A sign on our way to lunch 'downtown' Dongtan..super confusing right!!?






Yay, our first dining out in Korea. The lady who served us was so sweet she took this picture and we got out our Korean language books to help us communicate, they liked our efforts!





Our first meal!! This is a 'breakfast' sushi roll--mmmm!






E-mart!..similar to a Walmart but nicer, and wayyy bigger! you can see the flat escalators going up up to each floor..its sooo chaotic...think of the Nordies sale chaos and times this by 10000000!!!!!! And Tia, Bri and I got stared a lot, mostly by little kids.




Part Two: February 7, 2010—8:20pm

Jade’s dad, (who built our apartment building) came over around 2:30pm to fix my heat and water situation. It was really funny because he was trying to explain to all of us how to use our heating system but he doesn’t know English so we all were using hand motions and laughing together, we all looked ridiculous but we actually understood each other after awhile. I mean body language can definitely get the point across. I was really appreciative of him coming and fixing it for me! Now I will actually be able to take a hot shower before work tomorrow! Thank goodness!!! After he fixed our technical problems we got into his car (which was really nice, it was black with black leather interior and had mini TV’s on the back of our seats…now that I think of it we haven’t seen one beat up car yet they are all pretty nice and pretty much look the same besides the color) where was then going to drop us off at our new school, ‘LCI’ to meet Jade. The school is just opening so when we went inside it was pretty empty and the teachers lounge needed to be organized. We waited for Jade to finish up some paper work. She looked so adorable! I love her sense of style. She was wearing the most stylish slouchy gray jacket with her striped black dress peaking under. Her black nylons were striped with a slight metallic stripe. Our favorite piece of her outfit (besides the jacket) was her white calf length flat boots. She is too cute. When she saw us she meekly asked ‘do I look okay?’ and we more than approved. After Jade’s paper work was complete we got into her white car and headed to ‘E-Mart’, Jade told us it was like our Walmart but after going I disagree, E-mart is way nicer, bigger and incredibly chaotic!! Once we arrived to the E-mart Jade handed us coins for us to get a cart for our items. The carts are all connected to each other and once we place the coin into a slot on the handle the cart releases from the other carts. We went inside and the place is 3 levels! We rode up a flat escalator to get to each level. The cart automatically sticks into place once you’re on it in order for the carts to stay in place and not slide into the person in front or back of you. We first started with home items like dish soap and toilet paper. Jade bought us new pots and pans plus pillows and a mattress pad which will be incredibly helpful. As we looked around we realized how much stuff this place had, sporting equipment, home décor, clothes, a Hello Kitty SECTION J, hair items, makeup, shoes, liquor, food…you name it! Once we finished getting our home supplies it was onto food and that’s where we got so overwhelmed. The place was so crowded it was hard to move your cart around. We were getting flustered because we couldn’t read the labels on the food and didn’t know what things even were; we basically just depended on the pictures. Down every aisle people stared at us because we were the foreigners. At one point I looked down an aisle and looked to Tia and said, ‘Look oh my gosh!’ and a group of little boys walked by, looked at each other and said ‘oh my gosh!!!!’ it was really funny to me hearing them repeat me because they didn’t know what I said or meant…kind of like everywhere we go people kind of smirk when we repeat them it just weird that we are the minority. After we filled up our carts with the basic essentials we waited in line to pay. They don’t use bags to bag up our items we have to go to a separate line to place our items in recycled boxes. Which is very eco-friendly! We loaded our items in both Jade and her husband’s cars and went back to our rooms to drop everything off. At this point it was almost 7pm and we were getting pretty hungry so we decided to walk to downtown Dongtan to find a noodle place that we spotted earlier and really wanted to try. We went in and sat down at a table, we were the only ones dining. A lady came up to us and Tia and I had to take her outside to point to a picture of what noodle soup we wanted. Once we ordered she brought us sides of 3 hard-boiled eggs, un-cracked, with a bowl of salt plus kimchee. The noodles I got were served cold and had a spicy sauce with kimchee in it. Tia and Bri got hot soups with a broth and tofu slices. We all shared and it was really good and very filling. After dinner we all wanted to ask for the check so I got out my Korean language book to look up ‘bring me the check please’. We decided that each time we go out we have to take turns to ask in Korean and Bri said she would go first. She walked up and asked and to our surprise she delivered the sentence perfectly. They brought us our check, which was again $4 each. You don’t tip in Korea, which is really nice. On our way out the door Tia looked in her language book and said something like ‘the food was great’ and they all smiled. They definitely enjoyed our efforts! We are all so eager and motivated to learn the language, its just so hard but hopefully one day it will click. On our way back to our apartment we stopped inside a bakery and Tia bought a pastry that looks amazing! We then walked back to our rooms. We have to be at school by 9am to help set up. We all set our alarms for 7am so I’ll probably go to bed (aka the floor) pretty early tonight to try and get some sleep. I hope tomorrow goes well. I’m excited to start my routine!


PS: I miss you all and hope you miss me too! haha <3