I know I already posted today and I was gonna try hard not to make my blog a play-by-play of my day, so I'll just write some observations in list form:

1)  Lotte Mart = Walmart.  Only better.  It's got 3 levels (with a ramp escalator in between that you can take carts up) of everything you could possibly need, with better customer service--people are standing all over the store ready to assist you.

2) X-rays are common procedure for a physical here.  I had to have a health exam to teach, and when it got the part where they told me to go in a closet and put on a hospital gown I was like WHAT?? It was just a torso x-ray.  Also when they stuck my arm to take my blood it hurt a lot less than when I gave blood in the U.S. last week.

3) We (me and Jenny, one of the KNU International Relations faculty members) had to stop by a cell phone store to pick up something, and there were several college-age boys there who were eager to try to talk to me and gave me some donuts and juice lol.  One asked me where I was from.  Lots of attention lol.

4) Lunch was my first traditional Korean meal.  It was very interesting.  The hostess took our shoes and put them in a cubby, then escorted us to a cubicle with a low table where we sat on the floor on mats to eat.  We all had our own dish, chopsticks (stainless steel--very slippery and hard to use), cup of rice water, and soup bowl, and then the server brought dozens of small bowls and platters of various foods.  You use your chopsticks to take just a few bites onto your plate at a time and in that way sample lots of things until you are full, instead of having a huge plate of your own food that you feel obligated to finish.  Most of the stuff I tried tasted good to me--various types of noodles and vegetables with kind of a sweet, garlicky, vinegary, and sometimes spicy taste.  I tried some raw crab that I didn't think was that great--too slimy and fishy tasting, and it was covered in REALLY spicy sauce.  But I also had some starfish that I did like.  It was in a sort of noodle form rather than chunks.

5)  I figured out why people can walk to everywhere here but not in the U.S.  I think it's because of American zoning ordinances that group houses and businesses together.  Here there are hundreds of apartment buildings maybe 30 stories each mixed right into the shops and businesses.  Very handy I think.  Less traffic.

Okay I'm gonna work some more on unpacking.