I love the smell of radioactive rain in the morning...

Okay, okay, don't freak out, it's apparently not that bad and the winds likely changed so we probably never got any of it. Some German forecasters made an announcement a day or two ago that today's rain will contain radioactive stuff from Japan, and every news station jumped on it...a few hours later, the forecasters reversed it and said the material is heading the exact opposite direction from Korea and now everyone's saying that there's no possibility that we got any of it. (To be honest, I think the most sensational part of the news was that the weather forecast was right! They said it would rain this morning and rain it did! Boggles the mind.) My coteacher offered me a ride to work this morning to keep me out of the glow-in-the-dark rain...I figure radioactive or not, I'll take a ride on a rainy day!

Also this morning I saw an awesome domestic in front of the next building. Yelling, pushing, shoving, punching, the whole nine yards (it went both ways too, didn't look like there was anyone innocent there). I hear it's not uncommon around here and they were both going at it for quite a while before the brave policemen sauntered up (after initially rolling right past them).

Okay...yesterday...another good day at work, then after work I laced up the Nikes and headed out for another run/bench press/situps routine...felt great, even though my legs are killing me right now haha. After that I went home, had dinner, watched some TV (they LOOOOOVE their America's Funniest Home Videos and Just For Laughs: Gags here...I swear they're on for 6 hours a day). Most of the other 18 hours are taken up by NCIS and CSI and any other crime shows they can get their hands on.

After that, I was feeling restless and wanted to go exploring...I heard about a farmers' market near my house, so I decided to try and find it. I was expecting the usual thing back home...a parking lot or maybe something the size of a school gymnasium. Nope. Not here. It's the size of a freaking stadium. It's absolutely massive! I got there late (at around 8:30 p.m.) so most vendors were gone, but there was a fun feel to the place and loads of great photo opportunities. Just had my cellphone, so excuse the crappy pics, but I'll definitely return with the real camera to take some shots later.

They had a ton of these little corridors lined with sellers and then a massive open space that was mainly empty...I swear you could play soccer in there...

One of the entrances:

I went a little past the market up the hill and found some amazing views of Samgye (a little community just to the south of where I live) and Hogye-ri (where I work). I'll have some pics of that soon, too.

At the nearby store I found frozen potato wedges, not cheap, but not horrible either...about $6.30 for 1.5 kg and I bought some more of this coffee stuff...they're everywhere here and they're delicious...I figure I'm not drinking NEARLY as much pop as I did back home (a 1.25L bottle of Pepsi lasts me 2-3 days...it would have been gone in half a day back home) and I'm not drinking any energy drinks here (used to drink 1-2 a day back home), so why not...these are generally around 200 mL and cost between 50 cents and a buck...can't really complain at that price! I'm not a huge fan of coffee, so I drink the chocolate/coffee mixes and they're delicious! They're made to look like little take-out cups from coffee shops, but they're sold in grocery stores...

Before I headed out to the weekly foreigner get-together (takes me exactly 1 minute and 15 seconds to get there from my front door) I did my laundry...here's my high-tech dryer...a rack with my portable heater aimed at it...yeah, it's awesome.

The foreigner meeting was great as usual, smaller turnout than the rest I have gone to, which I didn't mind...it was a lot quieter and a lot easier for 4-5 people to be involved in the same conversation...usually it's so crowded/noisy (not a bad thing, it just means it's lively) that you can't hear anyone but the person next to you. Anyhoo, it's a very good crowd regardless of how many show up, I'm really happy it's right in my neighbourhood.

I went home around midnight, watched an episode of The Office and went to bed and, for the first time since I've been here, I did not get woken up by people stomping around the stairwell at 5:30-6 a.m.!

That's about it for now...one class down, three more to go today (and my first class was great, too! They were noisy, but not because they were jackasses, but because they were lively and happy and most of the time I listened in, they were talking about English, so I didn't have to do any yelling, any disciplining, etc...). After school, I'm heading into Changwon to meet up with Des, probably grab a bite to eat, maybe see if I can find a blanket and grab a hard drive filled with movies and TV shows...yay.

Have a great day everyone, thanks for reading :)

T