Hello friends and family!
I haven't written in awhile because I had another cold. It's getting pretty cool here and I'm dealing with it the hard way. I'm okay now and I'm also a little excited. I finally realized that I do in fact have a
deviated septum. I diagnosed myself via Google. It's a $4,000 surgery to fix it back home and only a couple hundred here. I'm going to look into it further once I get my insurance card. I think this will cure my chronic sinusitus and I'll basically have a better life. It's an in and out procedure and it'll only be about five days to fully recover. I'm hoping this will happen at this exact time next year when I have a week off for
Chuseok. This holiday is HUGE! It's the Korean Thanksgiving. This means everyone goes to their grandparents' or parents' homes to celebrate together, eat food, and give thanks to their ancestors. For us foreigners, this means we'll be living in a ghost town. Everyone is gone for the holiday, businesses close down, basically the city is put on pause. We can take city buses or subways and don't have to worry about crowds. This is a big deal. We have big plans.
This weekend Patrick and I joined friends on a little journey to Seoul. We met with other English teachers from all over the area to teach private lessons. This volunteer job gave us the opporunity to work with North Korean refugees. Some children were born here and some came with their parents from the north and all of the adults are from the north. We saw a few handfuls of children and one adult. I worked with a little boy who was very sweet yet shy and later a little girl whos mother ran the program. It was an amazing experience. We helped them with lessons from workbooks then played games. I was completely owned at UNO but I helped them speak English!!!
After we finished for the day we ran around different parts of Seoul. This place is by far the busiest place I have ever visited in my life. My trip to NYC in March was nothing compared to Seoul. We found a little Indian restaurant for dinner,
chicken tikka masala!!!, then ventured off to Insadong to explore the traditional market. I bought a little paper hanbok card to send home for ₩3000. My Mom is going to love it! We were introduced to the two college kids that sell cocktails in a bag
on the street. Adult Capri Suns. These guys were precious and also great at what they do. Patrick got a jack and coke and I had the tequilla sunrise. It didn't cure my cold but definitely distracted me for a bit. They love to say "stronger?!" which I refused and Patrick accepted without hesitation. The crazy part is that we just sipped them as we walked around the market. Too bad that can't happen in the states!!
Then we had a nice Sunday buying bulk food at
E Mart Traders (like Sams Club) and walked in circles trying to get home on the subway, not. Then we relaxed with some friends and a game of Catan at the Sambu apartments downtown (our future home). Good things are happening!!!
Miss you all!
Love,
