A month already! WOW!!!

Wow, today's my 1-month anniversary of being in Seoul (Well, it will be at approx. 9pm). CRAZY! I have conflicting feelings about that time frame though. On one hand, it feels like I've just arrived; At the same time, it also feels like I've been here forever. Not sure how that makes sense!

This week went fairly well. Nothing overly exciting happened, except for the return to class. I'm starting to lose patience with one class in particular and am hoping that they smarten up. I teach these kids every single day, so in a way they're my favourites because I know them better than any of my other students. But, they're hands down my hardest class to handle, mainly because they can't shut up and sit still for more than 2 minutes at a time, so I felt like I spent the majority of the week trying to get them to chill out and pay attention. What's frustrating is that they were pretty good before vacation, but it's almost like they were abducted during vacation and have now returned to school as evil hell spawns! I'm discovering that I am capable of being a stern teacher and am mastering my 'I am NOT happy!' look of death, which seems to be working. I honestly didn't think I had it in me to be a hard-ass, but I was apparently wrong! I'd rather be able to joke around and give them treats, but they now know that it's serious Janique Teacher until they can prove to me that they can behave. I'm curious to see how this week will go...

The weekend was really great. A few of us hit up Pizza Maru after work on Friday, then Amanda and I headed off to the Dongdaemun Market, which is stated to be the biggest shopping district in Seoul. It was well past 9pm when we arrived, so the department stores were closed which was fine by us; we wanted to hit up the street stalls. Street stalls mainly have clothing, shoes, purses and accessories, but they're dirt cheap! I can't wear flipflop sandals to work, so have been looking for a pair of Birkenstocks because I'm tired of wearing my sneakers when it's a gazillion degrees outside. I bought a knockoff pair of Birkensticks (Yes, you read that correctly: BirkenSTICKS! HAHAHA!) for W12,000 (Approx. $12). They're identical to the real deal and super comfy. Score! I bought 3 shirts and a dress for less than W20,000, and 6 DVDS (Gotta love Asia for those bootlegged American movies that aren't even on DVD yet!) for W20,000. Yes I spent more money than I probably should have, but it's so easy to do when you leave with so many items! I don't know that I'll ever be able to pay full price for anything ever again! We left Dongdaemun around 11:30pm because we wanted to catch the last subway home (most subway lines stop running at midnight) and could have easily stayed for several more hours because there's just SO much to see! I will definitely be going back there in the future!

On Saturday, I spent more money (it's been an expensive weekend!), but this was useful shopping though: Grocery shopping! I'd only been to the HomEver down the street, but wanted to check out the other department/grocery stores in the area. It's a good 20 minute walk, but it's bigger than HomEver so the extra variety will be nice on those days that I'm feeling energetic. On my way back I hit up the Dollar Store where I bought some VERY cheap, but useful things for home and for work (Including a Hello Kitty soap dish and toothbrush holder...the dream to have a Hello Kitty-themed bathroom is coming true!). I also bought some wall stickers (kinda like wallerpaper, but better!) so that I can attempt to pretty-up my walls. I've been going crazy trying to think of ways to make my walls less ugly without having to spend a fortune! Afterall, I'm only here for a year, so don't want to put to much money and work into the apartment. But I finally have a Janique-esque, but easy/cheap decor idea. Whoot! I also went to HomEver and bought padding for my bed (plus the heavier groceries, since I didn't want to lug them from the other store), so it no longer feels like I'm sleeping on a wooden board. YAY SOFTER BED!

For some odd reason, insomnia kicked in last night and I slept horribly. I was exhausted so went to bed at around midnight, but tossed and turned and probably didn't fall asleep until 5am. Sigh. It didn't help that there were people camped out in front of SBS (Seoul Broadcasting System), so I could hear female voices laughing and singing for most of the night. 'Big Bang', a Korean boy band that is MASSIVELY popular, were doing an appearance at SBS, hence the girly camp out. I woke up to them screaming at around 9am. If I car pulled in, they'd start screaming hysterically until they'd realize that it wasn't Big Bang. This is the norm and will continue until the actual celebrity shows up. A few of us had talked about joining the masses and making a silly fangirl/fanboy (because some of the guys were more than eager to join! Hahaha!) video, but it didn't happen. There'll be a million other chances though because there's someone popular that shows up at SBS pretty much every weekend!

I met up with Amanda at 10:30 and we ventured over to Gyeongbokgung, which was the main royal palace of the Joseon Dynasty (Constructed in 1395, destroyed during the Japanese invasion of 1592 (But not by the Japanese, interestingly enough. When Japan invaded, the king and aristocrats fled Seoul, abandoning its people, and so an angry Korean mob burned it down!), and reconstructed in 1868). Within the palace gates are numerous building and they're all stunningly beautiful. Most of the buildings are painted in such rich, vividly bright colours unlike anything I've ever seen before! I definitely took over 200 pictures of not only the architecture, but of the landscape which is equally as stunning. You can see the mountains in the distance (not sure which ones...sorry!) and there's so many gorgeous trees and plantlife. It's crazy to think that people once lived there, but they were so lucky because it truly is beautiful! What I find the most interesting is that Gyeongbokgung is located in downtown Seoul, so the constrast between the old and the new in the backdrop is strangely fetching. It's going to take me a while to sort through those pictures and while I plan on making an album (if not several) on Facebook, I'll ensure to post some of them in here as well in the near future. The pictures are definitely worth sharing! We also visited the Korean Folk Museum, which was interesting, but we were pretty tired from touring the palace by that time, as it took us a good 2 hours to see everything (I'm not even convinced that we saw it all!).

An added bonus is that it was a gorgeous, sunny day, with very little humidity and smog. It was finally sunny this week (YAY! SUNSHINE!!!), but the smog has been so thick that I haven't even tanned in the slightest. You die of heat and feel the sun's rays, but they can't actually penetrate the thick air. But today I totally burned, which I didn't expect, especially with being downtown! I was wearing a tanktop with interesting straps, so I'm going to have some funky tanlines once the burn dies down. Haha! While I'm less than pleased that I burned (Thankfully it doesn't hurt and I'm hoping I don't peel too badly!), I'll be happy to at least have a bit of a tan! I don't tan as easily as some people that I know, but this is the least tanned that I've been in forever. I like being fair, but like to look like I spend some time outdoors! So I'm happy that I'll finally have a bit of colour and not be so pasty!

It's now 8pm and I'm sooo sleepy! It's a national holiday on Friday, so 4-day week! YAAAY!!! Which works out perfectly because my friend Celine is coming to visit! I'M SO EXCITED!!! She decided last week that she wanted to visit before September (she's a teacher, so she's off until then, lucky girl!) and within days had bought a plane tickets! She arrives tomorrow night, so I'm going to go meet her at the airport. I'm hoping that someone can stear me in the right direction, since I'm not really sure where I'm going! We'll cab home, but since the international airport's in Incheon, I don't want to pay cab fare both ways (Yes taxis are cheap, but I've also become cheap! Hahaha!). Plus she's only arriving at 9:35pm, so that's more than enough time for me to take public transportation there, assuming I figure out what subway line or bus to take. I'm sure someone at work will know. It'll be so unbelievably nice/fun/exciting to be in Korea with one of my best friends! So I'm sure that I'll have many fun things to talk about in my next post!

Jan ^__^