Already an Adventure

Hi! How are you?

Today is day 10 in Korea!

I just got home from school (like 8 hours earlier than the other kids do... and we'd already been there for 6.5 hours). Anyhow, I think you are all wondering what has been going on in Busan.  So, I'll fill you in.

There are three people in my host family:  My host mom (엄마, Uhmma), host dad (아빠, Appa), and host brother (whom I call 오빠(Oppa), because he is older than me - 오빠 means 'older brother').

So, here's a bit of what I've done so far:

• Went to PNU (Busan (Pusan) National University) twice- once with 엄마 and I walked around while she met a professor. I also went with 아빠 for the same reason.  It's really nice there and the view of the city is beautiful.

One view from PNU - aren't the mountains spectacular?

• Rode the bus. There's an experience. Some buses here are tame. Other buses (like the first one I rode) just speed down narrow streets and don't allow much time for entrance and exit. In 엄마's words, "roller coaster."
• Rode the metro. The metro here is so easy to use, clean, and mostly quiet, even when it's crowded. For both the bus and the metro, you can use something called a 교통카드 (Gyotong (Transportation) Card), or T-money. It's a phone charm (or you can get a plastic card) with a chip on the inside. You pay money to your account and scan it to enter the metro platform or bus. My 교통카드 is in the shape of an angel wing (see photo below). Do we have these in America?
• Rode a taxi. Convenient and cheap. As in, we rode for 5 or more minutes for less than $2. That seems cheap to me, but I've only been in a taxi once in America...in NYC...so my point of view might be a bit skewed. 
• Ate out. It's usually fairly cheap with delicious food and fast service. We've eaten at restaurants very often.  It seems to be Korean culture. 
• Watched 아빠 play golf. Virtual golf. In the upstairs of a building with a car elevator. So high tech. That's called city golf. There are actual golf courses here, but Busan is a big city, so they're probably not too close to our home.
• Went shopping. In Lotte Department store. In Mega Mart. In a little shopping district. In a market (시장). 
• 엄마 and I went to Lotte and Mega Mart because I need to buy a backpack for school. Mega Mart is really interesting. It's kind of like Target or Walmart in that you can buy food, home goods, clothes, etc. But they have name brand clothes and bags, which are really expensive (For example, Abercrombie t-shirts for $60). And if you go to the edge of the store, there are little boutiques. We didn't buy my backpack there because the cheapest one was almost $100. As a student, I don't feel like spending that. This evening I plan to get a backpack elsewhere. 
• Small stores here are very plentiful. Even though they have places like Mega Mart, there are soooo many little stores. And it seems that you can buy extremely cute things very cheaply. 엄마 wanted us to get matching cell phone charms, so, we went to a store that had an entire floor dedicated to such accessories. Phone charms and cases, hair accessories, etc. Oh, my goodness...I should have taken a photo. Sparkle, shiny, shimmer!!! But, we didn't find any charms that we liked and of which there were two (to match) at that store, so instead 엄마 picked matching monkey charms at the metro station. Cute, right?



My Korean phone with T-Money and
the charm that matches 엄마's charm

• Closer to our apartment, there is a small market (in Korean: 시장). 엄마 buys produce there. It's simply a street with vendors on either side. Some people sell fish, or clothes, or different kinds of food. 
• Went to Rotary meetings. All of the inbound students in Busan came (exchange students from other countries - like me), as well as outbounds (Korean students who are about to leave on exchange) and rebounds (Korean students who have come back from exchange). That was really fun. We traded name cards and pins. The pins go on our Rotary blazers and we collect lots of them during exchange. (Google Images: Rotary Blazer). It was just really great to meet the other students. Yesterday (instead of going to school), all of the Rotary kids in Busan met to take care of formalities of immigrating to Korea. Then we ate ice cream and it was very enjoyable.  
• Spent a day with 아빠 (host dad). We went walking/jogging in the morning in a park near our apartment. At lunch he sent me to the store to buy 비빔면 (bi-bim-myun, ramen noodles with a slightly spicy sauce). Ok, so it was a little convenience store about 50 meters from our apartment building, but I felt accomplished, nonetheless, having completed the transaction in Korean. In the afternoon we went to the mountain (아빠 and I) so that he could meet his friends. We also played basketball and table tennis there and walked across the safety net for a zip line and walked on a short 3-rope course. It was fun. 아빠 said that I am better at basketball than table tennis. And I'm terrible at basketball. So, maybe I should stick with jogging and walking rope courses for now. 

Play yard of the boarding middle school we visited in the mountain.
 The ropes course is somewhere in the trees. The view was....wow.
The whole place is spectacular. 

• Went to a baseball (야구) game with 엄마 and some other Rotary kids. We watched the Lotte Giants from Busan and the Nexen Heroes from Seoul. It was fun and loud and busy. I'll make a different post for that after posting this. 
• WENT TO SCHOOL!!!! I love school ♥ Again, this should be the topic of a different post, though, because this post is already quite lengthy. 

There's a glimpse of what life has been like here. It's beautiful and exciting and enriching. It's frustrating at times, but I knew to except that. I never could have anticipated the experiences I've already had and the people I've met. It's an adventure!

Take care, everyone~