Best day in Korea so far...

Today was awesome. We first took the bus over to where Technomart (Best Buy on steroids) area to buy some bootleg DVDs. The guy has a little open air store, with walls covered in DVDs, and a book you can pick from. Thousand choices! I picked up a few, and ordered some he said he will have next week. Yay cheap movies! After we got the movies we hopped on the subway to head to COEX mall. COEX mall is the largest mall in Asia. I don't think I saw even half of it today. We were planning on going to a movie, but they were all sold out. COEX has the largest theater in Korea, but Koreans really love movies, they typically always sell out. New ones anyway. After we were shot down at the movie we popped into some stores. I bought charms that go on cell phones that you put money on to ride the bus and subway. Mine is Hello Kitty and I got nick a black one. I figured he wouldn't like the pink one, ahah. I also went to the big department store because Alicia informed me there is a Mac (cosmetics) counter. I was soooo happy to see some Mac! Those of you who know me well know my weaknesses are the Macs.... computers and makeup. haha. I spent over 100 bucks on just a few things, prices are a lot higher here, but it was sooo worth it! It was the best thing I've bought so far, vanity wise. :-)

After shopping for a while we went to On The Border for dinner. As I was explaining to my students a few weeks ago, franchises/chains are both evil and wonderful. It's really great to be able to go somewhere and know exactly what you're going to get... and that was the case! After the giant let down with Mexican food on our last outing I wasn't really holding my breath, but it was EXACTLY the same as home!! Woo! I love mexican food! We even had margaritas and queso dip! Why not? lol. After dinner we decided to hop in a taxi to head back to our neighborhood, but not before stopping in the book store. I was realllly impressed with the book selection here. They had a ton of my favs, and a lot that are on my "to read" list. I didn't buy any, but I did buy some amazing holiday cards. I will wait for Nick to get here so we can go pick out books we will both enjoy. They are too expensive here to buy something unless I realllly want it, or we will both read it. I loved the book store!

After escaping the crowds of the mall (picture Black Friday type crowds, EVERY day... thats the mall) we got a taxi. We stopped at the coffee shop around the corner from my house (I can't wait to take nick there!) and decided we would hit up the open air market tonight instead of tomorrow. I had heard of this market, but thought it was maybe like 10 vendors selling fruits and vegetables. Oh no, boy was I wrong. This market is probably half a mile long, packed full of stores, street vendors, people cooking on the street, fish being flung around, ladies trying to sell you blankets, rip off Polo clothes, even some pharmacies and salons! It was wild... anything you could imagine. This market is directly behind my house and I had no idea!! I'm so sad I didn't find this sooner. The market was by far the coolest thing we have done so far. I know I should probably be more impressed by the giant mall with the fancy stores and food, but I was far more excited to see the market. I was like nothing I've ever seen before, and totally Korean style. I love that in korea you can pick your dinner out of a fish tank, they will catch it, cook it up on the street for you, then you walk away chomping on dinner. It's so cool! I will be going back there soon and taking pics to post. I can't give this place justice, but I don't think pictures could do it either. It's the smell of the seafood, sweet smells of the fruit stands, sounds of koreans trying to make a deal, sounds of korean kids running around.... those things you can't capture in picture.

so yeah.... that was my day.... shopping shopping. I bought a ton of stuff, and I'm happy about it! I feel bad buying things for the house, we will only be here a year.... but it's impossible for me to live somewhere and not want to make it a home. Luckily things aren't too expensive here, so it's not like I'm spending thousands of dollars on all this furniture I'll only use for 11 more months.

Can you believe I've already been here about 6 weeks?? Time is flying by. Some days it feels like I'm still in shock that I'm even here, other days I feel like it's been 6 months already.

Oh, Nick will be here in 4 days!! :-) He booked his ticket, no more guessing when he will FINALLY arrive. I'm excited, can't wait to show him all the cools things I've learned. I'm kind of happy I got to come first (although I wish it wasn't SO far ahead of him) because I got to take my time trying the food and navigating around. He is far more adventurous with food than I am, so he would have been ready to try everything, and I would have been crying ahah. Now I found things I like that I can introduce him to. :-)

Well, thats it for now. Tomorrow will be spent cleaning, doing laundry, going to the grocery store to stock up on stuff before Nick gets here, and watching movies. I love productive yet partially lazy sundays! It will probably be cold and rainy, perfect for cleaning then snuggling up in bed with a new flick!

xo