Birthday!

Today was my 23rd birthday.  And, no, I don't feel any different.  :)

I got up around 8:30, talked to the family and then we started our day.

We started our day with pastries and coffee at Paris Baguette in the downtown shopping district.  Everything was pretty good, the coffee was a bit on the sweet side, though.  We were just happy for the taste of espresso.

Where we sat to eat breakfast had a view of this strange (read: slightly racist) little cafe called Africa.

As we walked through the center, we found this rather large collection of rubber flip flops...

It was a little warm out, so we had some Coke Zero (in honor of Rob).  As we walked around and explored more, we found some familiar things:

And some more unfamiliar things:

It says "BooBoo Dental Clinic."  I hope I never have a dental-related boo boo.

After walking around for a bit, we had lunch at the tiniest restaurant I've ever been in.  There was literally one table and some counter seats along the wall.  We ordered veggie Kimbop and the first set was served with ham.  We ordered another one and it was deliciously meat free.  Three full rolls (think of the full sized nori sheets) of kimbop, soup and a side of pickled radishes was only 3,000 won ($2.30).

After lunch, we headed into a park/school ground and played around for a little while.

Ian is too tall for the monkey bars.

Swings are fun!  But, they kind of hurt your butt.

Then we headed over to the Techno Town Cinema to watch "9."  When we first went in, the times weren't the same as we'd seen online, so we were worried, but it all worked out.

Some shots inside the theatre lobby:

There are many things attached to the movie theatre, like a restaurant, a hair salon and some sort of boutique.

Self explanatory.  :)

They don't have Diet Coke of Coke Zero, so I got "Cider" (it's pretty much Sprite) and Ian got Orange Soda.

We got some popcorn, too.

All together it was about $18.  Not bad, considering you'd only get in to see the movie for that in the states.

A close up of the popcorn box.  An interesting note:  at this theatre, the tickets have seat assignments.  We'd didn't follow them.  But, even thought the theatre was mostly empty, all the Korean patrons stared at their tickets and followed the rules.

After the movie we went to Mr. Pizza for dinner.  It seems to be the most popular pizza place in town.

We don't know why it's "made for women."  Their main slogan is "Love for women."  ???

We were given an English menu, which was very helpful.  The menu tries to explain why women love Mr. Pizza, but, like Ian at being in photos, it fails.

The cheese sticks were served with honey mustard.  May sound weird to you, but I was pleased, as that's how I order them stateside.

The pizza was... okay.  We ordered a cheese and potato pizza.  The cheese is a little rubbery and the sauce is closer to spaghetti than it is to pizza.  But, like the coffee, we're just happy for familiar flavors and textures.

(Sorry for the blurry photo, the camera started to die)  We wondered why we were served this yellow sauce with our pizza.  Ian tried it and it turned out to be butter.  Ick.  A group of Koreans (about our age) sat next to us.  I thought that maybe you just use it for the crust or something, but they were dipping their pizza in it with each bits. Granted, their pizza had seafood on it, but come on.  Also, it sucks to be a foreigner here.  People have no shame and will stare, and stare and stare.  Tough to eat dinner through that.  When we first got here, we thought we were being paranoid, but the quiet comments and staring are real. At least little kids just opening gape and say "Whoa!"

They had yogurt and stuff to put in it (mostly cereal) at the salad bar, so Ian and I tried a little.  It wasn't bad, but the yogurt wasn't so great without mixing in the jam and cereal.

We decided to walk home.  It was a nice night and it's a pretty nice walk.

Dickies Ingrish on the way home.  ("Dickies didn't invent fashion cothes/ We stronger-quality/ Cloth service for you")

We rounded a corner near the theatre and found a little arcade.  Later we discovered that it was actually attached to the theatre.  Mostly they had your typical arcade games, but they also had little karaoke booths.

We couldn't resist.  We did Barbara Ann and Gold Digger.  A good mix, I think.

Gold Digger was about twice the speed it should be.  This made it impossible, yet humorous, to sing.

It was fun, awkward and gross.  Those booths are not so clean.

When we were done at the arcade we finished our walk back to the apartment.

My present from Ian: maroon, low-top Chucks.  They don't give you the box when you buy them hear, they just put them in that cute pink bag.  I laced them so they'd be easy to slip on and off since we live in Asia and shoes are not a constant.

The cake!  Two big candles for "20" and three small ones to add "3."

Blowing out the candles in our tiny kitchen.

Success!

Unfortunately, the cake was pretty terrible.  It tasted like white bread, only less flavor.  It's like the baker ran out of sugar and vanilla.  Not so great, considering it was apparently a vanilla cake.

Oh well, it was pretty!

P.S. Family, have some Papa Murphy's for me tonight.  After all, it's still my birthday there. :)