chicken salad ice cream?

It's Wednesday and my second class of my three today just got cancelled! The students are preparing for mid-term exams right now, so my class is their lowest priority right now. No offense taken, so it's ok by me if they'd rather use this time to study! Lol.

Hmm, let's go back to this past weekend. Friday night...was epik! Didn't have any set plans, so I ended up meeting Alex, Ali, & Paul for dinner. The boys wanted chicken & beer, so we found the perfect place. We decided to order 3 diff types of chicken plates. The first was mainly chicken with some sort of onion salad, the next was just chicken, and the last one was the most interesting. It was chicken and salad topped with two scoops of ice cream. We didn't know it came like that, but we figured, hey...why not?! I've tried worse things in Korea, lol. So that was my first time to eat chicken salad ice cream! :)

As we are nearing the end of dinner, with a nice feeling from the beverages, someone mentions that it would be fun to go somwhere to dance. Alas, there are no dance clubs in Gumi...BUT, there are plenty in Daegu...a 30 minute train ride away. That's when we decide that hopping on a train at 11pm is a genius idea! Of course we had less than 10 minutes to make it to the station for the next train, so we hurry up, pay, run...and while us girls bought the train tickets, the boys bought some beverages for the train ride, lol. Now we are on a train...in the "fun cart" where they have noraebang rooms...drinking and singing Korean songs! Before we know it we arrive in Daegu.

As we are walking the streets of Deagu, we stumble upon some mannequin heads in a giant pile in the middle of one of the streets. Paul picks up 3 and we continue our journey. I ended up obtaining one that fit perfectly in my zip-up jacket. Two heads are better than one, right?! So, along we went & ended up at my favorite place in Daegu...Viniroo's....the cocktail in a bag place! :) Of course I ordered a startburst flavored one...and we all decided to hang out on the side of the road for a bit & chat with drunken strangers walking by. The guy who worked at Viniroo's even brought us out a mat to sit on...talk about service, lol. I'm half way to a free drink on my stamp coupon! :)

So, after one or two more of the amazing drinks, we finally made it to our destination...a dance club. The lights were intense and the music was amazing. After what felt like hours of dancing, we decided to switch locations...to a bar so we could actually hear each other & hang out. Oh yea, at the clubs they have locker rooms to store your stuff while you dance...this is where I was able to store "Elisha" (yes, we named the mannequin). But, when we went to get our stuff as we left, our friend opened our locker door, the door broke off, and landed on a poor Korean girl's head...oops!

All good nights must come to an end. So, after playing a couple games of pool at a bar, we decide we should start heading back to Gumi. And while at the bar, someone stole Elisha...not cool. But before we go, we stop at a kabob/taco place for some food. I was lucky enough to be the person to order the last available beef taco...everyone else had to get hummus or vegetable...gross! So, food in hand we hop into a taxi. Since it was around 3:30am, there weren't any trains, so we decided that even though a 30 min taxi ride can be expensive, it wouldn't be so bad split between 4 people. So we ask the driver how much to Gumi, and he says 30,000won. We ask him a couple more times to make sure, and then head out. We get driving and he asks us where we want to go in Gumi, so we tell him the train station. All of a sudden he ups the price to 40,000won. Then later he ups it to 45,000won. By this time we were pissed because we knew he was trying to rip us off...we knew something was up when he turned off the meter in the cab. This is when the 4 of us decide, since he's being rude, we will pay him the 30,000 and leave.

So we finally make it to Gumi, give him 37,000won (more than he deserved), and go about our way. Next thing we know he is chasing us down. By this time I am getting into a cab to go back to my apartment, and this crazy man tries to stop my taxi driver from allowing me to go by holding his hand up and standing near my taxi. At the same time he is yelling at Paul & Ali on the sidewalk. Finally, my driver ignores him and goes ahead. I make it home around 4:30 and text Ali to make sure everything is ok. She said he kept arguing for more money, but eventually Paul yelled the korean word for "pervert" out loud, and a group of men ran over to see what was wrong, causing the crazy taxi driver to jump in his car and haul ass away! Crazy ending to a fun night!

Saturday I took it easy & hung out with a friend in Gumi. I wasn't hungover, just super tired. When it came to the option of going out Saturday, I opted to stay in & sleep. I ended up sleeping for 12 hours!! I definately needed it! Sunday arrives and my plan was to go bike shopping with Ali in her neighborhood at the same place she had bought her and Paul's bikes. After enjoying some pizza and television, we made it to the bike shop. She tells the man that I am interested in a bike for around 200,000won. So, he finds one that costs 235,000 and explains that he will give it to me for 200,000won. When he goes to retrieve the bike, he discovers he does not have it in stock. Instead he comes back with a bike worth 260,000 and says that he will still give it to me for 200,000 but that I will have to buy my lock and lights as well. I agree to the deal and he tells us we can pick it up in 2 hours.

When we come back to get it he has the bike ready with the lights and lock equipped. I ask how much for everything and he says, everything for 200,000won ($184.93 USD). Turns out, the longer you wait, the better the deal gets! I'm gonna save so much money on taxi fares, so the bike should pay for itself within a couple months.

So, with my new purchase, Ali and I head across town on our bikes for dinner. We went to Waegook Cook, the western restaurant, and had roast beef and yorkshire pudding, as well as a pitcher of Sangria. :) Delicious!

And that sums up my weekend! Right now it's almost time to go home. Hopefully, since it stopped raining, I can take my bike out for a ride, or go for a run. Last night was Korean class, so I got home late, plus it was raining anyways. Speaking of, I should also work on my Korean tonight because I'm realizing that working on it once a week isn't gonna take me very far! And class is only getting harder. Eeek!

XOXO,
Amanda

wae, wa, way?!

I usually update on Tuesdays, but I chose to watch episodes of "How I Met Your Mother" online instead.  A friend gave me a website link that allows you watch pretty much any TV show or movie online for free, with minimal pop-up ads and few restrictions. While I am happy to be able to watch TV, I have to admit I'm not as productive at work, or home. Lol.

This past weekend I decided to stay in Gumi to save money. Friday night comes around and I figured someone would want to go have dinner or go out for a couple drinks. Turns out not many people were in town and by 9pm I was sitting on my bed, watching TV online, in my pajamas, and eating popcorn. That was until a friend messaged me on facebook asking if I had any plans for the night. This resulted in me getting dressed around 11pm and meeting up at Corona, the western bar downtown. Since I hadn't been there in awhile I figured it would be fun. So, I met up with Tracy and a friend of hers for a few drinks, which turned into a 4:30am night/morning! I blame this on the group of people from Brazil that I ended up meeting. Only one guy in the group spoke minimal English, the rest spoke Portuguese. Turns out most of them could speak Spanish more than English, so I used my basic Spanish knowledge (which isn't the best, but not too shabby) to talk to them! So take a little Korean, alot of Portuguese and English, and throw in a bit of Spanish...you've got yourself an interesting night of conversation!

Saturday I slept in...due to my staying out late the night before. Wasn't hungover, actually didn't drink that much, but I was of course super tired. I ended up meeting Ali downtown to search for a place called Dr. Fish. It's a place where you can get a "pedicure" by putting your feet/legs into a pool with fish in it and they nibble the dead skin off for you. They say it tickles, but works really good. We've been wanting to go to the one in Daegu, but never had time, so we heard there might be one in Gumi. Well, we found the place, but it is now a coffee shop instead of a Dr. Fish. So, we ended up meeting with Rita for a coffee and a drink downtown. We then ventured to Ali's neighborhood to get some food and wine for a dinner at Ali's apartment. Our plan was to watch a movie, but the three of us ended up just sitting around talking all night.

On Sunday Ali and I were supposed to ride bikes around Gumi and lay out in the park. Since Paul was out of town I was going to borrow his bike. But, alas, Ali didn't feel well, so I ended up doing my own thing Sunday. Which was me laying out in the park across the street from me (in shorts and a shirt lol). Koreans stare if you even show your arms, so getting some sun is gonna be difficult without offending anyone. That's why I'm excited to go to the beach soon! Now that the weather is getting warmer we can go to Busan and enjoy the beaches before "beach season" starts on July 15th. You won't see many Koreans on the beach until then, so they say the best time for foreigners to go is between now and then. And trust me, I definately need some sun exposure! If I were in Texas right now I'd already have begun the tanning process. Here in Korea I am super pale...and my lovely fellow foreign friends love to point this out, lol.
So, after "sun bathing" I wandered around downtown Gumi and did some shopping. Found a new satchel purse and bought a few supplies for my classroom.

I'M A STUDENT AGAIN:
As I said, every Tuesday night I take a Korean language class in Daegu. This means right after work, I take my normal two buses back to Gumi, then get to the train station about 10 minutes before the train leaves to Daegu. I go with 3 other friends so they are nice enough to have my ticket ready for me. Once we get to Daegu we have some time to kill so we usually grab a snack and some coffee before our 7pm class. Last Tuesday the class was a basic introduction to the Korean alphabet, consonants and vowel pronunciation and writing. We also learned to read a few simple words. Our homework was to write the alphabet a few times and practice reading. This week however, class got more difficult. We learned the rest of the vowels that we didn't learn last week. These vowels are tricky because they all sound the same. There are three different symbols that all sound like "WAY" but each is pronounced slightly different...wae, wa, and way. GRRR! haha! With time I hope to atleast sound like I half way speak Korean.

TEACHING:
This week's lesson is by far one of my favorites. I mean Bingo was fun and easy last week, but this week is even better. I started my lesson on sports. So instead of talking about them and having them write about them, I am having them act out the sports and the actions involved. I introduce the sports with pictures and have them tell me what it is. If they don't know it, I explain how to play it and what it's called. Then I go into a guessing game where I reveal one part of a picture at a time and they have to guess which sport it is. The next part is for them to stand up and do all the action words I describe, like jump, run, kick, swing, pitch, etc. I threw in the word dance for fun to see how many students will do it. I feel like I'm the only one dancing each class, haha!

Finally, the last part is the actual cherades game. I show them the name of a sport with a picture and they have to act it out for their team. Instead of yelling out "soccer" I had them answer in complete sentences. Examples, "You like to play soccer" or "You like to go swimming." In the first part of my lesson I also briefly discussed the words play, go, and do so that they could get an idea of which one to say. Some students did simple actions, while other went all out. One boy was acting out golf and pretended to pick some dirt off the ground, as if to see which way the wind was blowing.  I even had a boy climb on the table to sit cross legged with his arms in the air to act out yoga, lol. Even my co-teachers were getting into acting out the action words with the class. I thought one of them was gonna break a hip trying to act out diving, haha!!

RUNNING:
Last week I also decided to start running again. The weather is getting a bit warmer finally, so I try to get outside as much as possible. I noticed a river in town when I was on one of the buses, so I figured I'd start there last Wednesday evening. Well, turns out the path to run along the river ends quickly so I headed through downtown back to my neighborhood. I continued on to Gumi mountain, where I figured I could run around the lake reservoir that's on top of a hill. By the time I made it back to my apartment I noticed I had been out walking/running for 2 hours! Needless to say I was feeling it the next day, so I just walked on Thursday.

This Thursday I decided to run, but this time I figured I'd just stick with the path around the lake. I timed myself and the actual run around the lake took me 15 minutes. My future goal is to make it around the lake in 10 minutes! I wanted to run again today, but it is raining...lame!! If I can atleast get into the habit of walking/running for an hour a day, I'll feel good. :)

Ok, it's now Friday morning and I am ready to get this day over with and start my weekend!! Hopefully this weekend I can take some pictures, I'm starting to slack on that.

XOXO,
Amanda

stolen desks, korean hair, & cocktails in a bag!

Tuesday again! Hmmm...highlights of my week:

Monday - Thursday:
Work was pretty easy the whole week. My students made menus...some were super fancy, while others were barely able to think of a name for their restaurant. This week they are using them to practice ordering, then we are playing bingo using the vocab words from last week! :) Prize for this week is stickers...easy enough!

Went to Paul & Ali's one night for dinner & scrabble, then went to the sauna again on Thursday with Ali. The name of the sauna we go to in her neighborhood is Bonggok Hawaii...super relaxing. Still need to check out the one by my apartment though!

Thursday, my last class of the day. Five minutes into my lesson, another teacher steps in my room & tells my co-teacher something in Korean. Before I know it, students are picking up desks and carrying them out the door. Imagine the look on my face as I stand there wondering what the hell is going on?! Finally my teacher says..."tomorrow is parent's day...so they need the desks for the assembly room." While I understand that part, I still don't get why they had to do it right that second...in the middle of my lesson. So my students come back in and sit in the chairs...and stare at me. My co-teacher has disappeared by this time. So, I explain we need to make menus. I hand them paper and set out some books so they have a hard surface to write on. I also tell them they can sit on the floor if they want. What happens? They try to write on their legs/laps while sitting in the chairs...and their partners are thumbing through the book I gave them to use as a writing surface. LOL. Gotta love dynamic Korea!

Friday:
Friday I had to go to the students' homeroom classes to teach my lesson since they stole my desks the day before. After my busy day of working, I met up with my friends for some dinner and bowling. Dinner was downtown at this awesome place where you cook your own meat & they also give you egg and cheese on the side of the "pan" on the burner. Melted cheese, a bit of egg, and beef...amazing! The bowling alley we went to was the one less than 5 minutes from my apartment, so that was convenient for me! Best part of bowling...it's B.Y.O.B. :) Below is the best pic of the night...my friend Brian, lol.

Saturday:
Woke up early to catch a 9:30am train to Daegu with Paul, Ali, and Alex. Ali and I were planning on staying all day and into the night. The boys had to leave early to go rock climbing. Our day consisted of shopping for a camera (for Paul and Ali), books for me, clothes, lunch with some of Ali's friends, a haircut, then out for dinner & drinks in downtown Daegu where Ali's friends' band was playing at a bar.

While shopping for some clothes I was surprised that alot more things fit me than I thought. I even found jeans that fit me (will buy them later) and the shirts, jacket, & jewelry I bought were super cheap! I was also happy to find a book store with decently priced books. I got 4 books from the "classics" section for 29,000won. The only thing bad about that is I have a feeling I will start a nice large collection of books and have to spend alot of money sending them back home...or taking them with me to the next place. Who knows?!

In the middle of our day we took a taxi across town to the park in Daegu where they have a "mini-zoo" for free. I can see why it's free...the zoo was mainly made up of chickens and goats, lol. But they had a couple tigers and a sad elephant....poor animals! The park itself was beautiful :) The only thing  I didn't like was that all the grass was roped off because you're not supposed to walk or lay on it. Sux because I was thinking it would be a nice spot to relax & read a book. Anyways, I took a few pictures of the park, diff types of trees & lots of cherry blossoms.

After the park, we grabbed some food from a burger/sandwich shop & had lunch in the park. The boys had departed by this time, so after lunch we decided to find the hair salon that Ali's friend had recommended. Since the lady spoke pretty good English we figured getting a trim wouldn't be that hard. Ali and I both have hair that's more on the short side, so we didn't want much taken off from the length. While we did express this to the lady...she had another image in mind. She wanted to "Koreanize" our hair and cut it super short and poof it up. She gave Ali some crazy fringe which she had to transform into bangs after we left, and she gave me itty bitty hairs that stick out like "wanna be bangs" in the middle of my forehead. Overall the experience was both frustrating and humorous! :) Once we got home & fixed our hair on our own...we could breathe again and laugh about it! I'm already used to mine..it's just strange to see my neck so much lol.

After our hair drama we met up with Ali's friends for dinner. The friends we met were the ones who were actually playing in the band later that night. Oh yea, as we were waiting for them to meet up Ali and I enjoyed a beer in the street. Another perk to living in Korea...the convenient store clerk even pops open the bottle for you at the register! Nice :) Dinner and drinks completed, we headed to the bar where they were playing. Of course we had Soju & beer with our meal so we had a nice start to the evening. But, Ali had an even better idea once we got to the bar. We noticed the bar didn't have much variety so Ali suggested we go to a place called Viniroo's to get a drink while we waited for the band to start. Turns out this place is the best invention ever! They sell capri-sun type bags of mixed drinks!! We enjoyed one there, then went back to the bar. We then noticed that some people had brought theirs inside the bar, so we went back and got some more! :) I chose the one called "Starburst" which of course tastes like its name. A little sweet, but really good! I tried a few other flavors from ppl, but that one was my fav so far! They give you a little stamp card so you can earn a free one...even though I don't live in Daegu, I'm sure it won't take me long to earn a free one!

Sunday:

Saturday night I took the midnight train home. Had I stayed in Daegu I'd have probably had a major hangover on Sunday. But since I was smart...I didn't :) Sunday consisted of hanging out with a friend, eating pizza, & playing arcade games. Overall, I had a great weekend!

This week has been good so far! I made my students bring my desks back to me during my first class on Monday, lol. They would be crazy to think that I'd carry them back and organize them myself! :)

Tonight I am going to Daegu immediately after work to start my Korean language class!! I can't tell you how excited I am to learn more than a few basic phrases! Of course it will take awhile...but the course is 12 weeks and the class meets every Tuesday. I'm taking beginner's level so we will start with learning how to read Hanguel (Korean alphabet) then move on to more sentences and such...or so I'm assuming! The course costs 130,000won which isn't bad in my mind. I think it will super beneficial to me. So now I get to be the student instead of the teacher! :)


XOXO,
Amanda

cherry blossoms for all...

Wow, this last week flew by so quickly! My chin is almost completely healed, just a bit red with a few scabs left. I'm just really hoping it doesn't scar...but on a good note, for some reason I brought some scar cream with me in my random assortment of medicines from home!

As far as my classes for last week, it was one of my favorite lessons because I was able to play a game with them! I started with the prizes being pencils and stickers but they disappeared fast and I had to resort to candy. My plan is to only do games with prizes every once in awhile so they don't expect it every time and will still want to participate in my lesson. This week's lesson is "Going to a Restaurant" and I am having them work with a partner to create their own menu of food. Next week I will have them practice ordering food by pretending to be a waiter/waitress and a guest. Thanks Scottie for the idea!! :) Now I have next week planned as well. Recently I've been planning my lesson for the week in less than 30 minutes on Monday morning lol. But hey, I'm getting good at "winging" things too!

So now to talk about the best part of last week...the weekend!! I ended up meeting up with the lovely people I met in Jeomchon a couple weeks ago & we all went to Jinhae for the 49th annual Cherry Blossom Festival. Cherry blossoms can be found in many places around Korea, but Jinhae (about 2 hrs 30 min away from Gumi), is supposedly the best (or most popular) place to go for the festival.

So we went and had a blast! For the most part it was more of a relaxing weekend in that we didn't just drink the entire time. Ok, maybe a few of the group did, lol, but I only drank Friday night. And I blame that on the Dong Dong Ju (a kind of thick rice based wine) that sneaks up on you later! Plus you drink it out of a bowl, how cool is that?! :)

FRIDAY NIGHT:
Like I said we began the night with Dong Dong Ju along with some pork and side dishes inside a tent style restaurant at the festival. Afterwards we found a small bar in which we continued the fun of beer and drinking games. We played this game called Baskin Robbins 31. Needless to say, I had the worst luck at this game. Overall, the night was awesome. I even laughed so hard that it resulted in laughing tears. :) Glad I could provide some entertainment to my friends!!

Our next mission of the night was to find a place to sleep. Some people decided to go to the Jjimjilbang (a sauna where you can also sleep in a little cave like area), while others wanted a real bed. I was with the second group lol. At the first hotel we discovered that they (of course) raised the rates due to the tourism. On top of being pricey, this place only had one room with no beds, so we decide to try our luck at another one. The second attempt was way too expensive so we went back to the first place. This is when we found out that they don't like it when you do that. The lady still had the room available but refused to give it to us. Geez, didn't know Korea required you to commit so fast to one place! Now we know! So we dragged our tired bodies to a third place where they gave us two rooms for $35 per person. Pretty expensive per person, but we were super tired & didn't want to risk not being able to find a place.

SATURDAY:
The next morning as we were headed out, the little lady who had showed us to our rooms the previous night...literally chased us saying "coffee?! coffee?!" While we did appreciate her generosity...we really just wanted to go sit somewhere nice for coffee and breakfast. During the process of telling her no thank you and walking down the stairs...my clumsy hungover self tripped down a section of the stairs. Jurgen claims I tripped UP them as well the night before, haha. Regardless, the lady starts running towards us even faster as I'm trying to scramble off the ground with all of my stuff. Eventually we escape in laughter and meet up with the rest of the group to start our Saturday festivities!

The day brought alot of wandering through markets/tents with more stuff to buy than you could ever need in Korea, alot of eating of unhealthy food on sticks, and lots of fun picture opportunities. Since our group grew larger due to more people meeting up with us on Saturday, some of the day was spent in confusion and losing & finding people. Eventually we made it to a large tower where you could see a great view of the city and the coastline. There were 365 steps up to the bottom of the tower...I only know because Korea was nice enough to number them for us. And we also ventured to the infamous "love bridge" of Jinhae where the cherry blossom trees line along the sides of the bridge and branch over it. While it was beautiful (especially when we went at night to look at it), I just wasn't feeling the love effect, haha. :)

One of my favorite parts of the day was on our way down from the tower, we came across an area that had hula-hoops of all sizes to play with! We were pretty entertained for quite sometime. I must say the ajummas (old Korean ladies) put up some pretty stiff competition in the hula-hoop skills/stamina category!

For lunch on Saturday we decided to have an actual sit down meal instead of eating festival fried foods off of sticks, lol. As I've mentioned before, the restaurants where you can cook the meat yourself are one of my favorites in Korea :) While we did eat cooked meat, we also decided to be adventurous and try some raw beef. The taste was surprisingly good! This is my friend James, mixing in the egg for us.

The rest of the day we kept ourselves entertained, whether it was getting McDonalds delivered to the train station, buying the most random things, eating festival candies until we were sick, sipping coffee in a cafe, or just walking aimlessly...we had alot of fun! Here are some other pictures from our adventure:

 View of the middle of the festival from the top of the tower

 Outside of the bottom of the tower...it's very Korean to pose with the statues!

 Stairs that lead to...wherever you want to go...haha :)

 The Dunhofen brothers...being themselves!

 Corn dog on steroids...hot dog fried in batter, then rolled around in french fries & fried again!

 Mmm...more food on sticks, makes for a great peace sign! Thanks guys for giving me your trash sticks and making me look like super hungry lol

Up close and personal with the cherry blossom...camera quality not the best, but still pretty!

Saturday night after visiting a couple bars and the noraebang, we decided to just stay at the jjimjilbang instead of dealing the the complicated process of getting a hotel. So we caught a cab to an area outside of the festival area and went to check in. Right as we enter, a Korean couple in front of us it told that the sauna is full and nobody else may enter. GREAT! We then head to the nearest hotel where we are told that the 4 of us, me and 3 guy friends...can stay in one room without any beds...just blankets, pillows, and a heated floor. We gladly accept and tough it out for the night for $10 a piece. The room was actually more comfortable than what a jjimjilbang might be. The funny part was the little old man was super concerned with me staying in a room with 3 guys. We convinced him that we were only here to sleep lol. FYI: Koreans don't believe in unmarried or unrelated males and females staying in the same room. However, they are also known for their love motels where guys can order prostitutes. Go figure! Anyways, the sweet man brought us a 4th pillow, showed me how the hot water worked, and showed me an area to sleep...away from the guys on the floor HAHA! The next morning we got outta there as quickly as we could...not the kinda motel where you feel like hanging out. See the pics below:

 Not sure why this picture insists on turning sideways...but you get the point!

No mattresses...but they have a T.V. and a fridge...that makes it atleast 5 stars worthy!

SUNDAY:

So, the end of our adventure. Thanks to someone in the group having the genius idea of buying our Sunday train tickets home on Friday night...we were able to get a spot on the 3pm train. After escaping the "hotel room" we met up with the group at McDonalds. It was about 10:45am when we got there and as we stood in line everyone started talking about how hungry they were. I was super excited about McDonald's breakfast because that's all I've ever really eaten there back home. After I decide what I want, I'm standing in line and notice someone flip the signs over to the lunch menu. Everyone in our group realizes it's 11am, which is when they stop serving breakfast. Just our luck lol. So two of the people in our group were able to order breakfast...they became the outcasts, haha. Being that I'm not a morning person, I was pretty ticked by this so I ordered a Big Mac, which I didn't even want (and I didn't know how to order it plain) and ended up giving most of it to Shaun. Basically I had fries and a coke for breakfast. Which was ok, because a few hours later before we departed to the train we all decided to get Dominoes pizza...mmm! :) Great Sunday Korean food right?! lol. After McDonalds we went to the coffee shop that we had went to the day before. Only problem was, this time the lady forgot our order. After 45 minutes of sitting around staring at each other we finally realized that it shouldn't take that long to get some coffee, haha. Luckily we were trying to kill time until our train at 3.

The funniest part of the day was...we were all walking down the street together, it's quiet...and James goes, "damn, that was some good breakfast!" Needless to say, it got silent for about 5 seconds, then James got pushed into the road. LOL. And back to our pizza. We didn't make it to the train station with the pizza...we ate it in the streets which received many stares. :)

Eventually, after buying some cherry blossom treats for our teachers (it's customary to give a gift to the staff after you receive your first paycheck), and walking through the festival one last time...we made it to the train...where I slept for about an hour. Then our second train from Daegu was standing room only. Actually out of our group I was the only one that was able to get a seat when I bought my ticket, but it was so crowded I couldn't even make it to my seat. Oh well, we survived. Finally around 7pm I was back in my apartment. Overall, I would consider Jinhae a successful weekend and one of my favorites in Korea so far.

XOXO,

Amanda