8.Settling in..

After school on Saturday (it was only half-day), Youngmin's family and I went to a place called Taebaek to do some shopping. I had written down a list of things that I needed still, and they were only very small things like Teatowels and a Bathmat etc. So we went over to E-Mart which is a huge department store with everything in it. I got the essentials, and when we got back to my apartment, we had a cup of tea and Youngmin tried to tune the TV for me (its all in Korean). Apparently the cable isn't connected so they're doing that, with the internet today at 5pm, when I get home. I cooked some fried noodles, and had a bit left over. I thought about keeping it for tomorrow but then thought it'd be better if I gave some to my next door neighbour. She looked really suprised, and I told her in my very bad broken Korean that my name was Shiv. Then yesterday she brought back the dish with a pack of instant noodles in there.

Then Sunday dawned, cold and cloudy. I decided to try and sleep in as I had nothing much planned for the day. I ended up waking just past eight. The night before I had finished chopping the ginger that I bought from E-Mart, and placing them into the ice trays and freezing them (a trick I saw Momma do once), so then I decided to to the Garlic as well. After that was done, and I had finished my lazy Sunday Morning chai, I spend the rest of the day trying to figure out the washing machine and the rice cooker. The rice turned out pretty good, and the thing even talks to me, so i chose the smallest phrase option and hoped that it meant "plain white rice". The washing maching on the other hand was a bit more complicated.. see, it didn't talk to me so I had no idea what pressing the buttons did :D In the end the clothes came out smelling daisy fresh, even though I found out later that I put the washing powder in the wrong place!

Now more about this place. This is where I live approximatly; in the brackets are what I think is the closest translation.. but don't quote me on it.

Gurae-RI (Suburb, even though its more a village)
Sangdong-EUP (Town)
Yeongwol-GUN (City)
Gangwon-DO (Province)
South Korea (Duhh!)

Even though I know exactly where I am, I'm still at a loss to describe this place! I look out of my window and see a multitude of warm colours.. yellows, oranges, all the way through to deep crimson reds all over these great majestic mountains. I've been trying to capture the 'feeling' of this place in photographic form ever since I got here, but it just doesn't seem to be working for me yet.

Ok here goes my first class at my own school..

The little hut type thing is where the whole village fills up their water supply. Its a natural spring tapped into the mountain, and people come from all around to fill up all the PET bottles they can collect there!