My Wednesday

It had been awhile since I had contacted my sister, so I stayed up last night until almost 3am at the PC bang emailing and chatting with her on the instant messenger.  As a result, didn’t crawl out of bed until 10am this morning, but after a quick shower and a breakfast of eggs, tomato, toast and carrot-orange juice, it was time to go shopping!

The Puma store is in the same building as the O’Brien’s Irish Pub and was the first destination.  The store was smaller than I realized and although there were rows and rows of incredible and colorful shoes (God, those shoes were nice!!) they had very few tracksuits.  Also, the woman only had extra large in one of the less-appealing designs.

Next stop was the Lotte Department Store.  As I parked my bike I noticed Vanessa, whom I’d met at the bar Saturday, walking into the store.  I parked the bike quickly and ran in to catch her but was puzzled at how I’d lost her.  Anyway, the men’s sporty clothing is on the 4th floor and up there I took a little tour.  Fila, Adidas, K-Swiss, Head were all there, plus some brands I did not recognize.  Unfortunately, I did not see any matching jackets and pants.  The jackets were really nice-looking but the pants all came in black, dark blue or white.  I pantomimed to the Adidas clerk that I was looking for bright green pants to coordinate with a nice bright green jacket but she pantomimed that they had none.

Last stop was the Kappa store.  I recognized the man-woman back-to-back logo from somewhere although I know it’s not big in the U.S.  I have seen it here and there in South Korea, however.  Unlike the Puma store, the Kappa store seemed to be ALL tracksuits.  The clerk came up as I sifted through and pantomimed that a sale was going on…2 tracksuits and a t-shirt for 129,000 Won.  That’s $103!  No tax!!  To put in perspective, the first tracksuit I ever bought (that purple velour one from Vegas) was $175 before tax and I had brought 200,000 Won with me to ensure I had the money to buy one.  So, that was pretty cool.  Oh, and they had XXL.  I’m not even a fat guy…I think I just like clothing that runs small.

Off to work.  I decided to email Vanessa since I still don’t have a phone.  Looking at her writing on my notepad, though, and I was just a bit skeptical.  It read: vanessa@hotmail.com.  WOW.  Going on faith, I wrote a sincere email but, of course, it bounced back.  That’s some bullshit.  We had been talking for like 90 minutes.  Pieter laughed at (with?) me when I told him and Monica said not to worry about it.  I won’t worry.

The young kids are kinda wild.  It’s tough because they have the worst classroom discipline as well as the worst English skills, so I must be very demonstrative to maintain class control.  I’ve noticed that the Korean teachers often have students stand outside the door holding their hands over their heads.  I used the “Stand outside” even in the U.S. (until I was informed that I can’t do that because I need to be able to see al of my students), but I might have to upgrade to the “Hands Up” thing.  The kids are great; I’m not complaining, but it was that kind of day.

I had run for three days straight in the morning before today and I did not want to break my streak, so I laced ‘em up at 11pm and hit the route.  The start was rough.  Felt kinda lethargic, but I seemed to pick up energy halfway through the run and I was barely tired once I finished.  Another shower, clothes washing and handwriting practice for the Korean language class tomorrow, took photos of the apartment and down the street to write this 2am blogger post.  And now I’m going to bed.  Good night!