:Home Stay: Day 2

Saturday was a great day. Mostly I remember the food, because there was sooo much food.

Saturday morning we all woke up and had a lovely Korean-style breakfast (bowl of rice, soup, side dishes and all). Then we got dressed and set sail. What was the agenda for this day? First, go shopping for groceries. Second, go to the movies. Third, eat my mentor teacher's version of home-made pizza. Fourth, relax and enjoy the rest of the day in each other's company.

We got in the car, father, mother, daughter, and I. I thought it was odd that the daughter had a backpack on and stupidly ignored it, thinking she was coming shopping with us. When we pulled over suddenly, and she waved good bye to me before getting out, I finally asked where she was going. The answer: to school. Yes, school on a Saturday. We then drove off to E-mart. E-mart is a huge store, kinda like Walmart maybe, with several floors (complete with elevated moving sidewalks for your convenience) and a food court. In fact, in between filling the cart and paying for the groceries, we stopped in the food court to eat. I had jjajangmyeon which is totally delicious but super thick. The sauce that comes plopped on top of the noodles is thick, perpetuates the stickiness of the noodles, and makes them heavy and difficult to pick up with chopsticks. Even so, you mix it all up and dig in! My mentor teacher and her husband watched me eat it and ended up "coaching" me on the how to eat it. After eating, we went up a floor, payed for everything, and headed home.

At home, the groceries were dropped off and put away. The son was handed a bag and drink from McDonalds (back at the food court we stopped to buy food for him. I think he was studying at home... His parents are so thoughtful). --I think I need to mention that drinks-to-go are placed in small plastic bags rather than cardboard cases like in the States.-- From home, we headed to the movies! Aw yeah, the movies! First time going to a Korean movie theater! I wanted so badly to take pictures of the cinema, but I had my camcorder and every time I reached for it I could only imagine them seeing me walk into the movie theater with it and kicking me out or confiscating it. So, my camera remained (sadly) in my pocket. What'd we see? JOHN CARTER. Oh yeah. So, I have to admit that I didn't know much about the movie besides it's name. My mentor teacher's son told me it was Star Wars mixed with Avatar. I kinda have to agree, but more on that later.

At this point, I've eaten a nicely sized breakfast and jjajangmyeon (oh and some orange juice) in less than a few hours. At the movies, (I don't know why I agreed to this, but) I had most of the box of popcorn. I wanted to share, but they handed me the box with some finality less than halfway into the movie. After the movies, they had to run a few errands. At E-mart I had made the mistake of telling them I liked donuts, so guess where one of our stops was? Krispy Kreme (the Korean version) has some amazing donuts. Maybe you should take this moment to Google some pictures. We walked in and I was given a free donut, which tasted sooo good. While I was in a heavenly state with my free donut, I did not notice my mentor teacher buying 12 donuts.  Oh, I thought. Maybe the family really likes donuts. We headed home. Let me go ahead and tell you that I ate more donuts than any of the others, and there were still several left by the time I had to leave. It was a sad day in donut history, not being eaten.

Back at home, my mentor teacher made her pizza, made several of her pizzas. Oh, my stomach was about to explode, but they kept urging me to eat. I was only able to eat a couple small slices of that delicious pizza.   That evening, I sat with the kids in the living room and we watched 2 hours of comedy sketches, one StarCraft match on the game channel, and some k-pop performances. During this time, we talked a lot. They made an effort to talk to me about music, the games, and even explain the jokes in the different comedy skits. Of course, they used their phones a lot, looking up translations several times, but I'm grateful to them for talking to me even if it was difficult for them to do so.

Late at night, I tried to eat some more donuts, but only managed one. Soon, it was off to bed.

More later,

-Shirby