Day 9- Canada Day in Korea

Today was most certainly one of my favourite days! I woke up extra early to go and pick up my friend who JUST arrived in Korea on Friday to teach English for a year.  I am so excited to have people from home, it encourages my soul and makes me feel like I am not that far away at all.  I bussed the 45 minutes to the subway station and then took the subway 50 minutes to her which was a very interesting experience.  While on the subway I had a great time people watching and saw some disturbing things as well as some heart wrenching things.  On the subway there is a section of every cart that is aimed for either; old, handicapped, pregnant women or mothers with babies and if anyone other than that sits there, the older ladies will dominate them.  I luckily found this out before I attempted to sit there, however that being said, that is usually the area of the bus that people can expect to get the most stares from.  Today however I noticed that the only person sitting there was an older man dressed in a beautiful suit, as I watched him I noticed him continuously spitting/throwing up on the chair behind him through the most horrible sounding cough I have ever heard. There was a woman sitting beside me who noticed as well and we looked at each other grossed out and a tiny bit concerned.  He didn't look alarmed by the situation or seeming to need any assistance so we kept an eye on him, however the worst thing was about to happen.  Two older women walked over to the empty seats beside him and he smiled as one of the woman sat down in his nasty spit/barf on the chair, he didn't even tell her...he just got up and whistled as he got off the subway.  WOWW...I couldn't believe it, I was super grossed out and suddenly got the giggles from thinking about the situation and how horrifying it was.  As I was laughing the older woman beside me started laughing as well and we couldn't stop for a good 5 minutes, I felt a human being bonding moment...that was the start of my Canada day. 

The Magic of Canada Day

Once I got to my friends station, we had a long beautiful embrace and she handed me a wonderful Canada bracelet  that she had brought back from home and we wore them on our arms with PRIDE.  After the cool reunion and the journey of figuring out the subway by ourselves (mostly me...which made me feel like I was getting it...FINALLY).  We went to a mall to meet a bunch of people from church to celebrate this wonderful sister's birthday at an Italian restaurant (I am eating way too many carbs, why is it that the unhealthy food is the cheapest?).  After the scrumptious lunch and cake we headed to a lookout point and then to church which was an AMAZING lesson.  Super convicting and encouraging!  After the lesson we split up into bible talk groups and the all the women went to different bible talk groups where men from that bible talk were, the point was to get to know each other from different groups.  We played some games and introduced ourselves to each other, it was SOOO much fun and super thoughtful.

Happy Happy Birthday :)

 It is amazing at how different the cultures are, there are so many things that are emphasized that we in North America don't speak about or act upon.  There is so much emphasis on dating here and announcing that you are single in order to find out who your options are.  The translations of things are also incredibly hilarious at points as people attempt to discuss certain aspects with one another.  The guys bought us some watermelon and banana's, apparently fruit is a BIG deal here and is the best thing you can bring upon meeting new people.  It was a good time for sure, so many laughs...we played games, sang our favourite songs to each other and attempted to communicate as best as we could. 

Throughout the day I continuously held my Canadian bracelet over my head yelling "HAPPY CANADA DAY" and cheering with any Canadian people that were in my presence...that was the extent of my national pride...I wish I had a Canadian t-shirt.  A few of us went out to coffee after church and had a good conversation, man I love hearing all the juicy details about Korea. I REALLY want to learn the language, luckily for me the teacher who lived here before me had a "how to learn Korean in plain English book" which I WILL be using, one person's trash another person's treasure right? :P

 I have figured out the subway system and this is the start of the week where I will be exploring alone and going to and from everything on my lonesome, this is the moment of truth (how much have I REALLY been taking in?)  I did my first load of laundry and since everything is Korea not sure if I did it right but hey, soap in a spinning machine can't go wrong right? There are no dryers here so I have attempted to hang my clothes to dry on this pink iron thing that I THINK is supposed to be to dry your clothes? I found it in my room and since there is no dryer I believe that is the purpose of it? Does it look like a clothes hanger thing to anyone?

Happy Canada day!!! Yay for a holiday that was celebrated by a bracelet!! 

My dryer?