food for the seoul
Mood:  a-ok
on the 20, friday, my teacher called and said i had to have the money for the trip to the school today. i couldn't get into my bank account because it is for bank of america's only and there aren't really any of those here. duh. we tried several banks, and my host mom set up a new account for me but we couldnt transfer any of the money until i got to seoul, which we had already planned on doing. i was kind of worried, but i ddin't let it bother me for the rest of the day.

for lunch me and my host sister went out to eat with julian and his host brothers and host mom. she is really nice. the camera men who are doing the film on the exchange students were there too, and video taped us practically the whole time. i get so freakin camera shy, and i hate being watched when i'm eating so i didn't enjoy the meal as msuch as i could have. i did have fun though, they tried teaching me some new korean words. i remember, pabo, stupid but in a teasing way. julian taught me that. haha. :)

the camera people brought us back to my house, and julian and his host brother, ji-eun 1 and 2, and me all stayed there. we mostly just talked, ji-eun 2, my host sister, is obsessed with julian! haha its sooo cute. she has a ton of pictures of him on her camera phone. sooo sweet. i talked to julian a lot while he was here and i like him more now that i had the chance to get to know him. i dont know where rose and emilio where, they didn't come to lunch. the camera people taped us talking and stuff. i think its going to be a boring video, but we'll see. maybe some sort of drama will happen and they'll get it on tape, i can kinda see that happening with ji-eun and julian ;)

i went to ji-euns flute lessons, her and ji-eun 1 take flute lessons together. there are piano lessons goin on in the same room so it gets a little loud. they are envious of me because i could learn flute in school at no cost to me if i wanted to, but here they have to pay to learn an instrument. i never thought i'd appreciate having a band class at mt view. well i still don't, but at least they do! i didn't stay there the whole time, the instructors daughter came. her mom told her i was there so she got out of school to come see me!! her name is hara, or hala. (their L's and R's are mixed into the same letter. so my name comes out sounding kinda like rori or lodi) she speaks excellent english. She is my age (17 korean years) but she is already in a highschool. she says it goes on for 13 HOURS!!! OMG i feelso bad for her. she said it use to be only 5 like most highschools but they they changed it. if i were her i'd switch highschools. 13 hours!! holy shit!! it really makes me appreciate the school system in america more too. she was really nice, we talked a lot. its refreshing to talk to someone in english and have them understand you. we went out to eat at a fast food restaurant and there was an upstairs. i guess there are usually upstairs to fast food restaurants cuz of the lack of floor space. they just build up. you could write anything you want on the walls, so i wrote a lil messege too :) it was practically covered in writing, on the ceiling chairs tables everything. people should be able to do thatd in america too.

on the 21, that was yesterday, me and my family went to seoul to do some shopping. we left at 11:30 and went by train. it took 4 hours to get there. i thought we were closer than that. i didn't bring anything to do so i was pretty bored. i looked out the window and napped a lot. 4 hours is a lot of time to not be doing anything. when we finally arrived there we hopped on a subway for a lil bit. i don't know the name of where we went, but it was right near where jung lives. first we went out to eat at mcdonalds!!!! it was so good!! i miss fast food . then we tried finding a bank that would accept my card, since i had had so much touble with it in seochung. finally we found a bank that accepted my card, and it let me take out a little bit. i tried withdrawing everything to put it into a different account but it won't let me. it was sooo agrivating i almost wanted to cry, i can't get to any of my money when im in seochun and in seoul it wouldnt let me take more that 100$ out. my whole money situation is so fucked up. but i took what i could get and we went shopping! there's a pretty expensive department store called. who ever said buying clothes in korea would be cheap was wrong.i bought 2 pairs of shorts, 2 shirts, and a new bag. it wasn't all that great of a shopping experience, and i love to shop, but no one spoke english and my host mom just nodded and smiled when i asked her a question. so i had to just go with the flow of things. in the dressing rooms, like in houses, there's a lil place to take your shoes off, and then there are shelves, with tissues and hand lotions and things on them. but there werent' any mirrors! you left the dressing room and the mirror was on the other side of the door. i spent 990,000 won, that's a little less than 90$. jung met us at the subway station near her home. she lives in seoul so i don't understand why she goes to dong-gang middle school. it has to be several hours away, she must stay at someones house or something, but arent there middle schools in seoul?? hmm. me ji-eun and jung went out to eat at a place called new york hotdog. seoul is such a wanna be new york. lol this place even had pictures of the twin towers on the wall. 3 of them actually. it was kind of cool, but like...what about the eifel tower, or something, haha and they sell a lot of clothing that says new york, or has american major league baseball teamnames on it. i'm not big into that, even in the US. it's even weirder here. i enjoyed the american style food though. it was about 8 when we left and the train ride back wasnt so bad, cuz i slept the whole way.

so thats about everything, if you read it this far, i pity you, :P but thanks for checking it out anyways!! -later-

lori!