Exploring Changwon

I am slowly adjusting to the time change. Not being a big fan of naps I am fighting myself about when I am tired and when I am lazy. I gave in on Sunday, which turned out to be a good idea because when the guys picked me up it was off to play football in the big round patch of grass. Its a huge roundabout they call the lottery and the grass is dead now, but I am excited to see if all green. We played catch for awhile and were quite the spectacle for passersby. Lots of oohs and aahs, especially when we punted the ball to on another. Three kids were playing with a soft tiny football not far away and came over to watch us work. One of the guys invited them to join us and taught the kids how to throw the football properly. They did pretty well and spread out into out circle, laughing and talking to each other about who knows what. After a while, one of the kids looked and me and asked "teams?" so we got into teams of three with a quarterback and played what I can only describe in paragraph form. It was like two hand touch football, expect when you get tagged you keep going, throwing the football to one of your teammates and even if the ball falls on the ground, anyone can pick it up and score. Not much defensive tactics in the game, but still lots of fun. They were totally comfortable playing with us, and had a great time.

Afterwards we killed some time waiting for Watchmen, the movie. The theater ticket booth did not have lines. You took a number and waited for it to come up. There were a lot of little seats everywhere to sit and wait for you number to be called. The tickets are assigned seating, and so we got the tickets and then wandered around the mall for a few hours. Each department has at least two people, who, as soon as you take interest in something will swarm you and, if you speak Korean, start talking to you about the item. For us, they would just move closer, waiting for our move. It was a lot of wandering and looking at all the cool phrases and labels. Lots of FuBu and baseball stuff. I got some Jack Daniels flavored Sunchips for the movie.

The theater itself is a few stories within the mall. Not accessible at all, as far as I could tell... while they did have elevators to get to the right floor, the theater had stairs, no ramp, and the bathrooms are tiny and not wide enough for a chair. I have yet to see a person in a chair, however I have seen more people with crutches then you see in the states. Also, at the end of the movie, everyone was waiting for the elevator. They had an escalator as well, but I was informed it did not go all the way to the bottom floor, and there are no regular stairs. I can't imagine what they would do if there was a fire. The movie was good, nachos with cheese pretty tasty, and the previews were short. I had a great time!

Today, Sunday, I got up at around 10:30, walked the stairs and cleaned my dishes. I went to the restaurant that I was taken to on the first day and ordered bibimbap, rice with vegetables and a fried egg. It was pretty exciting, watching others as they ate and following their lead. When to use the spoon, when to use chopsticks... I even was able to get my leftover to go, which was good, because I only finished about half. and the best part was that it only cost 4,000 won, which is a little over 2 dollars! I could get used to this... The guys took me to the mall today, where I got to expereince Korean Quiznos, an inflated Dinosaur (I wish I had brought my camera!) and the coolest architecture I have seen yet for a mall. It had very few 90 degree angles. lots of curved hallways and odd shaped rooms. Baskin Robbins, Starbucks, Dunkin Donughts and KFC are everywhere here! Ice cream in general is everywhere. I have yet to try it, but I am sure it is delicious. Well, that is a long enough post about mundane life and tomorrow I begin my training for classes, so I will sign off for now!