Gangnam, Tornado Fries, and Robocop

Let's just start this off with the truth: I miss America.

      I miss all my friends, my awesome family, and my adorable pets. I miss hanging out in Corvallis, I miss good tea every night, I miss honey. I miss mom's grape scented candles, and the comfortable beds. Oh I miss comfortable beds. I'll even take sleeping on the bean bag chair on Luke's floor. I miss eating Q'doba, and Cafe Yumm with my Corvallis friends. I don't know if anyone else is as homesick as I am. But, I'm fortunate enough to have the ability to talk to my family, almost constantly. Basically, I love the Westcoast, I love Oregon. I miss cheese and bread.
 
       I got sick, just a minor cold, I'm thinking. It hit and was gone within 24 hours. I'm feeling better now. This week has been filled with late nights and early mornings. 2 hour round trip transits, getting lost in Gangnam, spending 7 hours sitting in an office with Mr. Yu, who can only speak a little Korean. So we both just sit there and say yes and no in each others languages, smile, and nod. I am hoping that my work project will get better. I fear that I have not entirely informed you all about what I am going to be doing.. however, the truth is.. I still don't entirely know. I WILL be working at Gangnam YMCA, and I will be working with children. what I will be doing, looks just like sitting in a room for 7 hours a day. I hope it isn't so.

       As I said last Tuesday, I got miserably lost in Gangnam. For four hours I was wandering around by myself. I tried pulling out a map, asking the locals in their language, asking the locals in MY language, calling Mr. Kim, and walking a total of 10 miles around Gangnam. Now I find this all really funny, but I was really frustrated during this incident. I've had a hard time adjusting. I haven't experience jet lag, so I wasn't part of everyone else's struggles the first week. I just have food struggles, and cultural struggles. I recently discovered I am allergic to eggs. As most of my family and friends know, I have a lot of dietary restraints, and learning about eggs being added onto the list is really disappointing.

        The other girls asked Mr. Kim for food, and he ended up making us dinner one night, which was really sweet. Mr. Kim is really nice. I feel bad for everyone asking him for so much, it makes me feel guilty when I'm lost, or in this case, sick. The girls spend a weekend eating bananas and rice, and sometimes Ramen and frosted flakes if they had bought it earlier. Everyone here is really nice, just the language barrier is so hard. It surprises me, but I don't really talk at all during the day. I had an older Korean man snap his fingers at me to translate stuff from English to Korean. He was really nice, but I felt kinda sad that I couldn't really help him all that much. Maybe I'll get better at Korean where I can say more than Thank you, I'm sorry, Hi, goodbye, I'm American, rice Please, Is there rice here?, 1, 2, My name's Rhys, yes, and no. The grammatical structure is really hard for me to understand as well. I have been practicing my french, and I feel like I'm getting better. So that's a really cool feeling. Some of my language lessons are coming back to me. Unfortunately, a guy came in to ask me some questions the other day about the location of Mr. Yu ( he wasn't in his office) and I could understand what he was asking, but I spoke french instead of speaking the minimal korean I know to him. Its frustrating, the only foreign language that comes to me is French. But it's also kinda cool at the same time. I can think in french sometimes. I wish I had gone to Cambodia, currently. I wish that I could go so that I was able to practice my french with locals that also speak french. Eh. Oh well. Maybe one day I'll go.
 
     I've made some friends from Denmark. The quantity of Danish people here is entirely unexpected. Their humor is also extremely harsh. Vivi is my best example. She's adorable, tiny, cute, sweet, but underneath all of that are the most devilish words you've ever heard. I think that if the devil is real, it would be her. I say this out of love, and with a few chuckles. I miss people thinking I'm funny, it was such a short lived quality that I had. No one here finds me the least bit amusing. Unfortunate.

        I recently found out that there's a Costco here! Also, they play a lot of songs that I recognized from home. Loud Pipes- Ratatat is played almost every day, and they always show a picture of Tobasco when they play the song. Maybe it's a tobasco commercial? I haven't figure it out. Starbucks litters every street, more so than in America, as does Mac Shack and BK. Outback Steakhouse is pretty common as well. Andy and I went out for subway, and though it was good, I keep thinking there was something missing. Later I realized it was my melted pepper jack cheese.

       Hannah and I went out yesterday to go to the bank and see if we can successfully withdraw money, we can, and then went exploring in Myeongdong. We got "Twister Chips", but I like calling them tornado fries, they look like a tornado on a stick. They were good, kinda. Cheap cheese powder, and not crispy potatoes kind of made me feel sick, but that might have been because I was sick anyway. None the less, I tried it. I heard about them before I went to Korea, so that was on my bucket list of things to try.

     Oh! I forgot a really amusing story of a giant cultural faux pas that I made. We went to go get ice cream waffles ( seriously, try it), and I went down to pick up our order. The girl behind the counter was trying to show me where the silverware was, but I didn't understand her, and just saw her hand out. Guess what I did.... I shook it. It wasn't until I could understand the look on her face that I with drew my hand and said I'm sorry in Korean about 5 times. Loren (UK) saw this and immediately asked what the heck I did. Luckily, everyone was laughing. But it was rather embarrassing, for me... and amusing for her.
 
    As I said before, I got sick. there's been construction in the apartment to make my living room into an actual room. On Tuesday they made a wall separation. Today they came in and gave me my very own door! I was asleep for most of the construction. But woke up, and was able to understand them a little bit. They also gave me a key for all the doors. I'm the only one with a key, so maybe on April fool's day, I'll lock some the girls out of their rooms. I think it'd be funny. I've also been watching Robocop on Korean television today. Blade was on last weekend, as was The Birds.

     A majority of my friends and family know that March is always a hard month for me, and as the calendar clock ticks closer, and I'm still homesick.. I've been listening to Tower of Power. Mostly you Oughta be Having Fun. One of my Dad's friends once told me that my Dad will continue to live on through the music he loved, I have never found that more true than currently. I'm so grateful for the loving family that I do have.

     Now, I have an address for letters. This address is only for letters and small packages. Like envelope small packages: 9, Jongno 2-ga, Jongno-gu, Seoul, 110-753 Republic of Korea.  I'll update you all when I have information on Package address.

     I'll be fine. Just currently missing my lovely home. With beautiful sunrises and sunsets. And clear night skies. And cheese and bread. Thank you to all my family and friends who have sent me messages, Skyped/facetimed, emailed, and FB messaged me. I'm so overwhelmed with the love I have for all my friends and family.