First Day

I was not able to sleep very much--off and on til around 7 am. Bohye went on a trip with some of her friends and left early in the morning. The night before we stopped at Paris Baguette to get some bread for breakfast so when I woke up her mom had me eat. It is really motivating at times to learn Korean because it was...awkward to be staying in someone's home and not be able to communicate with them at all--I felt bad.

Around 11 Mrs. Kim walked me to the subway station near their home so I could go into Seoul for my weekend activities. I had my subway T Money Card (a subway pass) but didn't remember how much was on it. I had to explain I needed to use an ATM to her. So we went to the one in the station, but it didn't accept foreign cards. I could see that on the machine, but it only said that in English and Chinese so she didn't understand and tried to help and put my card in! It didn't work and my card was stuck in the machine for about 2 minutes while it tried to figure out what was going on. She put it in one more time, all the while in my limited Korean I tried to ask if we could go to a different machine. I also asked if there was a bank nearby. So we went to another bank and was able to get the money. Back to the subway station and I was off to Seoul! I checked into my guesthouse--I'm so thankful for the smartphone I have because I was able to get a map application and it shows where I am and all the little streets and I can navigate-otherwise I probably wouldn't have found the guesthouse. I was hoping to shower there, but it was already time to go and meet my friend Maite for lunch. She came with another US adoptee named Cody. He's been living in Korea for 17 years! We went to a bbq type place--it is cooked on a tray on the table in front of you with spicy sauce, bean sprouts, shaved pork and...a few other things I'm not remembering. We ordered the less spicy one, but when it arrived, there were 2 huge squids on top. The guy started cutting it up and Cody stopped him and told him we didn't want squid. The poor guy stood there for probably 2 minutes--he had no idea what to do! Finally he did end up taking it back, but later as I was eating I found a few short pieces of arm/tentacle in my dish!

After lunch we parted ways and I took a shower. I relaxed a bit and then thought I would go see where the soccer fields were that I would be playing on. Again, I used my new map application and was able to navigate my way there. I also downloaded an app that lets you track the distance you walk and your pace and calories burned. It's pretty neat. I found the fields, but the strap on my sandal broke! (these are my favorite sandals and I've probably done 5 repairs on them) It wasn't as bad as the last time the strap came off, but it was still a little tricky to walk in. Unfortunately I had wanted to do some more walking before I was to meet my friend Min Kyung (MK) for dinner. So instead of doing my walking I hopped on the subway and waited to meet her. I sat on a bus bench and waited probably 30 minutes for her. We went to a noodle/soup restaurant that we had gone to in Nov/Dec together. She was sweet and bought me dinner. We were both so full after we ate, she suggested we take a little walk to Myeongdong and shop. I told her about my sandal so we set about looking for gold sandals--gold is not in in Korea right now so we had no luck. I figured if I can borrow glue from her, I might be okay and also reasoned that summer is coming to an end so I probably don't need to buy a pair of sandals anyway. After we were done shopping, she asked if I wanted coffee. I reminded her that milk makes me sick and she suggested I could still drink something else. We went to Dunkin Donuts and I ordered a smoothie type drink. She was going to pay again but she didn't resist when I insisted I pay. We sat and talked for about an hour and I figured I should probably go back and get some rest.