't supposed to talk during the meal, and you have to sit up straight. The monks had to keep reminding us of these. So you eat, and you all try to finish at the same time. When that happens, you pour some of your water into the smallest bowl and use a yellow radish to clean the bowl. You then pass the water to each of the other two food bowls in turn and clean those with the yellow radish. After cleaning all the bowls, you drink the water that is left in the largest bowl. That is supposed to be all the cleaning of the bowls that you need to do if you've done it correctly, but because it was our first time, and they didn't trust us to be properly sanitary, some of the guys (Gianni included) were made to help wash them with soap the next morning. You aren't supposed to take a lot of food because you have to make sure you finish all the food with no waste. I thought we'd be able to take more if we needed it though, which was not the case, so I was still hungry after dinner, and I had to wait until the next morning to eat.

After dinner, we made lotus lanterns using petal-shaped green and pink paper and a paper cup with wax and a wick in it. They were really pretty. We also wrote a wish or a hope on a piece of paper and hung it from the cup. We all lit the lanterns and walked around the stupa (large, stone monuments--see photo above) outside the temple with the Buddha statue in it. We walked around 3 times so that our wishes would come true. It was a nice, peaceful way to end the evening. We were told to go to bed at 10pm, so we all had a few hours to walk around the temple and hang out together before bed.


How many people can say they were woken up by a monk!? We can now!!! He came in at 5am saying "anyang haseyo," which means "hello" in Korean. We had plenty of time to get washed up and dressed for breakfast. Breakfast was much less formal than the dinner the previous night. We could take as much as we wanted, but, again, we had to eat it all. There was this yummy fruit and yogurt salad that I enjoyed a lot, but at one point, Maria goes, "the kiwi in here is really delicious." My immediate reaction was, "WHERE'S THE KIWI!?" Gianni is allergic to kiwi, and he had eaten some of the salad. He stopped eating it right away, and luckily he probably didn't have any of it, but we were both a little freaked out for a while, hoping he wouldn't have an allergic reaction at a temple in the mountains!

After breakfast, we participated in a Buddhist prayer/exercise ritual. They do 108 prostrations and pray for something with each prostration. It is a mental and physical training exercise. A prostration is a full bow. You begin standing with your hands in prayer position. Then you bend your knees and kneel on a mat. Then, you put your forearms on the mat and touch your forehead to the mat so that 5 point of your body are touching the mat (knees, elbows, and head). The last part of it is to flip your hands so that your palms face up and you raise your hands up slightly. After doing all of this, you put 1 bead on a necklace. You do this 108 times for 108 beads on a necklace. There is a significance behind the number 108 that involves multiplication. A certain number of prayers for a one thing multiplied with prayers for another thing...I can't really remember. Gianni and I both have nice prayer necklaces now that I feel like we had to work hard for! We all did them together as a group, waiting for the last person to stand up before doing another one. One of the times the hole in my bead wasn't completely open, so it took me entirely too long to get it on the strand! I was the last one to stand up that time, and I was totally mortified! We filled out surveys about how we found the temple stay before changing out of our orange uniforms and back into regular clothing.

The rest of the day was spent doing cultural activities organized by Gimcheon culture center. They took us out to lunch at a san gab san (Korean BBQ) place, and that was really delicious. Afterwards, we went to a cabbage field and picked out our own cabbages. They are surprisingly easy to pull out. We stuck those in a bag, thinking we would be using them to make kimchi next. Turns out, they had cabbage at the kimchi place for us, so AGAIN we get stuck with two huge bags of cabbage! How does this keep happening to us!? This is the second time! The next activity was to make summer kimchi. I think the cabbage they had was already lightly pickled, all we had to do was put some red pepper paste all over each of the leaves of the cabbage and stick it in a bag to take home.

Making kimchi was our last activities, so the buses took us right back to Gimcheon train station. On the way off the buses, someone was handing out bags of plum jellies. Apparently, Gimcheon is known for it's plums. They are yummy candies. We were earlier than expected, so we got in the huge line of people to try to change our tickets to an earlier train, and we were successful. We had to pay $2 more because it was a nicer train than we had been booked on though. The nice train is the same as the nice bus we've been on before. It had wider seats with more leg room and an adjustable leg rest.

We made it home around 4:30pm and made plans to see Gravity in 3D with Maria and Matthew later on that night. We went straight home and put our things down so that we could go buy the tickets at the theater downtown. We got the tickets and had some time before the movie, so we played some games in the arcade on the same floor as the ticket office. Gianni was really excited to have his first Korean arcade experience since he loves games, and we hadn't found one for him to play in before this. We also got some quick dinner at KFC. It was a wicked tense movie, but really amazing! The 3D didn't bother me too much the way it normally does, so that was good. I am really glad we saw it. It was a nice end to another great weekend here in Korea.

Last week, we were too lazy and tired to go to quiz, so we slept instead, so last night was our first quiz night in a few weeks. We started out with a free pitcher of beer from one of the two Halloween quiz beer challenges that we won. The first round theme was "JC." It was about people with the initials JC, so, of course, JC Chasez from NSYNC was one of the answers! We didn't think we did too badly on it, but apparently we did because we ended up in 10th place after that round. The second round was famous people's body parts, so there were pictures of hair, eyes, abs, backs of heads, etc. We did really well! We climbed up to second place after that round! Why knew we were so good at body parts! One of the questions in that round is going to kill me though because it was a picture of Randy Jackson hugging someone. You had to tell who's head it was, and you could only see the back. I thought it was Samuel L. Jackson, but Gianni disagreed. I then suggested Jamie Foxx, but that was denied also, so I ended up just writing Samuel L. Jackson. Turns out, the answer was Jamie Foxx!!! UGH!!! That one is going to haunt me for a while. The last round was 7 deadly sins. We didn't do too terribly, and we actually stayed in the same place. We managed to tie with another team for second place. The tie breaker was name as many words as you can that start with Z (scrabble rules). Maria did all the writing, and I blank on stuff like that anyway. The other team had multiple people writing at once. They beat us by 3 words! Three words, and we would have won money! Or if we had gotten the Jamie Foxx question right, we would have won second without a tie breaker! DAMN! Oh well, free beer again!

This weekend, Gianni and I joined a group of 10 other people on a trip to Seoraksan National Park with Waygook Travel. Seoraksan is a mountain in the northeast corner or South Korea. It is actually on the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites that are under consideration right now. Our friends Jonathan, Lily, Sian, and Marie were in our group, but everyone else was new to us. We had an excellent time getting to know these people throughout the weekend. They were lovely :)

The tour started when the bus picked up us by Dongdaegu station at 5:30am!!! It was actually about 20 minutes late for the pickup, which was scheduled at 5:10am, so we were up at 4am. We had to take a taxi to the station because the trains weren't operating yet. It was way too early to be alive, but apparently not for our tour leader (and the owner of the travel company) and his friends. They were all drinking already and encouraging us to drink! It was completely ridiculous. We got them to leave the music off and let us sleep for a few hours, but as soon as we made the stop in Pohang to pick people up, he made an announcement saying, "now that the sun is up, we are going to play music. Come and buy drinks at the front of the bus." It was absurd! It was still only maybe 7:30am! We didn't stop to see anything special along the way, but we took frequent stops for bathrooms and convenience store food, but, primarily, for the tour leader and his friends to have their smokes. It was a little frustrating, honestly. Also, we didn't get real food all day! The place we ended up stopping for food was the smallest rest stop ever, and we attempted to get things to tide us over that weren't cookies and chips. We ended up with "pizza hotdog," which was basically a pizza hot pocket and not at all satisfying. As we approached Seoraksan, the tour guide decided it would be really funny to sing a made-up, tuneless song about the mountain into the microphone on the bus. He and his friends thought it was hilarious, but all the paying guests thought it was totally awkward and stupid.

After a really long drive, we made it to Seoraksan (san means mountain is Korean, by the way). It was beautiful! Absolutely marvelous. The national park had all the amazing fall foliage. We walked around a bit, drank out of a well at the temple in the park, and took the cable cars up to the top of the mountain. The cable car ride was even steeper than at Palgongsan, but this time they were the cars that fit about 50 people, so it was a bit cramped. Luckily, we got a spot by the window, so I could take some nice pictures. The views were amazing. Seoraksan was cool because the mountain was all jagged and very high up. We walked down a trail by the cable car station, and ended up at a look out point at the top. We took some pictures there, and then literally mountain climbed to the top of a massive bolder. From there, you get an even better view. It was really scary getting up there though. There are people who help you out and watch to make sure you're ok, and there are some ropes to help you get down, but otherwise you're on your own. No gear or anything. I seriously felt like I was going to die, and I'm not scared of heights or anything. Getting up there was really steep and scary though. We made it up, and Gianni and I got some pictures together. At the top of the bolder, there was a man selling medals for $10 for getting up there. He would carve your name into them. I laughed to myself because they would totally do the same thing at home, except at home they wouldn't be personalized, and they would cost at least that much, if not more. Getting down, we had to shuffle on our butts the whole time. At the base of the mountain, we got some makoli, which the area is known for. It was corn flavored, which was pretty interesting...



After spending a few hours at the mountain, we drove 20 minutes to our accommodations. It was a beach-front hotel. The 12 people in our group shared one room with two bathrooms (although the lights in one of the bathrooms didn't work). How do we fit 12 in a room you ask? Well, it was our first Korean style sleeping experience. We all had sleeping mats, which we laid out in different places on the floor of one large room. It was actually really nice, like a slumber party.

After getting settled, we had a BBQ! It was delicious food. We got both steak and lamb and some potato salad. Unfortunately, we had to eat inside because it was raining, and it took FOREVER for the food to be finished. We were already famished from the day of not being taken to a real place to eat, and I was kind of fed up. Also, the tour leader asked the males on the tour (and the paying guests!) to help unpack the food from the bus. He asked nicely, and this wouldn't have been a problem, if he hadn't also asked us to do EVERYTHING ELSE! First, we all had to collect wood from Seoraksan for our bonfire later because they only had enough for cooking with. Later on, he also asked Sian and MJ to help cook, and he made everyone else carry the bonfire wood (which, again, we collected!) to a place on the beach for a fire. When the first place we put the wood down wasn't good enough for him, he made us carry it to where he wanted to go. He wasn't even carrying a stick or helping in any way! We also got a free cocktail included in our package, and that was strong enough, thankfully. It seems like the only thing these people do really well is drink and make drinks. The rest of the night, we hung out on the beach, playing with fireworks (we got some more roman candles and a heart-shaped sparkler), and drinking with our friends for a bit before we hit the hay.

In the morning, we found out that the tour leader actually got into a fight with two of the people in our group, and it almost came to blows! He actually threatened them and made derogatory comments about their being British (he was South African, so were all his friends, but they all had Korea wives and girlfriends it seemed). We also realized that our friend, Lily, was really sick all night! At first, she thought she had the flu, but now she's thinking food poisoning. None of us got sick, but she had to leave the trip early because she couldn't even keep fluids down.When we woke up with the rest of us, she went to a pharmacy, and, luckily, the man was really nice. He got her some medicine and helped her and her husband get a bus home because she was feeling so bad. It was really too bad because we like hanging out with them, but I think she's feeling better now. None of the tour guides were around at the time, which is annoying, because she and Jonathan had no help in figuring out what to do. Another example of just how terrible this tour was.

Cool dragon carving at the temple

Giant stone Goddess statue

We got up fairly early in the morning to visit Naksansa Temple, which was about a 15 minute walk from the hotel. Despite the fact that this was a planned event, none of the tour guides were around in the morning when we were scheduled to leave. They had been drinking for over 12 hours, so we figured as much, but it was completely unprofessional. If there is a scheduled event, someone should be there to take you on it. Anyway, we asked the hotel manager who pointed us in the right direction. I'm glad we went because Naksansa Temple was really beautiful. It was a built on a mountain, so there were beautiful views of the ocean. We got our first experience seeing the ocean in Korea this weekend, which was nice. The temple has a massive stone statue of the Goddess Haesugwaneumsang in a clearing on top of the mountain. There were beautiful colored lanterns decorating the temple as well. I really enjoyed it. We walked back to the hotel for our breakfast. Again, the food was really good. I had tons of eggs and toast. It was yummy! 1 of the guides was making breakfast, which was good of her, and her husband made an appearance and seemed in better spirits in the morning without the alcohol in him. He was much nicer and more helpful, refunding the money for Lily and Jonathan's ATV trip since they had to leave because Lily was sick.

Gianni driving cautiously

We got back on the bus and drove to a spot where we were going to ride ATVs. It was really fun, and we had both never done it before. It was on a track, and some courses were more challenging than others. We got to do it for a half hour, and it was awesome. I took my camera on part of it, and I tucked it in my coat when I was driving. I think I got some good pictures.

Sian and MJ singing on the bus

Present for Ben

After ATVs, we drove all the way home and were back in Daegu in time for dinner. During the last half hour or so of the drive, they decided to make the bus into a noraebang (노래방)! I had heard of this, but I haven't experienced it in Korea before. Apparently, work retreats are very popular, and they typically rent a "party bus" with karaoke (or norae) capabilities. Again, the tour guides were a bit nicer, apologizing to the guys in our group who they got in a fight with the night before and giving them free drinks. I don't think the guys thought that it made a difference, but at least they tried and were actually sort of nice the second day. I also want to mention that I found Ben the most amazing present during this trip. For some reason, they sell poop with faces on it. You can whack it like a mallet, and it laughs! Hopefully, he'll find it hilarious!

So we made it back to Daegu on time. Some of the members of our group were worried about making it because they had trains to catch back to other cities, and I was really surprised we actually did make it on time because, again, there were frequent smoke breaks. As we got off the bus and got our things, the tour manager and his wife (who I didn't have a huge problem with, but some people in our group did) decided to wear their professional hats, hoping that people would forget the rest of what happened. They hugged people and thanked everyone for coming. As if we want to hug people who have done a horrible job the entire time!

For dinner, Gianni and I went out to eat at a Japanese place by our house. We had udon noodles and onigiri, which translates into rice ball in English. I am addicted to tuna triangle kimbap and onigiri. It's delicious for some reason, and all it is is canned tuna! I can't explain it.

So to sum up this weekend: Seroaksan, Naksansa, and ATVing were all excellent. So, the events on the tour were amazing, and I'm really glad we got to do these things. But let's be real; all the tour guides had to do was plan to go there and take us there. The food was also really good, but I only give half the credit to the tour guides because I saw their friends helping with most of the cooking and even some of the paying guests helped, like us. There was a huge lack of professionalism on the part of the tour guides, who are also the owners of the tour company. True, they did turn it around a bit for the second day, but some of the things that occurred were, in my opinion, inexcusable, and it was too little too late. I understand that there are some tour companies that cater to more of a partying crowd, but I had no indication of this from this tour company before boarding the bus. If I had, I would have chosen another company. The tour guides really needed to gauge their audience right from the very start and be able to see what kind of a group we would be. That's half their job! They should have known we weren't a partying group and toned it down. They were not able to do this, so the mood wasn't something I wanted to be a part of. I will never be booking with Waygook Travel again. I can do a much better job planning on my own. That being said, if you're looking for a party tour, then this is the tour for you.

Gianni and the giant Pepero display outside the store

Yesterday was Pepero Day in Korea! It may possibly be worse than even Valentine's Day because its specifically to give out Pepero sticks, which are cookie sticks with chocolate on the ends. It is a manufactured holiday created by Lotte (the company that owns practically everything in Korea--department stores, a fast food chain that is, arguably, better than McDonalds, a baseball team, etc.) to sell more of it's candy.  In Japan, these are called Pocky. It's celebrated on 11/11 because the pepero are sticks, so they look like 11's if you put 2 next to each other. They sell a whole bunch of different varieties, and kids give them out to their friends. A lot of times students give them out to their teachers, and today, I'm giving some out to my co-teachers. I wanted to take part in the Korea holiday, even if it is totally made up. The oreo kind if my favorite with a close second to the almond and chocolate ones. I tried the melon ones...and they were really cantaloupe-flavored...not my favorite.

We've been slacking off about going to Taekwondo for the last two weeks. We only went once a week for both weeks. Last night was our second time this week, and boy was it fun! (sarcasm folks.) He started off the warm up telling us that we would be doing circuit training. Max and Serena were like "oh no!" and a few of the Korean students joked about leaving. I knew something painful was going to happen. We did our basic warm up and then he gathered us all around and gave us letters A, B, C, or D. A is the hardest level with he most reps. Gianni and I were C's, thank God! He put out these laminated sheets of paper all around the room--there must have been around 20 along the walls. Each paper had an exercise on the top and the number of reps each level had to do. All of the exercises were calisthenic-type things, like jumping jacks, sit ups, squats, push ups, burpies, etc. He gave us all Korean partners because the exercise name was written in Korean. One partner had to do all the exercises from one station to the next without stopping and then the other partner had to. I went first. I was already really tired coming into class, and this definitely did not help. I did it though! By the end I was beat red (and stayed that way for the rest of class! Master Hwang kept pointing it out, making me even more red). It was a fantastic workout, and I'm definitely feeling it today.

This weekend, we had an engagement photo shoot scheduled with Kristen, a photographer who has been a teacher here for about a year and a half. Her cousin, Marie, is a friend of ours and suggested we talk to her. I wanted to have our engagement photos in Korea as a kind of memento of our time here. I want people to be able to recognize that we're in Korea, so we decided to go to Cheongju, where Kristen lives, because there's a beautiful fortress on the mountain there. It's about 2.5 hours away from Daegu, and we left on Saturday morning at 11am. We meant to leave at 10am, but that bus was full by the time we got to the station. We got to take one of the luxury buses to Cheongju like we did to Andong. It was fantastic, again! The US really needs to get on board with this. On the way there, the weather got steadily more gray. By the time we got there, it was spitting rain. It continued to be gray, foggy, and rainy all day! Fortunately, we spent a few hours at the fortress taking pictures with it and the beautiful fall foliage before the fog got so bad you couldn't even see the trees anymore! It was insane, but very cool. The foggy pictures actually had a cool effect. After our shoot, we got lunch/dinner with Kristen at an Indian place, and it was delicious.We took a few pictures in the downtown area just to show off a little bit of Korea at night. We also got the fried dough in the shape of fish with cream inside. We had previously only tried the red bean kind. The cream ones were good though. We headed back to the station and caught the last bus out of town. I think the pictures turned out very nicely. Kristen has already posted 3 online, and they look really nice.

On Sunday morning, I had a nice chat with my dad and my aunt while my mom cleaned the house, and Gianni and I talked to his friend, Caroline, also. We are much overdo with a skype call to some of our friends from home, so friends, if you're reading this, schedule something with us. In the afternoon, we went to Daegu Opera House to see Tannhauser, an opera by Wagner. The opera was a part of the Daegu Opera Festival that has been going on for the last month. The Opera House itself is a beautiful building. We got the cheapest tickets with a few of our friends, so we were sitting all the way in the top balcony at the front. We had to lean forward to see over the railing, so that was kind of a pain. The opera is German, and it was captioned in both Korean and, thankfully, English. It was a pretty boring opera though. I'm not sure if that was due to the staging of it or the play itself. One of the people in our group knows the opera, and she said this was a bit of a tamed down version. It is supposed to start with an orgy or something, and it definitely did not. Anyway, there wasn't a lot of action or movement happening. The visuals were interesting, but the sets didn't  change during the acts. It was minimalist sets and staging with a kind of boring plot, so it made it even more boring. Oh well! First time seeing opera on a live stage was a bust, but it's ok. Outside the Opera House, there were all these booths set up where you could take pictures and experience opera. One of them was a stage you could take pictures on, and there was another where you could try on costumes. It was kind of interesting.

The Opera:

The Opera House, which is actually really close to where we do taekwondo, is already half way to Costco. My phone said it was only like 2 miles away from Costco actually. Being that we were so close, I decided for both of us that we needed to go there. We hopped on a very convenient bus from right outside the Opera House. I was probably the most excited person ever to enter a Costco! You actually have to take the rampscalator down 2 floors from the entrance door to get to the second shopping floor, then if you want to get to the food area, you have to take it back up one floor. It's kind of annoying. Otherwise, it's the same as at home, including a lot of the same food!
It was lovely! There were so many people, too! So we walked all around Costco, getting the things that are more difficult to get here. We got a huge pumpkin pie for only $8, some snack foods and cereal brands from home, the Costco muffins that are my favorite, crusty onion bread, Einstein's Bagels, and Heinz Ketchup. Probably the best discovery was the cheese section though! They actually had real, less processed cheese. I got a huge cheddar cheese block, ricotta to make lasagna, and feta! I'm sooooooo happy with all my purchases. We had too much stuff to carry on our own, so we ended up getting a taxi back to the apartment, and it only cost us $15! What a deal! I'm ecstatic. I needed a little something from home, and now I have it! :)