Let's hangout at the Jeonju General!

This morning was, in short, hilarious! In order to get our "resident alien cards" (finally I will be a card carrying "alien"...I'm sure that some of you have been just waiting for this with baited breath for literal YEARS! Korea is onto me people, Korea is onto me!) we had to go on a super fun trip to the hospital to get a thorough check up. You know, just a general once over to make sure we didn't have the Tuberculosis, or the HIV or to ensure that we weren't addicted to a ton of contraband substances. The whole thing was altogether hilarious because we felt like, and somewhat had to behave like a kindergarten class of four on a class trip to the hospital as we followed the "foreign teacher coordinator" around the hospital to the various stations we had to visit, practically holding hands in a straight line behind him.

If we looked like puppies or toddlers, there was a good reason, considering that our only other source of guidance was a series of lines painted on the floor which our "handler" explained led to the three areas we'd have to go. The white line led to the clinic where we'd see the doctor, the red line led to the area where we had to give them our blood and the yellow line...led to the x-ray area! I know right? I totally thought it'd be something else too!

Our number one stop on this grand tour of physical check-ups was in the x-ray room. Luckily for us we ladies had already been warned by another of the teachers that they'd want us to take off our bras for this magical operation, so we didn't have to spend the ten minutes she did trying to figure out what the waving of palms in front of chest was supposed to mean! It was a pretty basic operation, y'know, just put on this hospital top and press your chest really really hard against this thing and then get out...yah. I mean, it was no mammogram or what have you (boob crushing...but for a GOOD reason!), but seriously, I'm pretty sure we all had to have Tuberculosis screenings before we got here! Anyway...whatever, so long as I get my "alien card".

Next off, at the same table where we had to give them our blood (muahahahahahahahahahaha! Bloooooooood!) we had to give them a small bit of other bodily fluid. Now, I'm sure we can all agree that this is a pretty normal part of a physical, but let me tell you right now it was the weirdest freaking urine sample I have EVER given in my life! Instead of just peeing in a little plastic cup with it's own little orange lid we were given a lovely little paper cup of the type one would usually use to get a bit of water from a water cooler (not the pointy bottomed type, but made of pretty much the same stuff) and two separate tubes. Once given these vessels, we were sent into the public washroom where we were to pee in the water-cooler cup and then dump the contents into the two test tubes. Maybe it was performance anxiety, or maybe it was the fact that we weren't allowed to drink or eat anything since last night before twelve, but a couple of us were having SERIOUS trouble with this! We both ended up half filling the tubes, even though they were supposed to be filled to the top (even though one of them lacked a cap) so we'll have to see if they call us back in there later to finish off the test. Really though, how much pee do you really need to determine whether or not I'm all up on the drugs?! So stressful! I can't just pee at the drop of a hat people, I can't! BAH.... It did lead to some hilarity, since once we met back up with our "handler", I felt that it was necessary to inform him that the two of us had had some issues with providing the specified amount of pee and that if they called him it might not mean we were on drugs so much as that they hadn't gotten enough pee to prove we aren't! And don't even get me started on the fact that they drew our blood directly beside our uncapped urine samples...whatever hospital, whatever!

Our last stop on this wonder-tour was at the clinic where individually we had our eyes, ears, weight, height and blood pressure checked. Hilarity also, of course, ensued here as one of the other chicas started reading off letters while looking at numbers, thus proving her eyesight was HORRIBLE, and Bryan, instead of leaning back while reading off the letters leaned far far forward! It was also pretty funny when the nurse took our weight, height and chest circumference (yes, chest circumference...are they keeping records of this? Like, the average chest size of everyone in the country at any given time...?) I'm pretty sure the nurse was like "what the hell?!" since all three of us gals are pretty big lovely ladies in a variety of different ways. One of us is tall, one of us has beautiful voluptuous hips and I'm just generally a large lovely lady...all in all, body types that are just not super common up in here! Whoo hooo, messing up your potential record keeping with our gorgeous selves!

Aside from that, this whole aspect was pretty basic and otherwise unexciting. The trip into the doctor's office, however, was fairly laughable. In addition to some pretty basic questions about our medical histories, including an inquiry about diabetes, smoking, heavy drinking etc., he also asked each and every one of us if we had any "symptoms". Not of anything in particular, but just general "symptoms". Now, this seems pretty broad considering just normal "being" could be considered symptomatic of lots of different things, depending on one's "normal" state of being in regards to everyone else's idea of "normal". Again I state, whatever it takes to get my "alien card" so that I can finally be identified as as out of this world as I think we can all agree I behave most of the time!

Who doesn't love a fun trip to the hospital I ask you?

Oh what a difference a day makes.

Look ma! Real, live, for-actual friends...who also speak English! After days upon days of near total isolation in our own little world of two, today we had the great pleasure of meeting not only the two fantastic ladies peektured above, but also nearly the entire teaching staff at our school! We are not alone! It's the best, it's fantastic...I'm so excited I could pass out AND pee my pants!

After a bit of confusion in the morning, which left Bryan and I

standing outside our apartment for over an hour waiting for the

school's teacher coordinator to come pick us up for lunch...at ten in the morning...which we probably should have caught on to a

s being the wrong time...for lunch...we finally got things underway around noon. Now, I don't regret having been confused about the time we were supposed to go, because while we were downstairs for the hour or so waiting,

we had the opportunity to witness some pretty hilarious things. First off, instead of handing out grocery flyers here, it would seem that

instead they just get posted up to the outside of your apartment building. So while we were down there, Bryan had the great pleasure

of finding out that, here in Korea, apparently squid costs less than bananas. That's right everyone: those slimy little cephalopods cost less than the world's cheapest fruit...which, in turn, mysteriously costs an insanely high amount of money (we figured out the reason

for this later on so stay tuned).I'm pretty sure this won't keep me from buying bananas, so

don't worry bananas, we're still friends. The second wonder we had

the pleasure of witnessing was a man who's only job seemed to be

pressure washing garbage cans. In fact, this man even had a specially designed truck for

this purpose which, as he drove away, we saw contained only the pressure washer, some cloths and other washing stuff in the open back...very very odd, but kind of nice since it means that maybe garbage cans are kind of less stinky here...or maybe they're more stinky since while he was washing the can, he didn't take out the garbage...which I think means that there's now a bunch of soggy

garbage waiting to be collected for I have no idea how long.

Once we were picked up, things got fun...fast. We pilled into the

teacher coordinator's car with the other two teachers (with some difficulty since the

backseat occupants had some ample hips...well, except for Bryan!) and were taken to a sushi restaurant near by. If you know me at all, you are well aware of my obsession with rolls. I can't help myself! In fact Sushi Star was the one thing I missed my very very most when I woke up a bit hungover this morning. Now, although I'm fairly certain both Bryan and I were beyond pleased

with the restaurant choice (especially since the day before I had gone so far as to concoct a complicated sushi getting scheme. You see, both of the places we'd found

downtown had cases out front with plates full of fake food showing off the dishes you could order and I decided that we could just take photographs of the food we wanted and show it

to the waiter.... I think it was a pretty good plan, and I think it may need to be implemented later), the unfortunate part

of this excursion was that one of the other teachers is very much opposed to the eating of sea creatures. She says, and I quote "If it comes from the sea, I think it should stay there because that's where it lives."

After this magical meal, we were whisked away to the 1000 won store (1000 won= 1 dollah) where we were given 15 minutes to build our lives...well, at least to get essentials until we can

figure out how to navigate the city/correctly pronounce and/or write in Hangul the name of our

neighbourhood and the variety store on the corner (cab drivers here navigate using landmarks, not addresses, so often giving them an

address is often beyond useless), at which point the teacher coordinator abandoned us! You have never seen four people buy so much stuff at the dollar store, especially at that speed, no

r have you seen the confused looks on the cashiers faces when we dragged our lives up to the counter to pay. Get this though, friends

and roman country-people, you can pay at the 1000 won store with a CREDIT CARD! "Crazy" you say Dollar Store? Well, I think you should

maybe implement this policy because quite frankly

who knows how many people in every country only have 15 minutes to get all the essential "things" they need for their lives with limited foreign currency...I think it would make things easier for

everyone. Don't argue with ME dollar store, don't even dare! You're just upset because Korea thought of it first... Anyway, all in all a GREAT trip!

After the dollar store, we went

to our school for a tour and we got to meet all of the other teachers, and then the director showed us a market very nearby the school where we could get some groceries. That's

right people, I am not the proud owner of GROCERIES. Now, when I'm

hungry, I can just waltz over to the fridge and eat some (highly overpriced) strawberries, or some (highly overpriced) bananas, or even my new boyfriend, Melon Popsicles! I am pleased, very pleased! There were a few eccentric things about this trip to the market that made GETTING this food even more pleasing than just having it, however. These include the "steamingly" cold fresh veggies pictured in the...er...freezer above (note that they are fresh, not frozen...so that's kind of confusing), the 50% sale on the aforementioned my

boyfriend Melon Popsicles (yes capitalized...it's

his NAME!) and the assortment of fun products with Korean names that are currently entirely unreadable

to non-Korean speaking/reading oafs like ourselves! There I am with a box of hair dye that I can only assume promises to give my hair the serious volume and pimp it out with all of the golden bling pictured on the box. And there is Bryan with what we assume from the colour palate as Tide. We went with it since it's the detergent we usually use at home...but seriously, it really could be anything. What is is NOT is the somewhat sticky- making-sounding "Sugar Bubbles", which was also an option. Nothing like going to a whole new country and making "safe" choices about detergent. We're real adventurers, let me tell you what! Probably my favourite thing about the market was the fact that I could obtain about five types of mushrooms, if I'd wanted them (I limited myself to three)! My least favourite was, in no uncertain terms, the insanely high price of fruit! I have had an ongoing love affair with fruit throughout my life, and I have no intention of ending this beautiful relationship now, but in all seriousness, it may bankrupt me! As previously mentioned, squid, which in Ontario is a rare and costly delicacy, costs significantly less than BANANAS! Bananas, the cheapest fruit you could possibly buy. BANANAS cost LESS than squid. Now, the reason for this may be that the B-nans here are sold in full bunches, which means that you can usually buy no less than 15 bananas at a time...but still...seriously?! (At this time I'd like to say that I in no way think that Korea is weird here...I am the weird one, not Korea. This is normal for Korea, but weird for weird ME...just clarifying that!) None the less, I still ended up with quite an assortment of fresh fruit, including some strawberries (1 KILOGRAM for 7000 won, which I guess is pretty good), Kumquats, and some somewhat reasonably priced grapes. I really wanted to buy these little yellow melons, but we keep getting this pickled yellow something that I'm not a huge fan of and I was kind of afraid they'd be the non-pickled version of that. I guess maybe I ought to ask someone...

Once we finished shopping, the hilarity really began as the middle aged cashier took off up the escalator (flat of course so you can roll your cart up to your car)with my box of groceries! He had been asking us something in Korean before taking off, but we weren't super sure what. When we got to the top of the escalator, he'd set my groceries down at the door and was half-way up the street! Luckily, there was a younger Korean guy there to translate and he told the older guy that we didn't want a taxi (which is apparently what he'd been doing: running off to hail us a cab because he didn't want us walking anywhere far with our big boxes!) and that we lived close enough to walk (we only live two blocks away from the store). It was hilarious once we figured out what was going on, but seriously confusing up until that point! Thank goodness that Korean kids have to take some English in school or we'd be generally screwed pretty much all the time!

Now that the groceries are put away, we're just kind of chilling at HOME (finally!) and waiting until the other teachers get off work. We're going out later on tonight to obtain some deliciousness at some sort of restaurant...I'm pretty psyched for whatever it ends up being. It'll just be nice to go for food with people who know what they're doing, especially since it means we'll be able to eat without going through the insane pointing frenzy that usually accompanies ordering! Yay not all alone!

Welcome to Mars...er...Jeonju!

This morning I woke up at 5 am. Naturally. I don't think I've woken up naturally at 5 am since I was literally an infant...and even then I might not have. You'd have to ask my mom. I've kind of always been one of those people who sleeps best during the day and outright refuses to go to bed at anything that could be considered a normal hour. It's not that I don't understand the potential value of getting a good solid sleep at night when I have a day full of stuff to do, but, I don't know, I think I'm just naturally nocturnal...and besides, I don't want to miss anything! I think we can all agree that the best things always seem to happen after the sun sets. I can't help it that my affinity for owls goes this far! In any case, I digress. I woke up at FIVE IN THE FREAKING MORNING feeling kind of disoriented and wondering why in the world I was curled up on a tiny twin bed in a strange room. For the brief moment before I looked out the window, I could easily have pretended to be in some strangely set-up hotel in Toronto...nothing sounded different outside (I'm pretty sure car horns sound the same most everywhere...correct me if I'm wrong), but the second I looked out the window, it was apparent that we simply weren't in Kansas anymore, Toto.

When we finally dragged ourselves out of bed and got up the gumption to actually shower and make ourselves presentable to the world, our first task was explaining to whomever was (wo)manning the front desk that we'd really like to switch to a room with one LARGER bed, and that we'd like to stay for three more nights. Bryan had originally booked us rooms at the Jeonju Tourist Hotel, but after the magical times we'd had last night, we'd come to the conclusion that moving our stuff over there and back again was just going to be too daunting (to be completely honest, I think I'd rather have filled my ears with peanut butter and jelly, and become the owner of a successful child-minding service for unruly toddlers, which, as you all know, is something I consider akin to HELL...well at least the part where I'd be in charge of minding poorly behaved children!) I tried to mentally prepare myself for the possibility that communicating our needs was going to be significantly more difficult than I was used to...but really, I don't think you can prepare yourself to communicate with someone when you speak very little of their primary language. I've always thought it was more than slightly ignorant of anyone to go off traveling without learning at least a few key phrases in the language of the country they're visiting, but here I am! I've become exactly that...a stupid, blubbering idiot, and I'm sure I'm offending EVERYONE! Bryan seems to think I did okay. It's not like I got frustrated, angry or stomped my feet and simply gave up the ghost. After about three tries and numerous hand signals/one word exchanges between myself and the lovely woman at the front desk, she handed me the key for the room above ours (the 1207 to our 1107) and, pointing at the key in my other hand said "bring it back...after". With that and after a few little bows (we seem to have unconsciously adopted this in addition to saying "thank you". I think we're hoping that whomever we're speaking with can understand that we appreciate what they're doing even if they don't understand the words we're saying) we went upstairs and

moved our mountain of stuff to 1207. The house keeping lady was just cleaning all of the rooms (including 1207) and we had a bit of an adventure explaining what we were doing. Lucky for us she was able to say "you are here?" and we were able to meekly nod our heads... pathetically. In any case, this is our new room. It's much bigger-seeming than the other one...I think because it has FEWER TINY BEDS (am I right people, am I right?). You can see how well our excessive piles of stuff fit into the new room (surrounding me on all sides). I mean...they fit much better in this one, but I suppose none of you would know that since we didn't take pictures of the other room...just trust me, it's better.

This room (like the last one, one floor down) also has a lovely view of what I'd refer to as mountains out our window (I can't take a picture for you guys right now because it's snowing...a lot! Damn it earth, I thought it was spring...everywhere...

what are you DOING!?), but probably most other people (at least here) would call "hills". They look pretty big to me though...so...MOUNTAINS! I mean, they're definitely more mountain-like than the escarpment, Hamilton, so...well I'm just going to call them "mountains" until someone corrects me, and that won't be until the school picks us up here on Thursday night since I'm beginning to think I've very little hope of having any sort of real conversation with anyone unless I can get some sort of space age, ear insertable translating fish or machine a la Doctor Who or

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. More on my feelings of helplessness when it comes to communication later, but for right now...look at our sexy sexy bathroom!(Yes, that is what Cora so affectionately refers to as my "area" there on the counter. No matter where I go, I have to lay out all of my "Sarah things" on some sort of flat surface and make a little space of myself. I can't help it, I love stuff, I have stuff, I need to put my stuff in some sort of order so that I feel like I AM someplace...you know?)We've got a little tub (complete with "old person bar"...you all know how much I love old people! Swoon. AND a lovely seafoam green vanity around the sink. I'm pretty into this place.)with a detachable shower nozzle...just in case you want to sit down I guess. The one thing that I find kind of odd (now that Bryan has pointed it out at least) is the fact that the sink is BESIDE the bathtub. I mean, think about it...have you ever seen that before? It seems kind of weird, I think, once you think about it, as in most bathrooms I've seen the sink is right beside the door and then the toilet is by the tub. I guess it does allow you to wash your hands while you're in the shower...but do you really need to wash your hands in a separate little basin while you're washing the rest of your body in the other, slightly larger basin of the bathtub? I think NOT, but you do whatever your heart so desires when you come to the Core Hotel. I will neither quash your dreams, nor attempt to stop you, I promise...Moving on...

Our next big task for the day was obtaining something substantial to eat. We'd both woken up completely ravenous (and ready to kill and eat anyone or anything that crossed our path...seriously...I have NEVER been so hungry in my life! Bryan gave me a granola bar and I could swear nothing has EVER tasted so good!) After our little blips and communication difficulties from the night before, we were both a bit apprehensive about leaving the hotel, so we decided to check out the cafe one floor up from our room. When we walked in, the two waiters behind the counter greeted us in Korean and (I think) asked what if we'd like to eat. After seeing the bewildered looks on our faces, one of the waiters said "eat" while lifting his hand to his mouth (that might seem like a silly thing to do, but I must say that I'm really beginning to appreciate small efforts like that, because without them, EVERYTHING would be impossible and we'd definitely STARVE!) We enthusiastically shook our heads and were seated by one of the large floor to ceiling windows, which gave us a FANTASTIC view of the city.

After considering the menu for what I'm sure was an abnormally long time (I was so befuddled that I didn't even realize the menu had more than two pages until Bryan flipped through them...it's not like they weren't obvious...I'm just ridiculous...so that kind of slowed things up) we settled on shrimp fried rice for Bryan and Seafood Spaghetti and "Strawberry Juice" for me. Now, the reason that I've put the latter item in brackets is this: (similarly to the "strawberry pudding at Sushi Star)the item did not arrive quite as described. While I had ordered the beverage out of a desire for some sort of reasonable priced source of fruit (the fruit platter was 20 won...that's like $18 people!), it would have been more suitable for a dairy craving...it was a smoothie...or maybe even a milkshake, but in NO WAY juice. Maybe I'm just tired, maybe I'm just cranky, but gd it, I wanted JUICE! Whatever...over it...it tasted GREAT! The best part of the meal though (although considering how freakin' hungry I was at this point, the whole thing was AMAZINGLY tasty) was the soup they brought before hand. It was some sort of creamy yellow broth with...wait for it...CORN FLAKES floating on top (cream corn soup?) I LOVED it! I even tried to scam the remainder of Bryan's, but he was having none of that! As I'm sure some of you have heard, there are smaller side dishes served with every meal here in Korea. In this case, they consisted of some sort of yellow, rectangular, definitely pickled stuff and the always enchanting Kimchee. We both made a valiant effort to at least eat a bit of each item, but I really do fear that we're going to offend someone at some point here, because we were too utterly pathetic to choke more than a bite down! Once we finished up, we had a bit of an awkward moment as the waiter tried to ask us if we'd like coffee, tea or desert. I think he forgot that we were pathetic non-Korean speakers for a couple of seconds and went through his full question before realizing neither of us had any idea what was going on. Finally Bryan said "coffee?" and he agreed and went off to get it. We did only slight better at paying and retreated back to our room to recuperate. I know it's my own fault for not being better prepared, and I do hereby solemnly swear never ever to be one of those stupid people who emphatically exclaim "why can't they all just speak English?!" no matter how stupid I feel trying to obtain something to eat, but trying to get what I need is really really tiring right now!

I really do feel like a clumsy space-person visiting another planet and failing miserably at fitting in or at least communicating with the residents unoffensively. And the thing is, I fully recognize that I AM THE WEIRD ONE HERE! And I really do feel very badly for stressing people out. I think I'm going to go figure out how to ask for delicious corn-type soup in Korean...I want more of that...NOW!