Thursday, October 19, 2006

Day Off

Yesterday Stephanie and I had a really busy day, which left both of us really tired, but it was filled with great stuff, so we really can't complain. I actually set an alarm! I got up earlier, got ready, and then went into the subway to use a payphone to call my grandma, which was so nice. It was good to hear her voice, and for me to be able to talk about things with her. I was so glad she was home when I called. I told Grandma I was calling from the subway and she said "but I don't hear lots of background noise!" and I had to explain that the subway stations are really rather large, and most have little shops in them before you go through the turnstiles and go down to a lower level to meet the actual train.

Stephanie met me in the subway and we took off to the Immigration Office to get our "alien registration cards". Now, Stephanie and I officially have our ARC cards (insert smirk here). Afterward we rode the subway over to Korea University to meet with a professor Stephanie had met on the plane ride over. He is an assistant professor of economics who has lived in the U.S. and in the United Kingdom. We had a nice lunch with him, and he gave a nice tour of his area of campus.



The main gate on campus. Stephanie and I are always so impressed when we go to big universities (like when we went to Berkeley in May) because it all seems so COLLEGIATE and huge and scholarly. So we love looking at the huge buildings.


Korea University is a private college that was founded in 1905. This building was built for the 100th anniversary and was sponsored by Samsung (of course), and is thus called the Samsung Centennial Memorial building (or something like that).

Korea University is the Tigers and Stephanie and I are hoping to go back and perhaps go to some sporting events. We're feeling the absence in our hearts of our love for Knights basketball, so we might become Tigers fans and go to basketball games :)

After our friend had to go back to his work, we headed over to the COEX mall to kill some time. I had conveniently forgotten the directions to the tombs we were going to visit, so we had about 5 hours to kill before we met some friends for dinner. We did some shopping (what we do best), and I spent too much money on books. We then decided to attempt seeing a movie at the cinema at the mall. It's a whole new venture because you have to try and find the movie you want (titles are in Korean), find the right time, talk to the cashier. Plus they obviously only show American blockbusters. So- we had one choice: World Trade Center. It was quite the downer, and brought back a lot of memories. I cried. There's my review of that... haha.

It's quite odd. Stephanie and I at home rarely go to malls, much less hang out at them, but I've been here a little less than 4 weeks and this was the fourth time I've been to COEX. We find this quite amusing.

!!!!oh! The megabox is quite the production here. Assigned seating, and everything is really flashy. At the entrance from the mall there are advertisements, but they are actually small, tiny little sets that people can sit in and take pictures of themselves. For instance, one movie looked like a love story, and the little setting was fake trees and a bench, as if you were in a park. you take the picture and you're in the movie! There was also this big setup for Vespas. I thought it was just for the Vespa company, but I think there might be a movie coming out with a lot of Vespas in it.



Stephanie and I watched the movie, which was in English with Korean subtitles. Stephanie thought the subtitles would bother her, but they didn't bother either of us. Our theory is that when we watched movies with Spanish subtitles it was annoying because we were always trying to figure out if the subtitles and the English words matched, or if we were correct when we guessed how it would translate to Spanish. But, we know NO Korean, so we didn't even try.

We met our friends Candice and Haeseon for dinner, and then eventually went our separate ways.

It's still a little warm here, but the trees were turning color at the University yesterday. My hopes are up. A coworker said today "it's supposed to rain" and I said "yay!!" She said "you want it to rain?" and I had to say "yes, I love the rain!" I'm beyond ready for some cold weather. My extended summer is beginning to give me that Seasonal Affective Disorder (or whatever it's called), not because it's gloomy, but because there's been too much sun and warmth.

1 Comments:

At 8:58 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

It's been raining since we got to Portland Saturday night. Are you jealous? Soak up the sun while you can. Sounds like you and Steph are having fun doing all the sights. We are getting into a lot of places for Welcome Home.
Love,
Dad

 

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