Oh what a week!

A few babes playing in the toy room

My little artist Heidi- best listener in the class and so cute!

My little love Yoon- He's the smartest child I have ever met, kind, caring, loving and so cute- even with his little eye patch! I want to take him back with me!!

My newest babe Alvin- another one of the best listeners, so cute and kind, aww such a sweetie!

One of the random finds in Korea thanks to Ash- Cherry Tomato juice and grapefruit- oddest, most delicious combo ever!! Everyone needs to try this!!

One of the views from the 63 Building, the Han River

Another view of Seoul

Moi, reflection from one of the pillars

Little fish that eat the dead skin cells off of you...so cool! There's a restaurant that you go to and you can actually put your feet in and they eat your skin giving you a pedicure while you eat, have some drinks....I need to try this out! I don't know how well I'll fair with the tickle factor, just on my hands was super sensitive!!!

This week seemed to draggg..not sure if perhaps because I was getting sick? Which I am now full blown SICK. I can't breathe. My head feels like those commercials, where the person's head is a balloon floating above their body- ya that's me. It's horrible. I knew this day would come- working with children makes it inevitable. I actually thought it would have come sooner- but here I am now. Ugh...

I've decided to make it my mission to put to use the P90X videos I recieved over a year ago- for those of you who don't know what that is....google it. It's an intense series of videos that are supposed to rip the body into shape- I can see why after doing them for a week. Yikes! My body hurt in places I didn't know exsisted! However, all a good hurt. I'm hoping I'll get the motivation to continue this- I'm already feeling GREAT, despite being sick.

I hit up Costco this week again. I was already out of salsa, yes, the giant tub of salsa. I'm slightly obsessed with it. I need to get back there though- meat is such a steal! I also managed to find crushed canned tomatos, for those of you who know me well, this is a staple in my diet. I'd like to actually get a chance to roam the Costco here- it's hard after work cause all you want to do it get in and out and back home in time to enjoy a SMALL piece of your night. It's in Ilsan, 4 stops over on the subway- not bad at all. They have really great precooked food you can get as you leave- better than the stuff back home!! AND my Canadian Costco card works here!! Yay!

SOOOO I FINALLY got paid this weekend!! NICE! This week I'm hoping to invest in a used cell phone I can put some pay as you go minutes on. After meeting some people here, it's nice to be able to get in touch with them if they're going out or if you want to meet up and what not. I used to sleep with my cell phone back home, but honestly, since being here I haven't craved it at all! Hahaha....Hello my name is Amanda Wishak and I'm addicted to my cell phone.

This weekend was a rather mellow one. Friday night I was somewhat primed to hit the town...but didn't end up. Instead I was able to chat for a solid 2 hours with my best friend from home...ahhh how great it felt to catch up! It was a nice relaxing Friday night in (if there is such a thing?). Saturday I woke up, tidied a bit, Skyped some more with people, threw a mini pity party for myself then came back to reality and got ready to venture out. Yes- I had a momentary lapse in sanity, but I think we're all entitled to that once in a while right? I'm still a bit bummed out here. A lot is going on and to top it off I think the thing that made me most upset, or atleast tipped the sanity scale- my SHOWER ROD WOULD NOT STAY UP. It took everything I had not to throw it down the hall, but instead I just yelled at it which clearly didn't solve anything. I cooled down and ended up fixing it properly now, good. So venturing out was successful. I went into some shopping area with Ashley- fellow teacher. We shopped it up- her more than me. I'm still a little intimidated to shop here. It's a combination of a million people, a million things to look at, I'm super nervous for things not to fit me (because everyone here is built a size 0-4)....I'm just super overwhelmed. I'm still not really in a comfort zone yet. Which at this point is good- not spending money. I just don't even really have the urge to shop. If anything, I'm looking around at things I can buy for other people to send back home. Don't get me wrong- the shopping here is pretty amazing. There are A TON of unique shops and things to buy!! I'm sure with time my comfort level will increase....then watch out.

After shopping for hours, we headed home and then went for Korean BBQ. Didn't disappoint! We hit up a little coffee-ish shop on the way home for a sweet treat. Tall Yogurt Frappe- definitely a new fav drink for the warmer weather!!

I ended up in bed by 11pm ON A SATURDAY NIGHT! Whoa...but I was super tired and it felt great....only if I could breathe. A netta pot would come in super handy right now...but since I don't have one, I decided I could probably just use a water bottle, warm water and a little salt- it worked wonders. For those of you who aren't familiar with a netta pot- google it....it's this wonderful little device you put warm salt water in and flush out your sinuses when you're stuffed up. It's extremely temporary but to be able to breathe is a great feeling! Oprah swears by it so it must be great- right?

Woke up too early on a Sunday....ended up skyping some more with people- I LOVEEE Skyping on the weekend!! Chatted with some lovely ladies in Ottawa who I miss dearly who I should have been hanging out with on a Saturday night. After that, tidied a bit more (yes I'm the only one that lives in my apartment but it's constantly a mess). Being able to clean your bathroom by hosing down the entire thing is genius. I love it! Only downside- it takes a while for it to all completely dry. But I had planned on being out all day, so this was perfect. I decided that I needed to get out and do my own thing. I had taken the subway enough times that I somewhat knew what I was doing....so I embarked on my journey- the 63 Building. The 63 Building is the tallest building in Korea. It's the host to a bunch of offices as well as an IMAX, Wax Museum, Sea World, Art Gallery and a bunch of restaurants and shops. I took the subway alone again, but this time I was going to have to transfer...piece of cake. Thinking about how nervous I actually was about the whole thing a couple weeks ago makes me laugh now. I downloaded a free app for my iPod which is a great map of the subway system. It's so easy to follow and it's also in English. It took me about an hour to get to where I thought I needed to be. I came out of the subway and had no idea what to do next. I read online there was a shuttle bus you could take but I actually think I may have gotten off at the wrong subway stop- crap. Well I got up my courage to ask a cab driver to take me there...ugh. I think he took pity on me- clearly a foreigner. We played charades and he figured out where I wanted to go. Well....I'm pretty sure he drove me around the block, and told me that he was doing so, just not in English. He laughed at me for most of the ride and spoke to me in Korean- well it sounded like that at least, cause if he was going for English- I had no idea. I just smiled, nodded, felt extremely uncomfortable and laughed along. Oh well. I think he took me around the huge block because we were really close to the 63 Building so his fare wouldn't be very much- whatever. It was less than $5. Had he not taken me, I would have probably felt discouraged- kind of like I did on the way home...I'll explain later.

So I got there, got my tickets. I decided to go with the deal of hitting up 3 of the "attractions" there. I figured it wouldn't be very fun to go to the wax museum alone, that's more of a thing to do with a friend- posing in silly and inappropriate ways with the wax figures...not as much fun alone. So IMAX, Aquarium and Art Gallery it was. I hit up the movie first- yay. Yellowstone Park....hmmm. I had to listen to it via ear phones which I'm so happy I had my own. The ones they gave me was only a one ear one!! That would have been a tad bit annoying having to listen to it in English in one ear and Korean in the other? It was a brutal movie....and moving on. The aquarium was pretty nice- although it was under ground, I wonder how many fish die there? I felt so bad for them all. The tanks were SOO SMALL! For example...the snapping turtle they had on display was in a tank practically the size of it's shell! No wonder it was growing algea all over it's body and shell. And again- moving on. The Art Gallery was meh- ok. It was cool to be up that high. The elevator that takes you to the top is on the outside of the building so you can see everything as you go up. The view from the top is pretty cool! All in all the 63 Building was ok. First solo adventure. I figured it was time to get out and explore some of what Korea has to offer. Probably would have been more fun with friends, who I'm missing TONS. Laughing to yourself about horrible Korean fashion faux pas isn't as fun as doing it with your best girl friend. Well now it was time to get back to the subway....hmmm. I paced the lobby for a bit, scoping out white people in hopes they would be able to direct me to the subway...well I ended up being too shy to talk to any of them (I only spotted 3 and they were CLEARLY preoccupied canoodling their Korean lovers...). So I sucked it up and stuck my head in a cab- mistake. REJECTED hardcore. He had no idea, and if he did, he wanted nothing to do with it. Sweet....so back inside I went to pace some more. FINALLY someone was at the information booth. I played charades and awkward one word phrases (clearly I didn't have my Korean/English dictionary on me...), finally he directed me upstairs. OK....got up there, still no idea. Played out the whole thing again...whatever. I was over it at this time and just wanted to get somewhere. I went outside and there was the shuttle. No idea where it was going, if it was going to the right place, but I was over it. It went....not sure where. I finally saw a sign that said Stn, which I knew meant subway. I got off, and clearly whacked my head when I got up- it was just one of those days....I contemplated heading over to Itaewan because I was so close but decided that adventure might better be left for another time/weekend. I had enough and was hungry. I just wanted to go home- so that I did. After hours on the subway, transferring, random cab rides, unknown shuttle rides...it was a decent day. An adventure for sure!
Sunday night was left to do laundry, tidy up- again, grab some groceries for the week and just relax....tomorrow starts another week- one week closer to being home....xo