Around Town

We ventured out into the city a few days ago and I'll be honest with you, I was scared.  Not because I felt unsafe, Korea is just as safe as the U.S., but I was pretty much petrified that we'd get lost and never find out way back or that someone would try to talk to me and I wouldn't understand what they were saying.

The first thing didn't happen. (CA would never let us get that lost!)

The second thing happened the whole time.

We took a bus from our house to downtown Pyeongtaek, the city that is closest to us.  The bus was pretty easy - we had good directions on how to get from Point A to Point B and again from Point B to Point A.  My favorite part was that to get home, we had to catch the return bus in front of McDonald's.  Because McDonald's is everywhere.

The first thing we did was walk around AK Plaza which is basically Nordstrom.  It was super pretty inside with tons of designer clothes, cosmetics, etc.

After walking around AK Plaza went into the basement and discovered a grocery store.  It was very shiny, like the Korean version of Whole Foods.  Obviously, this made me very happy.  Of note were some really cool and different looking produce as well as some seafood that I was unable unwilling to identify.  However, my favorite part was seeing Oreos and Captain Crunch in the "International Foods" section.

Luckily, there were some food bars in the basement so we snagged a seat and ordered a couple steamed dumplings and a couple of fried dumplings and feasted.  They were tasty, but I forgot to take a photo for you.

Fail.

After tackling AK Plaza we walked around Pyeongtaek rather aimlessly just to check it out.  There were a lot of sketchy looking streets (we went back a few nights later for dinner with friends and it, strangely, looks less sketchy at night) and a really cool market called the Tongdon Market.  I hope to spend more time there at a later date and tell you all about it.

A few days later I decided I was super confident about using the local bus system and ventured out on my own to go to Lotte Mart which a few friends described to me as the "Korean Target".

I made it there without any major incidents (I did get off the bus one stop too early, but managed to make my way to Lotte Mart anyway).  Lotte Mart was pretty cool and exactly what I excepted - Target.  It was a little different in a lot of ways - one being the abundance of Hello Kitty merchandise.

Another being an entire aisle in the grocery section devoted to Seaweed.  I didn't realize there were so many different kinds.

Getting back from the store was not as easy as getting to the store.  I assumed that the bus route went in a big circle because the bus route looks like a big circle on the map.  This is not true.  I got on the bus where I should have gotten off (and was prematurely proud of myself for not screwing this up) and ended up at the Bus Depot at the end of the line.  The driver was very nice but didn't speak English and I was trying not to cry.  Luckily, they found a driver who spoke English and put me on another bus that retraced my route and got me back home.  Honestly, I still don't know what I did wrong, but it prompted me to sign up for a class that teaches you how to use the bus which would have been helpful before I used the bus.

Maybe I should also learn Hangul.

Talk soon.
Julie