Such an amazing weekend!! Let's start at the beginning...
Friday, while walking to school, I found two awesome couches!! They are sooo not me, kind of a Marie Antoinette wannabe couch in red and gold. But, I love them, and...coming from the street, they were free. So, I spent the whole day at school, HOPING no one else would take my gems. And, I now have two awesome couches in my apartment!! (thanks to the help of my co-worker/neighbour Stu) Still need to work on the Feng Shui of the apartment, but the ideas are flowing. All kind of based on me getting a router so that I can have wifi in my apartment. That, and pay day, and I will be posting a whole lot of new photo's of my complete apartment.
In order to celebrate the arrival of the couches, we went to dinner at the best little Gimbap place in Gumi. Here we ordered enough for Christmas Dinner: Don Casa (basically a pork schnitzel served with rice and gravy), Dumplings (the fried kind, served with sweet and sour sauce and VEGETABLES), two tuna Gimbaps and of course the normal sides of kimchi, radish and soup (still not sure what flavour this soup is but I am growing to like it). Needless to say, the food wasn't finished so I had a tuna gimbap for breakfast on the bus the next morning.
That takes me to the next exciting part of the weekend- I got to visit Briony in Cheongju!! Cheongju is two hours away from Gumi by bus, in the direction of Seoul... Had a successful bus ride there- pretty much slept most of the way. The last bit of the trip had me staring wide eyed, practicing my reading convinced I had missed the bus stop. The reason being: the bus stopped at some random stop for about a minute (with me still half asleep), some people got off and then we continued...curious as to where we were, I started reading the signs...all of them had Cheongju at some point!! Luckily, there are two stops on the way there and I wanted the second one :)
Met up with Bri at the Starbucks near the station. It was amazing I will admit, with fairly affordable coffee (by bag. Cups are still silly expensive). Interesting update on the coffee fiasco: coffee equipment is super cheap here! As in coffee machines, drips, plungers, grinders...all waaaay cheaper than SA :) After having a bit of catch up at Starbucks, we decided to go back to Bri's apartment to drop my bag before going exploring in Downtown (otherwise known as Shinae in Korean). Bri's apartment is super cute in an amazing area. It is in a modern building and, as all apartments here do, it has interesting wall paper- still not as "interesting" as my pink flower bomb theme wall...
Then, we went through puppy district- a torture Bri has to go through daily. So glad I have not discovered Gumi's puppy district- it would be hard to resist. So, puppy district is basically a road FILLED with puppy shops!! So, you walk past windows and windows with puppies everywhere- every type and pretty cheap (these being the pet variety, not the eating type)... There was even a PUG (at which point I started tearing up and contemplating how bad an idea it would be to get a puppy)...
Downtown was awesome, as always. Every city, Downtown area is basically all the awesome shops all within a few blocks. So, did a lot of theoretical shopping- pay day will be sweet! And then went for coffee at this cute little place called "A Twosome Place". It's great as it is upstairs, so sitting at the window allowed for some awesome people watching! People here are really stylish (seriously)...up to their shoes. While there are amazing shoes available that some woman choose to wear, others opt for the more comfy takkie...even when in a little black dress. I guess, as Bri mentioned, you just never know when you might need to jog somewhere! Other than that, everyone looks as if they have hired a stylist.
Later, after A LOT of walking and looking, we headed back to Briony's place to get ready for dinner and... WINE!!!!! Yes, I am not going to have to complete this year wine-free, as dear HomePlus stocks wine (and decent wine) for a good price! This is right up there with discovering places that sell decent, affordable coffee. So, after drinking some of the crimson glory out of a mug (Bri still needs to get wine glasses, but I appreciated the comfort of cradling a mug), we headed out for dinner.
We decided to go to a Western place called Kitchen 31 (or some other number). They serve pasta's, salad's, potato wedges and pizzas.. While I am loving the food here, it was a nice change to have something familiar! We then went to a bar called the Romantic Ethnic Bar... The setup was very Turkish with pretty lamps. There they serve fruit Soju which is like a Soju cocktail :)
Sunday we went for all you can eat sushi (note, all you CAN eat, not all you would LIKE to eat)... Here, all you can eat included: sushi conveyer belt, hot dishes (like pizza, pasta etc), salad, fruit, desserts, ice tea, coffee, beer on tap, the normal sides and various soups. Needless to say, we made full use of the offer and had an amazing meal! Even though I ended up with a serious food baby situation! We then met up with David and I finally got to meet Gizmo (David, and kind of Briony's, pet beagle). He is so cute! Super hyper of course! We took him for a walk up to a coffee shop that is right on top and looks over the whole of Cheongju. Really pretty up there!
Before I knew it, the weekend was done and I was on the bus back to Gumi. It is always great getting back to my little town and seeing familiar sites around me. Of course, excitement wasn't over yet...
Since arriving here, I have been loving it, but missing out on festivals I would normally be attending back in Cape Town. Well, the fomo is over as I have discovered:
- Korea Burn happening sometime in summer
- Korea Holi Hai (like Holi One), am hoping to go there this weekend
- World DJ Fest (happening on Buddha's bday weekend, tickets booked)
Soooo excited! everyone in Korea, join the When in Korea WINK group, it has all these amazing details!!
So now for week three of teaching! Have mock teaching tomorrow (dreading it slightly, but guess it must be done)
TTFN :)
Friday, while walking to school, I found two awesome couches!! They are sooo not me, kind of a Marie Antoinette wannabe couch in red and gold. But, I love them, and...coming from the street, they were free. So, I spent the whole day at school, HOPING no one else would take my gems. And, I now have two awesome couches in my apartment!! (thanks to the help of my co-worker/neighbour Stu) Still need to work on the Feng Shui of the apartment, but the ideas are flowing. All kind of based on me getting a router so that I can have wifi in my apartment. That, and pay day, and I will be posting a whole lot of new photo's of my complete apartment.
In order to celebrate the arrival of the couches, we went to dinner at the best little Gimbap place in Gumi. Here we ordered enough for Christmas Dinner: Don Casa (basically a pork schnitzel served with rice and gravy), Dumplings (the fried kind, served with sweet and sour sauce and VEGETABLES), two tuna Gimbaps and of course the normal sides of kimchi, radish and soup (still not sure what flavour this soup is but I am growing to like it). Needless to say, the food wasn't finished so I had a tuna gimbap for breakfast on the bus the next morning.
That takes me to the next exciting part of the weekend- I got to visit Briony in Cheongju!! Cheongju is two hours away from Gumi by bus, in the direction of Seoul... Had a successful bus ride there- pretty much slept most of the way. The last bit of the trip had me staring wide eyed, practicing my reading convinced I had missed the bus stop. The reason being: the bus stopped at some random stop for about a minute (with me still half asleep), some people got off and then we continued...curious as to where we were, I started reading the signs...all of them had Cheongju at some point!! Luckily, there are two stops on the way there and I wanted the second one :)
Met up with Bri at the Starbucks near the station. It was amazing I will admit, with fairly affordable coffee (by bag. Cups are still silly expensive). Interesting update on the coffee fiasco: coffee equipment is super cheap here! As in coffee machines, drips, plungers, grinders...all waaaay cheaper than SA :) After having a bit of catch up at Starbucks, we decided to go back to Bri's apartment to drop my bag before going exploring in Downtown (otherwise known as Shinae in Korean). Bri's apartment is super cute in an amazing area. It is in a modern building and, as all apartments here do, it has interesting wall paper- still not as "interesting" as my pink flower bomb theme wall...
Then, we went through puppy district- a torture Bri has to go through daily. So glad I have not discovered Gumi's puppy district- it would be hard to resist. So, puppy district is basically a road FILLED with puppy shops!! So, you walk past windows and windows with puppies everywhere- every type and pretty cheap (these being the pet variety, not the eating type)... There was even a PUG (at which point I started tearing up and contemplating how bad an idea it would be to get a puppy)...
Downtown was awesome, as always. Every city, Downtown area is basically all the awesome shops all within a few blocks. So, did a lot of theoretical shopping- pay day will be sweet! And then went for coffee at this cute little place called "A Twosome Place". It's great as it is upstairs, so sitting at the window allowed for some awesome people watching! People here are really stylish (seriously)...up to their shoes. While there are amazing shoes available that some woman choose to wear, others opt for the more comfy takkie...even when in a little black dress. I guess, as Bri mentioned, you just never know when you might need to jog somewhere! Other than that, everyone looks as if they have hired a stylist.
Later, after A LOT of walking and looking, we headed back to Briony's place to get ready for dinner and... WINE!!!!! Yes, I am not going to have to complete this year wine-free, as dear HomePlus stocks wine (and decent wine) for a good price! This is right up there with discovering places that sell decent, affordable coffee. So, after drinking some of the crimson glory out of a mug (Bri still needs to get wine glasses, but I appreciated the comfort of cradling a mug), we headed out for dinner.
We decided to go to a Western place called Kitchen 31 (or some other number). They serve pasta's, salad's, potato wedges and pizzas.. While I am loving the food here, it was a nice change to have something familiar! We then went to a bar called the Romantic Ethnic Bar... The setup was very Turkish with pretty lamps. There they serve fruit Soju which is like a Soju cocktail :)
Sunday we went for all you can eat sushi (note, all you CAN eat, not all you would LIKE to eat)... Here, all you can eat included: sushi conveyer belt, hot dishes (like pizza, pasta etc), salad, fruit, desserts, ice tea, coffee, beer on tap, the normal sides and various soups. Needless to say, we made full use of the offer and had an amazing meal! Even though I ended up with a serious food baby situation! We then met up with David and I finally got to meet Gizmo (David, and kind of Briony's, pet beagle). He is so cute! Super hyper of course! We took him for a walk up to a coffee shop that is right on top and looks over the whole of Cheongju. Really pretty up there!
Before I knew it, the weekend was done and I was on the bus back to Gumi. It is always great getting back to my little town and seeing familiar sites around me. Of course, excitement wasn't over yet...
Since arriving here, I have been loving it, but missing out on festivals I would normally be attending back in Cape Town. Well, the fomo is over as I have discovered:
- Korea Burn happening sometime in summer
- Korea Holi Hai (like Holi One), am hoping to go there this weekend
- World DJ Fest (happening on Buddha's bday weekend, tickets booked)
Soooo excited! everyone in Korea, join the When in Korea WINK group, it has all these amazing details!!
So now for week three of teaching! Have mock teaching tomorrow (dreading it slightly, but guess it must be done)
TTFN :)
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