Another busy weekend

This weekend was so different than last weekend. On Friday, I met up with all the girls from the program. Whitney and I thought we would walk together to the meeting point, the Seongdong-Gu office. It is only a 10 minute car ride so we thought it would be a quick easy walk... an hour and 15 minutes later and dripping with sweat from the uphill climb we arrived at the office. We found a subway station along the way which we used to take home, and will use for future meetings. We all went to BizPlex to the food court to eat, and then did some shopping in E-Mart. I found some really cute childrens books for my future classroom. We then sat on the roof top seating and ate ice cream. I forgot dairy pills so I had a red bean doughnut... I am going to miss red bean filled treats so much when I go home! We were out until about 11 and then we realized the subways closed at 12 so all went our separate ways home. Saturday morning "mom, Whitney, Seung-Joo, and I went to the Changgyeonggung Palace, which is from when Korea still had kings and queens. It was absolutely beautiful. The grounds were covered in trees and flowers, and the building were colorful and well kept. It was amazing to walk through their history like that. After the palace we went shopping at Doota, which I would call the Lenox of Korea. Each floor was dedicated to a particular item... mens clothing, womens clothing, shoes and handbags, accessories and souvenirs, and so on. I think there were 8 floors total. There were no stores per say but rather little "stands". On each floor there was probably 30-40 "stands". It wasn't spacious either, the walkways were about three people deep and were crowded. It was really overwhelming and a bit much for me. I found some great things on floor 5, wouldn't you like to know which floor that was? haha Sunday we went to church, which I discovered is a Catholic church. He showed me the creed and it was the same as ours... except theirs said something about hell? They also do not do communion? So it is different from American Catholics, but from what "dad" translates for me we share the same beliefs. After church I was told we were going to a soccer game, not knowing if we were watching or playing I dressed as if I was playing. Turned out though that it was E Chen my youngest "brothers" soccer playoff tournament. I watch soccer from 12:30 until 8:30, which is a lot of soccer. They won 4 games and tied 3 and in the final playoff they lost by one point. His team ended up coming 2nd place for his division. Now I would be honest if I said I didn't have some type of entertainment, besides soccer, my baby "cousin" was there. He is only 15 months old and I played with him all day. I really think that's what I should bring back with me... a little Korean baby... how cute! After the soccer game we came home ate and at 10:00 or so Whitney, Young Chen, Amy and her brother, and I went to a Nari Bong, which is a karaoke place. We had our own room with sound system, light effects, both, and microphones and we sang different songs until 12:00 when we had to go home. It was a lot of fun I sang a couple songs including "buttercup" "so hot" and "sorry sorry". I was very tired and went right to bed, 7:20am came way too early!