A night out with girlfriends...

... is the best way to end your week!

On Friday night, I met up with these 3 near my old apartment in Goejeong!  I hadn't laughed, as hard as I did that night, with these three South African girls, in a long time!  I only wish they were all staying another year!  Bongi and Truchen will be leaving at the end of this month to go back to South Africa.  As you can imagine, a lot of tears will be shed that day... 

Moving Day!

It's official! 

I've moved to Yeongdo Island!

Yesterday (moving day) was actually a much easier day than I had imagined that it would be!  Aaron and his co-teacher helped me by scheduling for a moving company to come and bring all my boxes, suitcases, and some furniture down the 5 flights of stairs!  What a wonderful surprise that was, since I was originally planning to bring everything down myself (with Aaron's help) and load them into taxis over and over again until everything was transferred!  This is just a small picture of how much needed to be moved!

At 1:00pm, on the dot, 2 older Korean men, probably in their 60's, showed up to my door, ready to work!  They were amazing!  One guy carried both of my gigantic suitcases on his back, while the other one carried about 60 items of clothes (including heavy coats) down on his back!

And thankfully, this handsome gent' showed up to help too!   I literally only had to carry 1 box down the whole day!!

Within 45 minutes, everything was loaded into the truck and ready to go! AMAZING

And about an hour later, everything was then brought up to my new apartment and scattered all about!  (and PS: Why do I always get stuck with the apartments that have crazy wallpaper?!)

I had a TON of unpacking to do, which if you know me, you know I was exstatic about!  There's no better high for me than to take a room like this and make it look organized and beautiful!

Luckily, with Aaron's help, I was able to unpack nearly everything yesterday! YAY!   I slept on my floor last night, which is where I'll be sleeping for the next month and a half until I inherit a bed from my new school!  I was pleasantly surprised when I woke up with no soarness!  

I'm including this picture of my building's staircase because I love the tiles on the wall and the granite steps!  It actually reminds me of a hostel I stayed at in Paris, years ago!

And thank goodness I love Samgyupsal, because my new apartment is literally right above a Samgyupsal restaurant!  I'm on the 2nd floor of this building... My apartment stretched from the 2 little window's on the left to the black horizontal siding on the right!

I really love my new place and can't wait to be completely settled in!  I'm actually sitting at the neighborhood PC bang right now, surrounded by teenage boys playing Starcraft, because my internet hasn't been hooked up yet!   Luckily it's only 90 cents an hour and the boys are quite entertaining! :)

Time to get back to unpacking!

Skype time!

One of my favorite things about having a boyfriend with the same job is that we have all the same free times while at work, which we usually fill with lots of skype chats! :)  

On Tuesday, Aaron was away from his desk, so three of his 5th grade boys got brave, and typed me a message that said "I WANT SEX  BYE."

When Aaron got back to his computer later in the day, he noticed their message and pulled them aside and said, "I'll either have Mrs. Jang (his Korean co-teacher) call your parents and tell them what you did, or you can write Alexis an apology letter and read it to her on skype tomorrow!"  Of course they chose the later, which produced lots of laughs for Aaron and I!  

Here are their letters!  "Please absolve" is my favorite chosen phrase!  It was so hard not to laugh when they were reading them to me!

My Thai Massage!

My Vice Principal told me I could leave after lunch today, since I was finished teaching my winter camp at 12:10pm!  Wooo hooo!  So, I packed up my stuff and headed down to the bus stop at the bottom of my school's hill!  I stood there, debating for a couple minutes about which bus to take - a bus home or a bus to anywhere!  I chose the bus to anywhere!  I call this adventure-style-bus-riding, "bus hopping!"   I take a bus for 30 minutes or so, people watch, and enjoy the ride, and then switch busses!  It's a great way to see the city, and it's FREE entertainment!  You can't go wrong there, right?!

Well, I had been "bus hopping" for about an hour and a half by this point, (I know, that's a long time!) and was around Nampodong, when I looked up and saw this sign out my window!  THAI MASSAGE! mmmm!  Perfect, just what I needed!  

So, I got off at the next stop and walked over to the building.  When I walked in the building's front door, there was a sign stating that the Thai Massage place was on the 3rd floor, so I jumped on the elevator and up I went! 

When the elevator doors opened, this is what I saw!  Now that's what I call a lobby!  

The place is decorated to the tee with Thai statues, elephants, murals, and gold wallpaper!  I had entered Thai paradise as far as I was concerned; and for 50,000 won ($44.00) for an hour long thai massage, I realized I had just hit the jackpot!  This is the hallway leading to the massage rooms!

 My masseuse was a lovely Thai woman (30 yrs old) name Aoy, like "Toy" without the T sound.  She dug her elbows in so deep, I may have actually squeeled a couple times!  She would always giggle and say she was sorry!  We chatted for the last 10 mins or so, and she shared with me that she has only been in Korea for 3 weeks!  She left her husband and 6 year old son in Thailand for a better wage in Korea!  Her plan is to stay here for 10 months, save all she can, and then bring all her earnings back to her family!  

If you ever need a massage, please go here and ask for her at the front desk!  She's awesome!

As if the massage, the decor, and the masseuse weren't enough... they brought me coffee afterwards in gorgeous traditional Thai china!  

I'm feeling more relaxed tonight than I have in a long time... almost as if my body is 15 years old again!  It's amazing what a nice, spontaneous, Thai massage will do for the body!

COSTCO run...

Aaron and I were both really missing home this afternoon and the luxuries of buying things that we like to eat!  He said to me, "I wanna be surrounded by stuff from home.  Let's go to COSTCO!" hahah.  Since COSTCO is basically the only western food store we have in Busan, we gave in and got a membership!  Well... actually, let me rephrase that.  We split the price, but Aaron's picture is on the card!  No need for 2 memberships, when we like shopping together anyway, right?!  :)  Yea, we're gold members... that's right!

  

We were shocked when we got there!  I've seen crowded COSTCO's in America, but nothing like this!   uuuggghhh!

We opted for "no cart," since really, how is anyone supposed to push a cart through these crazy crowds!  We just loaded things into our reusable grocery bags while we shopped!  It kinda felt like we were stealing stuff all day!  But, we didn't!  We paid!

Aaron has asked me 3 times since we left, "What item are you most excited that we bought today at COSTCO?"  hahaha!  Obviously he's pretty excited!  Chicken, cheese, tortillas, pesto sauce, and a great deal on FUSION razors sure make him happy!   I'm just happy to have a gigantic box of Honey Nut Cheerios to greet me in the morning! 

Thank you COSTCO!