I ran about 6-7km, to Samgye and back and took a detour about 2/3 of the way through to a playground where they also have some workout equipment to do some bench presses:
It's nothing special (reminds me of prison yards, actually haha), but it gets the job done, it's free and it's out in the (relatively) fresh air, so I'm really not complaining :) At the end, I dropped by another playground near my house to do some situps to finish the run:
It's kind of nice to be able to have a half-decent routine all outside and all completely free. My arms/legs/abs are a little sore this morning, which is an awesome feeling after the sedentary lifestyle I lead for too long while finishing my degree back home.
At the end of my run, I bumped into Tyler, another American (he's the 4th person I know from Minnesota, and three of them live within a block or two of each other), and a super nice guy. We started chatting and the next thing I knew 40 minutes went by.
From there, I had to run home, change, and head to Samgye to meet up with Ross and Nicole to look for a blanket for me (the cheapest I found was 70k won - about $60 - ...no thanks) and to hang out. Since they're a couple teaching at the same school they got a couples' apartment and wow...it is by far the nicest place I've seen around here. It's the only apartment in a big building (the rest is the school), which means it's completely quiet after they're off work. In addition to the privacy, they get the most awesome views...mountains, city lights, everything...it's the best of all worlds. They have a HUGE patio, and a massive place...their living room is bigger than my entire place...plus they have a massive kitchen (again, bigger than my place), 3 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms. To make things nicer, the entire place is bright, new and clean...definitely a sweet deal.
I hung out with them for a few hours, chatting and looking at Ross's pics (he's got a wicked eye for photography and has taken some amazing shots)...plus, they have cool stuff like an original Korean pressing of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon LP and other funky stuff like that...definitely a great night geeking out with these two!
Okay...now, for the randomness:
1: My motto:
2: The Korean won is finally gaining strength...which is awesome for me because the stronger it is, the more dollars it's worth when I send money home. When I came, it was at a 7-year low (wicked for me, because I could get a lot of won for my dollars to get me started) at roughly 1,150 won per dollar. Now it's down to 1,127 won per dollar, which means that if I send 1,000,000 won home (which is the amount I'm hoping to save every month) I get $887 instead of $870. Not huge, but it's something and it's going in the right direction, so I'm pretty happy to see that.
3: Living is pretty cheap here. The gas bill for the previous teacher's last month (gas is for heating, hot water and cooking) was about $35. Electricity for her last month was about $13.
In my first three weeks here, including one-time things like my medical ($50) application for my Alien Registration Card ($12), buying my bus pass ($6 plus credits), cookware (not much, about $15), food, etc, etc I spent roughly $400. I started keeping track of my food spending (including going out with friends and even stuff like picking up a pop when I'm out and about)...spent about $54 the first week, $85 the second and so far (it's Wednesday) I'm up to $6 this week. I'm trying to keep my food bills to around $50-60 a week, so I'm not far off the mark.
4: I watched Whip It the other day, it's a movie about girls roller derbying, directed by Drew Barrymore. It was surprisingly good! Also, I'm going to marry Ellen Page. Haven't picked a date yet, but make sure you mark it in your calendar once I do.
5: The mystery object from a while ago (yeah, I suck at this) was a bus pass :)
6: I've made plans to grab episodes/movies off the hard drives of two people, so I think I'm going to skip cable and just watch those and trade with people. Much cheaper and no commercials (though on Korean TV there are a lot fewer commercials and they also tend to be in big blocks...so you can actually watch more than 3 minutes of a show or a movie without having some overly happy middle-aged woman trying to shove tampons down your throat).
7: Ready to eat lunch we saw at E-Mart a while ago...yeah, that's squid or something...
Okay...that's it for today...I should get to lesson-planning. Have a great day everyone, and thanks for reading :)
T
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