An Obituary for a Puffy Coat.

   After two years of snow, cold nights, and some accidental abuse.. my poor purple puffy jacket decided it was fed up with me and my attempt at mending it's wounds with tape. Last weekend, I had somehow managed to cut open the back of my puffy coat, and feathers were flying everywhere. I decided the next morning to attempt to fix this with tape... I did the same when I stabbed my ski pole into my jacket two years early, made sense that it would work again! It didn't. Today I threw out my puffy jacket, and though I knew it would happen... Its a part of home I'm throwing away. Now, this really isn't a big deal, it's just amusing to write about, or at least for me it is. Also, "an obituary for a puffy coat" made me laugh in my mind as a title. I hope I amused you guys, at least semi with this short story of my puffy purple jacket kicking the bucket.

    Now, I am so tired of rice. Let me tell you how tired I am of rice.. Rice is following me, I'm finding it everywhere. I used to like rice before I came to Korea.. But I also like rice mixed with beans, in a tortilla, with pico de gallo and cheese. Mm what I would do for a burrito right now. But, I guess that's just me slowly adapting to what they eat here. I also do not like kimchi, but I DO like kimchi chicken soup! It's like sauerkraut soup, Mom would like it. It's a good spicy. I got really excited on Friday when they gave me oranges, and they also gave me roasted chicken and chicken broth... I was so happy with that meal. I am in love with aloe water, and a ginseng-honey drink. Its hard to explain, but it's really good. Here's a picture:

I do indeed have a snickers in my hand as well.. the snickers are better here than they are in America.. the chocolate tastes more like nutella, than the chocolate at home.

       I finally met my coordinator at work. She came up to me and asked if I had the time. I thought at first she was asking if I knew what time it was, and was asking the foreign girl because she wanted to practice her English, so I repeated the question to make sure I had heard her correctly. She nodded, smiled, and when I nodded and said yes and was trying to figure out how to say the time in Korean, she had sat down and started talking to me about various other things and asking for my phone number. That's when I realized that she was actually my contact person. I don't have a Korean cell phone, here, but I do have the popular communication app similar to viber, or whatsapp. So I told her that. Took a lot of explaining, or attempts at explaining to tell her that my Iphone doesn't work in Korea unless I have wifi. Finally we got that across and I obtained her kakao information. So, that's really helpful. But I also had a similar issue with the whole " My iphone doesn't work in korea, sorry" with the laundry room worker. He was really nice and was telling me all about his English girlfriends. I ended up giving him my number from back home, smiling and walking away. I tried really hard to explain to him that I didn't have a Korean phone number.. only kakao talk. But they must think I'm just a confused foreigner. Oh well.

       I'm a little jealous of my roommates, almost all of them have been out with their coworkers for dinner and have come back with great stories. My coworkers are just starting to realize that I'm actually there. I'm attempting to speak korean, and on friday I had conversations in korean! Pretty exciting for me, though I probably butchered ruthlessly every sentence. I was sent home early on Friday, because they didn't have anything for me to do ( like the last of the two weeks). But they also gave me a mug, so that's nice... I traveled all the way to South Korea to obtain a YMCA mug. It was a sweet gesture, and it's the only cup I use at home, now.

    Our electricity went out on Saturday. So that wasn't that much fun, but all the roommates had a good time laughing about how the apartment is falling apart. We got it working, tonight, but we had eat nothing but eggs for the last 24 hours trying to not waste anything. I realized that my egg allergy wasn't actually eggs but something in the environment, so that's a bonus!

     Hannah went back to her house family today, and that made me rather sad. Hannah has, without a doubt, become one of my closest friends here. I have enjoyed sharing a room with her for the last two weeks. Andy, Hannah, Loren, and I went out on Friday night to explore Hongdae for Hannah's last weekend staying with us. It was a fun night, filled with dancing. Next weekend, I plan on going exploring outside of the city. Maybe find some good hiking spots. I wish to see more than just buildings and the night life while I'm here. Unfortunately, I haven't really seen much.

 Hongdae playground is a popular meeting place, and just a good place to know of in general, can't tell you how lost we got trying to find it, though!

Andy, exploring his inner child on the graffiti-ed playground.

       I met some South Africans! They were super excited that an American girl has been to South Africa, especially Capetown. I also really enjoy Pablo's company, Pablo's awesome and I hope to spend time with him again. I'm connecting more with the foreigners, than I am with the locals. I've always heard this was common from previous exchange students, but I never thought it was going to ring true for me, too. Ah, so it goes. The weather is picking up, and I hope to go adventuring soon. Aurelie and I are going to go get snacks. Nothing like midnight snacks. I hope you're all well, and I hope you will also mourn for my puffy purple jacket.