Monday, Tuesday, sun day, blues day

Monday was beautiful. Liezle and I met and rode bikes for about an hour. Then we went grocery shopping and put our baskets in use. I did not realize that putting a thing of laundry detergent in the front would effect the steering so much, but it was ok. I almost lost a bottle of water jumping a curb, but it landed back in the basket. After bikes, I did laundry and straightened up a tad. Then I went to work. The older kids have a big test coming up in school, so are pretty much done for the rest of the semester. One class on Monday was totally empty, so I just had another planning period, except that I ended up giving a final to 2 kids who were absent the previous week. When I got home, I did dishes and watched "The Eagle" with Channing Tatum and Jamie Bell. It was ok, kinda lame.

I woke up again at 6:30 on Tuesday morning (I really have to get out of that habit) and couldn't open my left eye. I was pretty sure it was pink eye, but checked in the mirror to make sure and tada - bright red. Awesome. So then I debated on my doctor strategy. I know pink eye is contagious and easily treated and won't go away unless you get drops etc., so I knew I would have to go to a doctor. The question was, should I go to the doctor that I saw on Saturday, who is an ENT, or should I try a family medicine place that might have someone who speaks English. I decided to go for door number one.

I showed up at the doctor's office just after 10 and was the only person there. The receptionist recognized me and "Lion Hangman" was in buisness. There were some phone calls and a bunch of talking going on, which I later found out was discussions about whether I had insurance. I told the doctor the only reason I came was because of my eye. He told me to continue with the medicine he gave me and to go to an optomotrist who has an office over the Dunkin' Donuts and that he wouldn't charge me for the visit.

So off I went to DD's and the eye doctor. I found the office pretty well, but nobody there spoke English so there was lots of staring at each other. The "Ryan Hackman" v. "Lion Hangman" name game started again, but they eventually found me in the system. I went into the exam room and tried to call my boss, but he was at the doctor's too and my doctor was looking annoyed so I hung up. He looked in my eyes and poked around a bit. Then he asked if I spoke any Korean - nope. So in gestures and limited English, he told me I had conjunctivitis (knew that much) caused by my cold (I showed him my pill packet). I was told to rest (not going to happen that much as I have work, a meeting, work and my mom and vacation coming up this week) and to come back in 2 days. I told him I would be gone until next week and he said to come back then. His nurse brought me out to the waiting room, put a drop of something in each eye, told me to close my eyes and turned me towards a heating lamp. I have never done anything like that in the US, so I have no idea what they put in there. Then they gave me a perscription and I went downstairs to fill it.

I will have to say that it's nice having a pharmacy directly under the doctor's office - 1 stop shopping as it were. And CVS can't hold a candle to these places. I was 4th in line and handed over my paper. My butt had just hit the bench to wait when I was called back up and given instructions on my eye drops (2 bottles). So now I have 2 eye drops, 4 pills and a cough syrup. This cold better go the heck away before Friday!

Sunday Funday

I woke up at 6 again and made myself fall back asleep. I woke up again around 8:30 and realized sleep wasn't going to happen. So I made myself a little breakfast or yogurt and cereal and took my morning meds. Then I hopped on the bike and decided to try to find the lake again because I was told to try a different road. When I got to the intersection where I was supposed to turn, there were a bunch of policemen blocking off that road. So I decided to go down by the river and go the opposite direction. What I did not know, was that the tents that were set up on Saturday, were really for today. There was a marathon and a variety of other distance races. I rode my bike through the middle of some of it by accident because I didn't know where else to go and because I was following some other people. Luckily, I rode through before the actually start of the event, so it was just people warming up.

I rode down and found the actual musical fountain, then followed one path and ended up on the street, so I had some street pratice. I don't like it. Partly because I'm not aggressive enough and partly because people don't move out of the damn way. Luckily, I didn't hit anyone or fall over, so that was good. On my way back, I took a ramp earlier than usual to avoid the runners. I'm glad I did because there was no way I would have gotten through that mob! I saw the start of something and taped part of it - what you see is only about half of the people there! I started taping after the real starting gun through which was small firecrackers. Here's the video of the start:

I went home and started cleaning for my mom's visit. Then I went to church for Easter service. After church, I came home and took a little nap. Then I met up with a group of about 7-8 people at the movie theater downtown (Lotte cinema) to watch Fast Five (the 5th in the Fast and the Furious series). Apparently it actually opened in Korea before the States. It was in English with Korean subtitles. It was decent - a lot was somewhat cheesy, but it had Paul Walker in it and that was enough for me (all the other boys were icing on the cake). After the movie, 6 of us went to dinner. It was a fun evening.

Sometimes failed plans are good

So if you read my previous post, you know that I went to bed around 3:30 on Saturday morning. I woke up and could barely swallow and was still coughing. At that point, it was kind of gray outside, so I just assumed it was raining again. I hopped on facebook to message LeeAnna about a doctor she had told me about who spoke some English and someone messaged me, "Why are you awake?" and I noticed it was actually 6:30. I tried to sleep again and woke up at 9 and decided to go on a bike ride. I wanted to test it out when there weren't too many people out and 9 am on Saturdays is definetly a good time to do it. I made it to the river without any problems (although I almost got hit by a car, but that wasn't my fault). Then I tried to find the lake, but I didn't. Instead I saw some tree farms. Then I turned around and went back towards the river. On the way back I almost got run over by a real bike gang - matching jackets and everything. I noticed a bunch tents being put up but had no idea why. I later found out there was a marathon or other run. I rode for about an hour and came back a little after 10.

Tree -lined road well above the river

Arbor of some sort - grapes maybe?



View of the river from the high trail overlooking a tree farm



Pink azealas along the stairs on the main bike path

Yellow flowers between the bike and walking paths along the river

Red azaleas on another stairwell...there's a white one too, but they weren't in full bloom yet

Not sure what these are, flox maybe, but they smell awesome

Man walking up the bike path next to the purple flowers

LeeAnna had sent me a message that she and John were going to an ear, nose and throat doctor and that John would translate for me if I wanted to go with them. So I hopped in the shower and met then at 11ish.


Orchid on my building's patio while waiting for LeeAnna and John

On the way there, we almost missed our bus stop. LeeAnna ran out the door and her purse got stuck while John and I were still on the bus. John asked the driver (in Korean obviously) to open the door and let us off, well John hopped off and as I was getting out right behind him, the driver shut the door. On my head. Well I guess it was technically my neck because my head was outside and my body was inside. It didn't really hurt, but was scary because I thought he was going to go and highly embarassing. But he opened the door and I jumped out and just had 2 black marks on either side of my neck.
We walked into the office and see lots of little kids. Then we debated about whether it was a pediatrician's office or not. John helped us fill out information cards and the receptionist had to look us up in the directory. Apparently they can't just look us up by our ARC (Alien Registration Card) numbers, but have to go by our names...our "Korean" names. LeeAnna's name ends up being Joann Lee and I turn in to "Lion Hangman" because they don't really have "r" sounds and "c" sounds like "g" here. Then one of my Korean co-workers (the one who works part-time) came in as well. She has been sick too I guess. We said hi, then got called in the back. The doctor was very nice and spoke English pretty well. John went first and was given some allergy medicine. The LeeAnna went. The doctor used a camera and tube thing to look in her ears and up her nose - both were displayed on a video screen that John and I could see so it was kind of fun. She got allergy medicine too. I went last - I didn't get the up the nose video thankfully. Apparently, I am on the tail end of a cold - just a really bad one. My throat hurts because of 3 weeks of drainage and coughing. So he perscribed me an antibiotic of some sort, a decongestant and a cough suppressant. As we went to check out, there was a question as to whether or not I had insurance. I am supposed to be covered by my school, and it should be on my ARC but it wasn't. So I was cataloged as "uninsured" and was somewhat nervous about the cost which turned out to be...$12. I was like, that's cheaper than my co-pay when I was insured. The drugs - 5 days worth of pills to be taken 3 times a day...$18. I am still going to ask my boss about insurance though in case something big happens. The pharmacy lady was very nice (and conviently located under the doctor's office). Oddly, she was LeeAnna's principal's sister - small world - even in Korea. They give you the medicine in little daily pouches, so everything is easy to follow. Although I'm not sure I would have known what to do without John's help.

After getting drugs, we decided to go have lunch. The 2 of them like to eat and have been many places in Jinju so started me on their "Food Tour of Jinju". We went to a little place called Beans Farm. They have cute gnome pillows and comfy chairs. It's a nice place because they do breakfast or lunch - kind of like a nice Denny's. I got a strawberry yogurt shake (aka smoothie) and the pancake sampler platter - 4 pancakes: banana/walnut (bananas are gross), plain (good), blueberry (very good) and cheese (awesome). It was almost like a blintz. I knew there would be a banana pancake on the plate, but wanted to try all the others, so it was worth a throw away. John and LeeAnna split a huge sampler plate with eggs, hashbrowns and sausages (including a hotdog). While we were there, a student of John's came in and sat with us. He takes pictures with a U2 and flies planes in the Korean Air Force. John asked for cups of hot water so we could all take our medicine (which they want us to eat 30 minutes after eating). John and I both had the cough suppressant medicine which is a liquid in little pouches. It tastes like bananas so I think it's a bit nasty, but it could be worse so I'm not complaining (well I guess I am, but not a lot).

Then we walked around for awhile and went to the cupcake store. It is a very cute place. LeeAnna had a red velevt cupcake and I had a mocha one. 

Cupcake display window

Then we walked around some more and they showed me a thrift shop and a shoe store. After walking, we bused back home, I got a bottle of water, and promptly fell asleep for 4 hours. So much for cleaning for my mom's visit which was the original Saturday plan, and thus the title of the post. Guess I'll have to clean later!

Wednesday through chicken eating Friday

After buying bikes on Wednesday morning, I met up with LeeAnna (the girl who lives in my building who I went with to strawberry festival) because she was showing me how to get to the tailor so I could have some jeans fixed. She speaks a little bit of Korean (at least she knows mubers) so she was able to understand some of what happened. Basically I had 2 pairs of jeans with holes in the inner thighs. He was able to patch them so you couldn't tell there was a hole at all for about $15 in one day. Things like that are why people say Korea is cheaper than the States.

After I dropped off my pants, I went home and took a nap (out of context, that sentence looks really odd). When I woke up, I felt like doodoo - I was achy, my throat hurt and I was pretty sure I had a fever. But I went to work anyways. After work, I walked in the door, didn't even turn on the light, and crawled into bed at 10pm. I woke up at 12 and was freezing, still had a fever and coughing up a storm. I took an Advil, went back to bed and woke up again around 3 drenched in sweat - fever broken! I still felt bad, but a little better than on Wednesday. On Thursday I stayed in bed all day sleeping and reading "Water for Elephants".

On Friday it rained all morning. It stopped around 2, but was still yucky outside. Friday is my super short day and after work I went home to have a quick read before going to the Good Friday service at church. They had been having Korean/English services all week at 5:30, but I didn't go to any of those. The service was nice - the had video clips of hymns instead of having us sing (except we were invited to sing Amazing Grace/My Chains have been Broken at the end), and had readers read excerpts.

After service, I met up with Cindy, Liezle and Ally at Ally's apartment and we headed out to meet another group of people for dinner. One girl, Taleisha, doesn't eat pork or beef, so we had dakgalbi - chicken. I hadn't eaten that here yet and it was really good. Before they start the main dish, they give you side bits. We got shredded cabbage with thousand island dressing, kimchi and something else I can't remember. They also gave everyone soup...sort of. It's cold radish soup. And by cold, I mean it has ice chunks floating in it. The flavor would have been ok, but I couldn't do the cold. Neither could about 9/10 of us. I felt a little bad about it, because it seemed like such as waste, but oh well.

Left is cabbage salad, right is ice radish soup

Then he made the chicken. First, they dump basically cooked chicken pieces, cabbage, rice noodles, and bits of potato in a big dish in the middle of your table. Then they add hot water with a tea kettle (I tried to get a good picture of that, but I couldn't). Then they mix it around with wooden spatulas for a bit and add chili paste (we didn't get ours very hot, but the other table did). After you eat most of the dish, they will come back and add rice, cabbage or spinach, and mroe chili paste to the dish and form a rice patty type thing. Then you eat that too. We also had drinks - many drinks (I actually didn't drink all that much at dinner because I don't like some of the stuff that we ordered).

Dakgalbi - chicken, cabbage, onions, rice noodles etc.

Tea pot

Rob, Ally, Matt watching rice

I also took a video of the rice being mixed around. The benefit of not telling people you are videoing something means you can sometimes get a good clip. Other times, it means you have people talking about being transgendered while you are watching rice being cooked. Enjoy!

After dinner, we went to a bar called JuJimis. I had been there before - it's the place with sojo slushies. We had a bit of a language barrier when we asked for "peach" (which Koreans speaking English say as "peachy") and ended up with a pitcher of beer. We got it worked out though and had kiwi and peach slushies. We also played a fairly tame (read lame) version of Never Have I Ever (although I don't know these people well enough to play the good version). Most of the people left around 12-1, but I stayed out with Liezle, Ally and a girl named Emily (who I really like and is from England) until almost 3 am. Ally fell asleep in the bar and I took a video of it. He had threatened to beat me with a large stick if I post it on facebook and it's almost 2 minutes long, so I won't post it here either, but it was pretty funny. When he woke up he wanted us to go for chicken wings - I said no.

Bikes

I want to get a bike. Yes, I am still afraid to go down anything steep. Yes, I am afraid that my lack of motor skills/coordination will cause me to run over small children, old people and/or animals and/or fall over. But I still want one. The Nam river runs in through Jinju.

River to the right, walking trail in front of the bench, bike path next to the flowers

They have built a lake (via dam) at one end and a big university at the other end. The entire river has a walking path and a seperate bike path. There are also paths all over Jinju for bikes. Plus, they have really cool 12 year old girl bikes - with bells and baskets and bright colors!

On Sunday, Brandon told me about a good bike place to try. Liezle and I went on Monday. Unfortunetly, I totally missed the stop and we ended up walking over a mile back to where it was. Luckily we a- didn't get lost (technically I knew where we were when the bus stopped, I just didn't know exactly how far away the shop was), b- it was a nice day and c- we found the musical fountain (although it is currently without water)(although we later found out that what we found wasn't really the musical fountain).

Charm Jinju sign on the way into the city

Wide view

The shop didn't really have any good used bikes in the cheap price range. So we went back home and met up with Ally (and randomly Tom who just sat with us but didn't eat) and had lunch. I had bibimbap again. This variety also had lettuce. The best part of the meal was a side of kidney beans with some kind of sweet sesame sauce.

I asked my boss about it and he told me to go online and that he would help me find one, but I didn't really want to wait. So we set out again on Tuesday to check out 3 other bike places - 2 near my house and 1 near the city bus terminal. We looked at two places near me, but one place was super expensive and the other had people who weren't really interested in helping us. Then we met a foreigner on the side of the road. She had just parked her bike and we asked her where she got it. She told us there was a warehouse near the bus terminal. So we went that way and again walked around for a pretty long time. Then Liezle called her co-worker, who gave us some better directions and we found the place. We didn't buy anything at that point, but he had a decent selection of both old and new bikes. We walked around for like an hour trying to find a good place for lunch, but finally ended up at the same place we had lunch the day before. We split bibimbap and a noodle dish that was ok, except that half of the noodles were really this fish paste noodle stuff which I couldn't eat (eww).

We set again again super early on Wednesday morning to meet a girl named Cindy (who also wanted a used bike) and Liezle's co-worker Keung He at the bike warehouse. I'm glad she came along because we were able to get cheap bikes, plus locks and a bungee cord, and get delivery to my apartment. My bike ended up being around $40. The funniest part was that Keung Hi, Liezle and I all got into this big delivery drunk cab with the driver to try and get to my house. So Liezle was actually part way on my lap and I was leaning up towards the windshield. We got the bikes down and tested them out in the garage. The I found the best/worst part. My bike horn sounds like a little kid bike. Liezle and I started laughing when I hit it and Keung Hi couldn't figure out why we thought it was so funny. You decide:

Cindy, Liezle and I talked about how we were going to start a bike gang, which led to some interesting comments on facebook, including a new member named Sarah. Cindy came to get her bike while I was at work and crashed it into a tree on the way home. She's ok, but she cut her knee. That's when I found out she had never ridden a bike before. I guess you might as well learn in Korea on a cheap beater bike as any other place! I'll take a better picture someday, but here's a shot of my "new" bike:

Daegu 2: Electric Boogaloo

We hopped in a cab to go downtown. On the way, one of the girls asked how old Rob was. Spencer said, "I think 24 but he looks 30". I said, "Hey now, watch yourself" and then he argued with me for about 5 minutes that I wasn't 31. I ended up handing him my license for him to believe me. Being fat has few advantages - this is one of them. We planned on meeting the rest of the Jinju crew at a resturant near the downtown area (totally in a different place than Jeff and I went - we were in a different section of town, near the other bus terminal), but when we got there, the tables were all full and none of us really wanted Indian food.

Downtown Daegu with Ally, Cindy and Marzia

So we walked around for awhile and came upon my new favorite place, Viniroo. It's a window (and a very small inside) where you can walk up and order drinks on the street (like in New Orleans). The best part is that they come in Capri Sun-like pouches. This is good for 3 reasons: no roofies, excellent dancing abilites with no spillage, it requires dudes to drink from a straw.

Sign above the door. Why a monkey? I have no idea.

Window from the street. The curtain makes it classy.

Spencer drinking a "Playboy" which was basically 151 with a few others thrown it and tasted like bleh

The guys got drinks (I held out until later, because while I am strong to alcohol, I hadn't eaten in awhile and didn't want to pass out early - I had to keep up with the youngsters) and 7 of us went to dinner at Italy Italy where we had, wait for it...Italian food. I didn't take a picture of it since it was pasta and looked the same. Cindy and I shared chicken alfredo with spinach and mushrooms. Then Liezle, Cindy and I went to meet her friends from training at a bar called Go Go Party. It was Go Go Gadget a nice place. They have beer pong, pool, darts, a dance floor and pouch drinks yay!

Sign outside above some steep stairs. I didn't fall - yay!

Sign above the DJ - yay pouch drinks!

We left after about 30 minutes to meet the rest of the Jinju crew at a bar called Who's Bob? It would have been a decent place to start out because they also have beer pong and pool, but because I had already been dancing and drinking out of pouches, I wasn't really into it. They did have cool wall designs.

Wall in Who's Bob's - the outside sign didn't come out, boo

So a group of 6 of left and went back to Go Go Party. The rest of the Jinju people came there too, but in waves. It was really fun. We danced for a long time. The weirdest part was when some guy started dancing behind me and Liezle shouts, "he looks ok", so I started laughing. Then, about 5 minutes later, he bit me on the shoulder and that ended dancing guy. It was around 2 by this time and a big group was leaving to go back to hotels. 

Agatha, Emily, Jess, Kyle and Me at GoGo Party (with Tom creeping in the back)

Me and Jesse (boy can dance, although he danced with his jacket at one point)

Me and bday boy Rob

 

Spencer and Jung wha

A smaller group of 8 went to a 3rd bar called MK (or Monkey) club. This club was packed. The thing that sucked was that it was super smokey, partly because people were smoking at the sides (not allowed on the dance floor) and partly because they pumped "fog" in. The DJ was DJ Henry which made me laugh. Sadly they did not have pouch drinks. We stayed there for another hour or so and decided to leave.

Some people had already left so it ended up being me, Cindy, a girl named Marzia (new girl, will detail later maybe), a guy named Tom (goes to my church, again maybe later with details) and a guy named Jesse (really nice, also a church guy). When we walked out, Jesse wouldn't let us get in a cab because he said it was only 2 blocks away. He was wrong. Cindy tried to get in a cab at one point and he pulled her back out. Then he picked her up and tried to carry her, but she had on a really short skirt and made him put her down. Then she ran and got a cab and he jumped in with her. At that point, Tom went to a fast food place and ordered food and I didn't want to leave him because he was quite intoxicated (I wasn't). Oh, and I had given Liezle my sweatshirt earlier because she was freezing so I was outside in a tshirt (and it was cold). So Marzia, Tom and I walked another 15 minutes under a bridge and through a slightly stetch area around the subway station to the hotel. When I walked into my room, everyone had beaten me back (even peoplw who left the club after me), and it was 4. Then, 3 of the guys in the room down the hall came into our room (shirtless) wanting to talk with us. Liezle was asleep on the couch and Jung wha was in the shower so I had to usher them out. It was annoying and amusing at the same time. Cindy and I shared the bed, which was heated and we couldn't figure out how to turn it off, so we were hot the entire night.

Spencer hugging a scared Jesse

We got up around 9:30 because a group wanted to get back to Jinju in time for church. I had originally given up on getting there, but when a whole group said they were going, I decided I would go too. Unfortunetly I hadn't packed for it, so I ended up in smokey jeans masked by Britney Spears perfume - not very church-like. We hopped on the subway, went to the bus station and got tickets for a bus leaving in 40 minutes. Then we went to a place called Lotteria, which is similar to any fast food place in the States. We got take out and ran back to the bus just in time. It felt like a field trip because everyone sat together and was talking about what we did etc. It was fun.

Only 3 of us ended up in church even though 3 other church goers rode the bus home with us. I'm glad I went though because after the service, Jamie (the pastor's wife) asked me to be on a bulletin board decorating committee for the new IEC (English Church) room downstairs. I said yes, then had to wait for about 30 minutes for people to leave so we could go look at the room. One of the church members (Korean guy who is a dentist) told me that he liked to talk to me because my accent and voice were nice to listen to and easy to understand. I told him that my kids make fun of me because I drop my t's in words like mountain, say "yea" funny and use y'all. Then we went and looked at the space and came up with decorating ideas. After that, I went to lunch with Brandon, Jamie, Jung wha and a guy named Lance. We went to a place called Vallance burger. We stayed for awhile and by the time I got home it was almost 6. So I was tired. But I forged on and labeled, edited and posted photos! So that's the end of my weekend. It was a lot of fun and I hope we do something like it again, but I can probably only handle it once a month, because while my face might look 25, my liver is definitly 31.

Being here is like redoing college, except teaching instead of studying

On Friday night I met some people for drinks at Urban Bar. Then we went to dinner at a meat place. It was nice because it was still a small group, but had a few people I don't get to see often so it was nice to talk with them. After that we all went to a bar called Soundgarden. There is a group of girls in Jinju doing a version of the Vagina Monologues to benefit the local YWCA. I think there are other groups in other cities doing similar readings. The girls were holding a benefit for the benefit - in other words, they had some local bands (and some foreigners) play and we gave donations. They raised enough money to cover the cost to book the stage and to make flyers, so that was good. It was a fun night - there were a lot of people.

Ally and Sophia (she's the American-Korea I talked about before...and a black belt in tae kwon do)

Liezle, Kyle, Clara (Liezle's co teacher), Cindy, Me

Liezle's co-teacher is named Keung He (or something like that) but her facebook name is Clara. I had met her once before and she is nice, but she's not really fluent in English It's good, but not great. She came out with Liezle after work (they finish earlier than me every night except Friday) and met us at the bar. I finished one drink and as I was ordering another I heard her gasp. I then told Liezle, "I think you co-worker thinks I'm a lush (which I then had to explain to her because they don't use that term in South Africa)". A few minutes later Liezle taps me on the shoulder and goes, "Keung He wants to know if you're strong to alcohol" and started laughing. Apparently when Liezle ordered another drink too she asked if I was "strong to alcohol" meaning tolerant. I was like, yea, I'm ok. So now Liezle and I started using "strong to alcohol". I'm bringing that back with me.

Marzia, Ally, Me

On Saturday, I got up relatively early and met Liezle at the local bus stop. Then we met another group of about 15 people at the city bus stop. We all got on a bus to Daegu. A guy name Rob (who oddly enough lived near our house in Jersey - his best friend's mom is now the principal of my elementary school), had a birthday on Sunday. His family has season tickets to the Yankees and has gone to a baseball game every year for his birthday and he wanted to carry on that tradition. So he sent out a facebook message to most foreigners in Jinju. Like I said, about 15 or so got on the early bus. There were probably 30 when all was said and done. We got to Daegu around 1. We walked to the stadium and got tickets (which were fairly cheap, like $8). The "football" (soccer) stadium and the baseball stadium are right next to each other.


Fountain in front of stadiums



Sign across the street from the stadium



Soccer ball flower pots

Then we went to lunch at a Chinese place. It was kind of funny because we ended up in 2 tables - one had lots of people and ours had 6. The big group just ordered small portions of rice and our table had chicken and red peppers, sweet and sour pork, fried rice and noodles. We also had soju. They made fun of us at first for being like the quiet kids table, but when our food came they were all jealous.

Fried rice with black bean sauce on it

Fried rice pre-bean sauce

Red pepper chicken

Our lunch group - Cindy, Darragh, me, Jung wha, Matt (Liezle took the picture)

I warned my group that I take pictures of food all the time, so they were prepared when all the dishes came out. I think I might have mentioned before that when Koreans do fried rice, it's really cooked rice with a fried egg on the top of it. Then they give you a bowl of black bean sauce to pour on it. That's what the first 2 pictures are. On the side of the plate there is cabbage salad with ketchup.

After lunch we walked back to the stadium and put our stuff down. Our group left a little bit later then the big group (because we had real food), so we took out time getting back over because we knew people were saving us seats. Outside of the stadium was very crowded because I think players will sign autographs before the game. There were lines of people and we just walked past them. We also took pictures with the mascots. My face looks like that because I was the first one to get my picture taken, and he originally just put his arm around me, then right when Liezle snapped the picture, he hugged me with both arms and it surprised me. After we walked in and dropped off our bags, 4 of us (me, Liezle, a girl named Cindy from Washington state and a guy from Ireland named Darragh) left and walked to Emart for supplies.

Logo on stadium wall

Early group saving seats

Field once fans started arriving

About half of the Jinju crowd

Cindy and the lion



A lady lion (which I think is actually a man)



Lion hug

Baseball games in Korea are awesome - you can leave the stadium and return with a stamp. You can also bring in your own food and alcohol as long as it's plastic bottles. There were people carring in boxes of chicken and whole pizzas. We just got drinks, lots of drinks. I had just met Cindy the weekend before, but she is really nice and I sat next to her most of the game. The game is played the same way as American baseball, but they have cheerleaders. I think this stadium is small compared to others, so the cheering wasn't as good according to the one Korean who came with us. We went to Citizen's Stadium to watch the Samsung Lions (home team) play the Doosan Bears (away team). In the middle of the 6th inning the power went out in the stadium. It came on and went out again for about 20 minutes and we decided to call it and left. We drank mainly soju and fanta (orange and pineapple), but we also had small glasses of bokbunjajoo, a black raspberry wine. They have different varities using different berries. It is very sweet and doesn't have the vinegar aftertaste that I don't like about wine. Wine people would probably hate this stuff.



The 4 lions between innings using a t-shirt gun to throw out hand warmers

We then went to check into a hotel near the subway station so we could get home easier the next day. Some people split off at that point and went to different hotels. A group of about 15 people went to our hotel, the Grand Motel. As you can see, the room, which wasn't huge, had at least 5 different wallpapers. I stayed in a room with Cindy, Liezle and Jung wha (the Korean). She goes to my church and I've met her a couple of times. She's really nice. She said she liked spending time in our room because most of the foreigers she knows are guys and she doesn't get to hear alot of girl talk. After we checked in a freshened up, we went out on the town. And that will be another post.


View from the door



View from the couch