Wowza, the weekend flew by! Teaching last week was rather exhausting, and I think all of us were ready for a couple days without reciting “cat, hat, hug, and bug,” and various other three-letter words, in front of ten confused-looking children. Actually, they’re rather smart, the kids, and we do more than just recitation, but by Friday, ready for rest.

Friday evening, Anna, the Korean teacher I sit next to in the office invited me and a couple others out for dinner—LATE dinner, as our last class ended at 9:30. We discussed what we were in the mood for, and eventually decided on “meat,” which is basically Korean grill. The way it works is your party sits at a table with some type of grilling mechanism—the grill at this particular restaurant was sunken into the center of the table, with a stainless steel cover with numerous slits for fat to drain through—and you order a large plate of very uniformly sliced beef or pork cuts for the table to share. Side dishes are brought out, like kimchi (growing on me) and soybean sprouts (love them) and bean paste (delicious) and—my new favorite—green radishes. I believe they were marinated in some type of vinegar, but Sarah described them perfectly as having a watermelon/sour apple Smirnoff type taste. Absolutely delicious. And of course we ordered a couple bottles of Hite, which seems to be the official beer of Korea. So you grill the pork, which is actually very little pork and giant chunks of fat (how do they stay so slender? This is a mystery to me…), grab it off the grill with chopsticks (I’m getting better, ate eggs with ‘em the other morning!), wrap it in a some type of leaf with all the other fixings, and voila! Korean cuisine. Quite good. Way too much work, but good in the end.

Went shopping this morning at E-Mart—the equivalent of Wal-Mart, but better—located about ten minutes by bus from my apartment. It lays on the edge of what Changwonians call The Roundabout, and has five levels: grocery store, electronics and home stuff, clothing, and two parking floors. The Lotte department store is across the roundabout, and has a movie theater and nice clothing stores. Pictures!














I thought it hilarious that this boy was riding a pink floral moped. And that he wore socks with his sandals. But everybody here does.








There just may be more squid in the grocery stores of Changwon than in the all the waters of the oceans—gross. Actually, if I knew how to cook it, I’d probably get some.

After shopping, I thought I’d try the mountain again. Turns out, I’d only been about ten minutes from the top the first time, but sooooo glad I saved it for today, because the view was absolutely amazing, just mountains in every direction. There seemed to be quite a few connecting trails, and a Korean man I chatted with on the way down the mountain said it was possible to backpack to Busan and many other places—so that’s the plan, if I can recruit some coworkers to go with me!

Just a few pictures: