But hey, free lunch.
Afterwards, me and the other guy from UWM went out to go find Ajou's symbolic statue of The Pioneer, otherwise known as The Pathfinder. Turns out I'd walked by it several times already.
Afterwards, I finally engaged in group chatting, asking if anyone wanted to go off campus and explore. These three girls invited me along to their trip and so began what evolved into a long day of being out in the town.
The four of us went to a store called Daiso, which is reminiscent of like a Family Dollar or basically a really cheap place with lots of stuff you need in everyday life. They had a pack of chopsticks for only 1,000W. Sad face.
I bought two sets of four coat hangers, 1,000W each. I also bought a little portable green bag for only 2,000W. Which is great because I guess I left the one my mom gave me elsewhere and I don't like being charged for bags.
I like that store a lot. Because they played a BTS song and I couldn't help myself from singing...
Suwon!
After Daiso, we went down some back streets, ones I had not been on before. We stopped at a veggie and fruit shop where we debated reasonable prices for fruits. Three of us split the price for a bunch of bananas. It was 3,000W. Afterwards, I was literally dying of thirst so we hoped into.... Hi Mart! I've heard about this place since it was in my Korean books for school. One of the girls knew what I was talking about. She and I were the only ones in the group that could read and speak Korean.
I got a Coke. It was beautiful. It was 800W.
When we were done inside, we took a moment in our little group outside of the shop and talked about where to go next and getting a taxi for the way home since fruit bags are heavy. But then, a woman came up to the outskirts of our group and stared. One of the girls greeted her and she greeted back, but continued to just stand there and look between us. One of the girls thought that it might be because all of us were speaking English but we all looked and sounded different, accents and stuff. After that weird moment was over, we went to a traditional market!!
The smells in that place are amazing. Between veggies and spices and fish, it was actually really lovely. Two girls ended up buying eggs, which were like 2,000W for a think it was a dozen, which is reasonable, especially compared to Homeplus. I was really close to buying some rice cakes. The guy who sold the eggs started saying that me and another girl, who's Finnish, are really tall and curvy. His stall neighbor started laughing and then he made fun of her for being short. It was all really funny and he was a really friendly dude.
Afterwards, we continue through the market and onto another street. One girl went into a shop for a fleece blanket but there were no price tags so she had called me (I was across the street with someone else looking at meat) and I had to ask how much it was in Korean. Finally, a phrase I'm confident in.
Further down the street, there was a food vendor selling fish shaped Hodeok. The vendor was trying to explain what kind of cream was in the middle of one of the fish and I helped him along by providing the Korean modified version of Vanilla. He was excited to agree with that. Even gave me two extra fishies. Red bean and vanilla, 8 for 2,000W (plus two free).
Finally, we went to Homeplus Express, the tinier version as you can guess. There, I bought banana milk and shrimp flavored chips. On my way out the door, I didn't realize you had to push a button so I got confused and waited until the guy behind me left so I ran out after him...
I finally got to try legitimate Korean Banana Milk and I'm happy now.
One of the girls had to quickly run into a store and buy some salt, so me and another girl stood outside the tiny little shop. There was music coming from the speakers and suddenly, I broke out into a dance because Psy's song came on and even if the lyrics are kinda weird, I can still dance to a grown man saying he got his body from his daddy.
After a nice taxi ride with a nice driver who surprised us with his English, we decided dinner was in order and that we should include other people to make a huge group. So one girl texted our huge exchange group chat in Kakao Talk (100+ people in it) and it suddenly became a huge event.
One of Global Ambassadors joined us for the meal and decided Jjigae was in store for our large group. It proved to be a great idea because Jjigae is meant for sharing. It's basically a hot pot sort of thing.
I don't know which one this is exactly because our Ambassador ordered all of us our food. And the ladies and one sir were nice to us too. She saw I had no spoon for my rice and even apologized. The side dish you see in the bottom left is flaming hot and I don't know exactly what it is but I will NEVER eat it again...
I tried Soju for the first time. It was lemon flavored and honestly not as bad as some other alcohol I've tried in the past. I only had about one shot all together and immediately felt like sleeping. Even now, my lids are heavy and stinging but I need to finish this or I'll forget. But man am I a wimp for getting sleepy on one shot. I met several new people while eating with them and we all hung out together for the rest of the night's festivities.
Of course, those festivities included a bar. My very first legitimate bar visit. I didn't order a drink or anything because I really don't feel like paying for something I don't like. And not to mention I seriously want to know why people name drinks in very sexual manners. Like, for example, an Orgasm Cocktail. No?
But it was bumpin' and I was trying to liven up our little table posse by dancing around to every American song that played.
In the beginning, I was dancing to a song and at the time our Ajou Global Ambassador (AGA) had been sitting by himself until he made his way to the bar. He noticed me crazy dance moves and I shot him arrow and he shot back and then came to join our table.
And so began my realization of how utterly adorable this man is. Like, I kid you not, he dances like a grandpa and it's so cute. And we have similar music tastes so that's great. He said that he's worried about me going clubbing because from the way I was dancing there he figured I might get addicted. He also warned me about flirty guys so I asked him to go with me then. I might go to my first club next week or something. I'm actually really excited about it. I don't need alcohol, just water while I'm there. Lord knows I'll be sweating so horribly bad... I better wear black.
After several more songs and continued talking between me my group and the AGA (who added me to his Kakao, yes I am crying tears of joy), we decided it was time to head out. Which was great because I needed to use the bathroom and there is no way I am entering a public one knowing that it could be a whole in the ground. No thanks.
So me and a German girl, followed me three other guys, all head out. We were going to go home but she needed cereal and milk to we went back to the Homeplus Express. On our way though, we stopped into The Face Shop, a makeup store, much to the guy's visible dismay. One of the guys asked me if the orange lipstick actually tasted like oranges. I wish.
After the Homeplus store, we made our journey back to the College of Hills. On theway, we passed like four makeup stores and pretended to go into those as well. The groans we got for that though. One of the shops was playing a B1A4 song and I started singing because yes I know the lyrics! Someone walking by did a double take.
It was raining too. Not too bad though.
Finally, I'm done. SLEEP. Breakfast in the morning with my new group of beautiful friends. Today started off a bit rough but when I finally pushed myself to initiate contact, it got much better. (AND CUTER GOSH)
No comments:
Post a Comment