Homestay, Day 2

I woke up at noon!!! It was amazing. This was the first time since the first day that I’ve gotten to sleep in and now I can sleep because I am on the right time zone. SuJin woke up shortly after me and we ate lunch. We had sandwiches, croissants, salad, and other little pastries. SuJin later told me she never eats that. Her mom bought it because she didn’t think I liked Korean food. I felt so bad when she told me that.

She took me to the market near her house and we walked around for awhile. It is so weird to see dead fish and octopus just lying on ice in the middle of the street. I still can’t get used to it. It was more of a food market than clothes and jewelry and such.

Then we went to a little coffee shop and hung out and I drank a smoothie. It’s been fun to just hang out and not have anywhere to be at a certain time.

We made bulgogi for supper. We bought the ingredients the previous day. It’s meat, onion, soy sauce, sesame seed oil, carrots, and some other things maybe and that marinates for a little while then you cook it on the grill in front of you. Her brother helped us. Thank goodness!! He was curious about American culture and asked me a lot of questions. When Koreans learn English, they learn grammar and writing, but not speaking or listening so he can read and write almost perfectly but can’t understand or talk with me.

This is some of the things I learned:

1. In high school, students go to school from 7 am to 9 pm during the normal school year. During their summer and winter “vacations” they only go from 7am to 3pm.
2. This is the ranking of prestigious and most well paying job: doctor, lawyer, teacher. The first two I was expecting but they treat their teachers like royalty here.
3. Kids have to wear uniforms.
4. SuJin’s university for one year is less than one semester at Lander.
5. Most students go to university in their province, like most South Carolinians go to a SC university.

I’ll think of some more later, but that’s all I can think of for now. I arrived back at my dorm around 10pm and went to bed immediately.