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Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Monday- Our Town

Monday September 20th

Monday morning we had train tickets for the 9 am train out of Seoul going to Pyeongtaek so that mom and dad could see where we lived, worked and just everything that takes place in our normal lives. So after an interesting night everyone got up and got ready.   We grabbed some breakfast in the executive lounge and headed out. It was sadly yet again another rainy day as we rode the train into town. We spent most of the 50 minute train ride talking about the plans for the week, home and life once again.



Once in town we hopped on the bus to head over to the apartment where Ryan was waiting with a spiffy clean apartment, coffee and snacks ready. (Really could I get any luckier than that? He even changed out all the light bubles and got all the little dead bugs out of the light covers; can you say amazing?) It was now about 10:30 so we sat and talked explaining to mom and dad about our little complex we live in and what all is in the big building out infront of our apartment. It has everything from an eye doctor, ENT, pediatrian, church, 3 or 4 bars, 4 or 5 chicken places, 1 pizza place, a supper market, a quicky mart, 2 bakeries and coffee shops, a dry cleaner, a tae-kwando school, 2 hair places, 3 pharmacies, some clothing shops, and many traditional korean restaurants.

Ryan had to be into work by 12:30 so we headed out around 11 to take mom and dad to our favorite pizza place, Pizza School, for some potato pizza and spicy mexican bite pizza. It was nice to get to eat our favorites with someone from home letting them taste the different tastes and different kinds of pizza they make. Ryan then headed to work as mom, dad and I popped upstairs to see the gym we go to and then made our way to one of the small stationary stores around town. Kids here are crazy about stationary and these places are almost like toy stores to them with tons of colored pencils, paper, notebooks of every size, mechanical pencils of every kind and so on.



We then headed up the road a short walk to school where mom and dad got to meet all the teachers and see our rooms. They even got to see some of the kids; sadly though as talkative as they all are in class I couldn't get any of them to even say hi. We then got on the bus to head over to Lotte Mart to show them the pet store and where we get most of our stuff out. I think they had a good time looking at all the differnet things you can get here that they don't have at home. I think dad is still trying to figure out why people would eat freeze dried squid or what people are doing with freeze dried fish heads. Mom liked all the different mushrooms we get here and I think she just enjoyed seeing that yes we have a lot of different things but we have a lot of the same too and that we have a nice big clean store to go to. I wont lie sometimes I make our small town sound almost like a small village.






We later made our way down to the main part of Anseong to see the market. I felt bad because it was a rainy nasty day, you couldn't even see our mountains that are on every side of us, and well I was dragging them though a strange smelling market where everyone was stopping what they were doing to look at them. They were good troopers though going though the market and looking at the chickens with their thighs pulled through their mouths, cloths that seem old lady like with glitter and bedazzaleds, shoes, cleaning supplies, and smelling all kinds of Korean smells. Other than the rain it was really a great day to go because everyone had their shops open making last sales before Chueseok or picking up the last few gifts or food items they needed. Mom yet again was interested in some of the foods mostly the foods made out of rice and wanted to know what this and that was. Sadly I have not learned as much Korean or about Korea as I have hoped or should of by now. There were some rice treats I had never seen before so I knew they were for Chuseok but could not say what they were. They were green, red, and some white with a really sweet smell to them. I text Jasmine at school and confused her by asking, "what are the green, red and white things? They look new as in I have never seen them till now." Well poor Jasmine called me a few minutes later and asked me for a picture of them but we had just left the market so I appologized.



At this point it was about 4 and mom and dad were tired so we headed back to relax and wait for Ryan to get off work. Everyone ended up crashing out for a bit and then enjoyed a snack of beer and wine with Kimchi stuffed into a cucumber, something we had picked up at the store. At about 6 we headed down to check out our small street market that comes about once a month and meet Ryan for some samgipsa and galbi. Dinner was great, the rain had stopped so we could sit outside and enjoy the cool night. Both mom and dad enjoyed dinner and picked galbi as being better.

Ok and they are not the best pictures in the world but you get the idea.




We had train tickets back to Seoul for 9:50 so we went back to the apartment to have a few last drinks and introduced dad to mockoli (Korean rice wine). We headed out jumping on the number 50 bus because we still had some time to kill and it takes you though more of Pyeongtaek; however traffic was crazy so we gave up a few stops early and just walked it the rest of the way.

After a nice long train ride everyone was tired and ready for bed. Talking on the way up there helped us lose track of time so when we got to what we though was the last stop we jumped up grabbed our stuff and started to head out. Ryan went to one door and mom, dad and I went to the other, only to have the doors shut on us. As we tried to figure out what to do we were all happy to see that Ryan was in the same boat down on the other end of the car as he made his way down the aisle. As we were now all standing together a sweet little Korean woman saw us and got them to reopen the doors, only to then find out we still had one more to go as Ryan got out looked around and got back on. The poor woman was now standing there lost as we made our way back to our seats laughing and looking crazy to everyone else around us. Well once back in our seats it dawned on us that 1) other people still shouldn't of been on the train and 2) the doors shouldn't of closed because Seoul is the "end of the track" for the train as the saying goes. After a few minutes we were now at the right stop and as we got off noticed that why yes it was the last stop becuase the tracks really did end there.

Laughing some more we made our way up to the taxi stand where we said our good bye's and parted ways for some much needed sleep for the night.

And a few family pictures in the apartment.


1 comment:

Chas said...

I love your GREEN classroom, all that food sounds delicious!!