Love for Women

Yesterday I went with Jason and Mark to Home Plus to return some items. Home Plus is to Iksan what Wal-Mart is to North America...Only Home Plus is WAY better.

Let me explain, Home plus is something like five stories tall and each story is a little department houses one or two wal-mart esque departments. So you grab your shopping cart and you take these ramps that look like escalators but without the steps, your cart grab the ramp and takes you both up. It's very strange. However, they have everything you could ever want and it's priced ok.

After our Home Plus adventure, we decided to go to Mr. Pizza for lunch. Mr. Pizza's slogan is Love for Women. Why? Yeah, that's exactly what I asked. The answer I received is much like the answer you will receive...Why not? Mr. Pizza was really, really good and after we left I picked Jason's brain until he finally gave me a theory about the marketing and slogan behind Mr. Pizza. He thinks that the slogan has to do with women because Korean men almost always eat only traditional Korean food unless they are out with women or family who urge them do eat something other than traditional Korean food. Jason made the point that you will not see a group of grown men eating at Mr. Pizza without a woman or their family. Because I have no reason to argue with him and no real knowledge or Korean culture...I'll take that answer.

Post face-stuffing, Jason and I went and walked around Iksan and went to the "Central Park". There were photo exhibits and a lot of little kids riding bikes, people playing soccer, people just walking around and some people were even riding the tandem bicycles you can rent there. We did a quick looksy and then ducked into a little coffee shop just along the park. I tried Date tea. It was yummy yummy! A little sweet, but well worth it! Then we went to meet Mark at Bean and Bean, another coffee shop. I had the most beautiful caramel macchiato ever!! They put designs on everything here!

Later, I met up with a friend I met a couple of weekends ago and we went bowling...yes, there is bowling in Korea. My dad thought it was funny :) I kicked his ass at bowling and then we went for dinner and he told me about some highlight and cool people in Iksan. And I told him about Oklahoma and he told me about how he thought my accent should be stronger.

Today it was back to the grind of teaching. I love it, but I'm finding it really challenging. Everyday they ask me something, I know the answer, but I just have to think about it for a second. Like when to use "a" and "the".
i.e. She's wearing "the" skirt.
She's wearing "a" skirt.

To them, there is no real difference. Try explaining that one right off hand. So I asked Jason and Mark and they schooled me on article usage...thanks guys!

People always say, you learn something new everyday... in my case, I learn something new about every 10 minutes.

Oddities in Korea:
- Most public restrooms only have bar soap...ewy
- The floor cleaner they use smells like gasoline. Issac says it is, they just burn away the dirt.
- Today a siren went off to indicate a drill for war with North Korea...NO ONE and I mean NO ONE responded.
- Koreans pronounce F's as P's... Four = Pour