Book Club

Yesterday I went to my first English book-club meeting.  About 2 weeks ago I responded to an ad posted on the Seoul Craigslist for people interested in starting an English book-club.  Amazingly, the person who was coordinating this club lives in Yeongtong and wanted to meet just a mere 5 minute walk from my house!  Heck yes!

We met at the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf at the Yeongtong Home Plus at 8pm on Wednesday.  I met with 3 others in the club:

Bibana is the organizer of the group.  She's originally from Columbia but moved to the US when she was 12.  She has lived in several areas of South Korea during the past 2 years where she has had a few different Hagwon jobs.  She currently teaches Kindergarten but doesn't like it because she hates singing songs all day long.

Alex is from New York City.  He has lived in Korea for about 6 months now but hasn't picked up much Korean beyond the basic hello-goodbye-thank you-please, etc.  He teaches at a Hagwon across from the Home Plus and likely sees some of the kids I teach at my elementary school.

The third member attending the group that day was a Korean man but I can't recall his name.  He commutes about 45 minutes each day to work at an advertising agency.  He works long hours (usually from 7am - 9pm) and says he doesn't get paid much.

Additionally, there will be one more person from the US who couldn't make it on Wednesday as well as 3 other Koreans who couldn't make it.

We picked the book I recommended because Bibana had already heard of the book and also wanted to read it.  Additionally, we thought that it would be the easiest read (compared to the other books we had thought of) for the Koreans who have a more difficult time reading.

I'm very excited for the book-club.  It will be my first book group.  Hopefully, having the mix of Koreans and Americans will be an interesting cultural experience too.

For more information about the book, please click here.
You are invited to read the book during the month of December and share your thoughts with me at the end month.  

Once in a Blue Moon

Highlight of the week:

I got cable television!

I ordered the package that cost just under w10,000 and has about 60 channels but for some reason they actually gave me the 75 channel package instead.  There are about 5 or so English channels at any given time and most of them are terrible.  I watched the show Numb3rs for the first time in my life. Eh.  I also watched the movie While You Were Sleeping.  Nothing all that great so far, but it's still nice to have the TV to keep me company at night.


Highlights of this weekend include:
1.  Now Bar
2.  Itaewon
3.  Once in a Blue Moon
4.  What the Book?

1.  Now Bar
I didn't take many pictures this weekend so you'll have to pardon me on that one.  As always, I stayed out way later than anticipated.  The Now Bar has some way of making me lose all concept of time and it's 3am before I know it.  At Now Bar I played darts and it turns out that I'm really good at darts!  I may have to start being a dart shark.

2.  Itaewon
Thanksgiving is coming up this Thursday and I'm very excited.  Thanksgiving is my absolute, hands-down favorite holiday.  Koreans don't really eat turkey but they are available -- at a hefty price.  A turkey that would only feed 3 people costs around $80 or so.  My brother, Natalie, and I decided that we will have chicken instead this year since you can get chicken for just $8.

Some other things that are necessities for Thanksgiving are also not readily available in the regular grocery store such as cranberry sauce, pumpkin puree, jello, and pie crust.  I was able to go to a foreign food mart aptly called Foreign Food Mart and buy all of the aforementioned items sans pie crust.  I may have to just buy a pumpkin & pecan pie at the Paris Baguette.

 
The Foreign Food Mart is located in Itaewon and sells mostly Indian food but some American foods too like Kashi cereal and Pop-Tarts.  I wouldn't make shopping there a regular habit though.  The store is messy and there was food spilling from the aisles onto the floor.  Additionally, I think everything had a slight layer of dust to it.  But, when you need your Jell-o...






Paris Baguette is a Korean bakery that likes to think it is French.  Don't be fooled.  It is not.  But, they do regularly sell Pecan Pie.  If my microwave pumpkin pie fails, there is alway the Paris Baguette to save me.








For dinner I went to a Thai place that, honestly, had better decor than it did food.  It was called Buddha's Belly and it is located on the second floor of a building in an alley off the main strip of Iteawon.  I'm a big fan of eating atmosphere.  Sometimes food tastes better just because of the restaurant's decor.  In this case the decor was what I would call luxury-industrial.  The chairs all had a velour covering to them and the colors were all in rich grays, reds, and blacks.  I felt stylish and elegant eating there.  I was slightly disappointed in the Pad Thai with Tofu that I got though.  While it was fine, it wasn't really delicious either.  


3.  Once in a Blue Moon

After Thai food it was off to Apgujong which is an area of Gangnam and is like Seoul's Beverly Hills.  They even have a Rodeo Drive Street.

This area also has the best jazz club in town.  With the exception of the ridiculously high drink prices, I loved it.  The people that I was with, Jennifer and her two friends, reminded me that the w14,000 glass of wine I had was really not that bad since there was no cover charge to enter and if you think of it like that then it's not so expensive anymore.  Well maybe, but I would have gotten another glass of wine if it was cheaper...    

Anyway, the jazz was great and I'm glad I got to go!

Getting back home to Suwon, however, was not so great.  I got totally disoriented on the main street in Gangnam and couldn't figure out which direction I needed to take the bus back home.  I walked up and down and up and down for close to an hour before I spotted my bus-- naturally going in the opposite direction I was convinced I had to go.  It was 1am when I got back to my house.

4.  What the Book?

While in Itaewon on Saturday I also stopped by the bookstore, What the Book.  It was just a building or two away from the Foreign Mart.  It's known to be the best English bookstore in Korea but it was a lot smaller than I had expected.  Still, it did not disappoint and I found a book that I was looking for, The Glass Castle.

I spent my Sunday afternoon at Tom N Toms reading my new book, drinking a latte, and eating a pretzel.  Tom N Toms makes great soft pretzels.









Back to school on Monday...!

Coex Aquarium

This weekend Jennifer and I spent a day in the Coex mall because we wanted to go to the aquarium there.  I had seen someone else's pictures from the aquarium and so even though it cost w15,000 for admission, we decided that it would still be worth it.

Actually,  Seoul's aquarium might be one of the coolest aquariums I have ever seen.  Other top aquariums include Boston (which has a massive muti-layer walk around tank), Sydney (which I only barely remember since I was 7 years old) and maybe Monterey (which is just a classic aquarium).

So what made this aquarium so fabulous?  Well, mostly it was because it wasn't your run of the mill, standard aquarium.  Yes, they did have a starfish petting area like Boston, yes, they did have penguins like Australia, yes they did have sea otters like Monterey.

But the Seoul aquarium is the only one that I can think of that also has monkeys.

Still, this is not the reason why it is so cool.  The award is given because it is the most creative aquarium I have ever seen.  Check out these fish tanks!

Hot tub fish tank  (above left)                                                           Refrigerator fish tank (above right)

 Fire hydrant fish tank (above)


Jennifer looking at the fish in a bed-frame (right) 













After the aquarium we wandered, got lost, wandered some more, and got lost some more inside the mall.  The mall is huge.  I mean, you figure any mall that hosts both a 16-screen movie theater and an aquarium is large, but it also has hundreds of stores, two food courts, and a Kimchi museum.  The underground mall is the largest in all of Asia and spans 85,000 square meters (or almost 915,000 sq. ft!!)

After shopping we went to the Hyundai department store.  What? Hyundai has a department store? Yes.  And it's like a Marks & Spencer because it sells food too.  I had a great Italian dinner there for about w7,000 but the people sitting next to us in the food court had something not so great.  Well, perhaps it tasted ok but Jennifer and I were totally freaked out by their moving food and we could not figure out what the heck it was even after blatantly staring at it for 20 minutes.   Finally Jennifer worked up the courage to ask what it was.  They said it was this but it doesn't explain the creepy moving objects so the case is still open.

After dinner we got some gelato.  They have crazy flavors like rice, sesame, and red bean.  I tried the red bean and I couldn't help but laugh as I ate it because it tasted exactly like red bean.  I LOVE red bean but apparently not in ice cream.  Instead I settled on white chocolate.  It may have been the first time I didn't get a coffee-flavored ice cream in years.  It was delicious!  But it would have been even better if I got 2 scoops white chocolate and coffee mixed..

All in all it was a wonderful day and a great way to spend the cold afternoon.  Additionally, I would like to say that I'm so thankful for my friendship with Jennifer.

HALP.  I'm stuck at the COEX aquarium.