Hair Cuts

Ian and I got haircuts today at E-Mart.

Before:

Ian's practicing for prison.

After:

Every person working there today asked if I had a perm.  Naturally curly hair is very uncommon here.  They have no idea how to style it.  I love the cut, but they blow dried it down and then tried to curl it with a straightener, so it had a strange shape when they finished.  It was the most efficient hair cut I've ever had.  Two people blow dried my hair at the same time.

They left the front a little too long, but that's no big deal.  Ian looks so much better with short hair.

We found this children's book about President Obama while we were shopping.

Hoofing It

Our gym is closed on Sundays, so we use it as our day off.  How do we usually spend our days off from running?  Walking several miles all around town.  Why?  Because we're clinically insane.

Well, not really.  We walk on Sundays to explore our surroundings as we run our errands.  It'd be a shame to live here for a whole year and miss something because we were always in a cab or on a bus.  The weather was amazing today.  Clear blue skies, very little wind and warm temperatures.

It's spring! We saw this pretty moth having a sunbath.  Then we had to run from it because as it flew it kept diving in front of us and we were worried we would step on it.

I think this is a Great Blue Heron.  I can't really tell the difference between a heron and a crane, but after some Googling, I found out that cranes stay in flocks and herons are commonly seen alone in streams foraging.

Ian wanted me to cross this, but I told him my legs were too short.

We spotted this pagoda as we were walking down a side road.

It turned out to be a National Treasure, the Jangrak Seven Story Pagoda built in the Unified Silla period.  It's next to a Buddhist temple, but it was closed up and the English on the plaques was too broken and vague to really let us know what we were seeing.  But, it was a very special random find.

All that remains of the ancient temple buildings (there were three plots like this).

Downtown.  I don't even know if the powerline worker is attached to a safety rope.  They didn't even stop traffic.

After walking all over the city (about 3 and a half hours) we stopped in for a movie at TTC.  We hadn't even heard of it and we weren't even completely sure it'd be in English, but we took a chance.  It was called Solomon Kane.  I wasn't very impressed with it, though that is probably because I demand a lot from an action/adventure film, since it's not my choice genre.  The plot is based on a pulp magazine character from the twenties: a Puritan man who tries to find the right path after learning that his soul is damned.  It's holding steady at 81% on rottentomatoes.com, so if dark and action packed is your bag, you may want to check it out (I believe it opened in the USA back in November).

After the movie, we ran to E-Mart.

My vegetable expertise tells me that this is not, in fact, lettuce.

I saw on the Alien's Day Out blog that she had found some soy-meat products at E-Mart.  So, we took a look and found them!  These are the "High Protein Soy Bean Cutlets," we also got "Sweet and Sour Soybeans."  We're still trying to eat as little processed food as possible, but these will give us a little more variety.

Good night!

Sunday Wind Down

We used today to clean our apartment and do our weekly grocery shopping.  We've learned that when you eat mostly fresh food, you have to grocery shop more frequently.  It took a little adjusting, but we've gotten pretty good at it.

 

Things are looking pretty dead these days at the local farms in our neighborhood.  I wonder when you're supposed to plant peppers.  Some of the plots have been recently tilled.

We got some dried pineapple at EMart.  It's a little pricey, but delicious.

 

We couldn't ice trays, so we bought chocolate molds.

Now our ice cubes will be adorable.

 

Rainbow dduk (rice cake).  One of the many sweet varieties.  This one's alright, but I prefer the yellow kind we bought last week.

This one was on sale and after trying a sample of it, I decided to get it.  It's a little strange.  The powder coating is peanuty with the slightest (I mean really slight) hint of spice.

 

We met Ben and Amy later for frozen yogurt downtown.  The yogurt itself is good, but the topping choices are disappointing and they give you very little.  We got cereal, kiwi and banana this time.  I really like the kiwi with the yogurt.  The four of us stayed at the yogurt shop for over three hours eating our treats and chatting.  Ben and Amy spent the beginning of the day hiking in Danyang.  I'd like to get out there, but maybe we'll wait until it's not so icy.  I guess Ben hit the ground pretty hard.  That can really take the fun out of the trek.

Here's hoping for a continuation of the slightly warmer, sunny days we've been having.  Good night!

Day Off

Ian and I didn't wake up until about 11 this morning and we didn't manage to get up and out until about 4pm.  It was a nice way to spend my day off, just relaxing and goofing.

We met Ben and Amy at the theater at 5 because we thought that The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus was still playing. It is, but the only showtimes are 10am and 12:10pm.  Very strange.  So, we went to dinner and then to Emart to wander around and to get ice cream.  Ian and I got a new clock because our flip clock was busted.  The Emart Baskin Robbins didn't have the ice cream fondue we all wanted to try (even though it was on their menu), so we settled for regular old ice cream.  We came back to our apartment to play a game and download the movie.  We played a few epic games of Jenga (there are photos, but they'll have to be posted later), but the downloads didn't work.  So, we watched (500) Days of Summer instead.

It was a great time and I'll probably post the pictures tomorrow.  We are off to bed, since we are getting up at 6.  We have to do our lesson plans and then we are off to the gym to get memberships and workout.  Good night!

이마트 열려!

Translation:  E-Mart is open!

After our brief meeting this morning (no Julia = more free time) we ran over to E-Mart to catch the grand opening.  It was pretty intense.  Cars were parked the equivalent of a few blocks away (even though there are two parking lots), there was a traffic director specifically for traffic into E-Mart, music was thundering clear to our apartment and giant balloons with signs invited shoppers to come get great deals.

You can see the cars parked along the bridge where the banners are.

Traffic director.

Ian dodging traffic and other pedestrians across the street.

 

It was a Black Friday level of chaos.  It looked like this (or worse) from every direction.  This was at about noon, but it was nearly as packed at 9pm, an hour before closing, when we came back to do some actual grocery shopping.

Orange juice and beer, equals in the Korean marketplace.

Candy type cheese, great for every occasion!  I think they're cheese curds.

M&Ms!  At a semi-affordable price!  You better believe we bought some.

We also got spices and other imported goods (though we forgot the hamburger buns we were so excited about), so it was a bit of a pricey venture. It's completely worth it, though, as now our food can have a variety of flavors.

Well, it's about time for Six Feet Under and M&Ms.  Good night!