Cheonan, Korea Rep.

I was given a lift again yesterday afternoon by the lovely mum of the Grade 2 boy (I think she said her name is Jane – many Korean people have an English name to help the likes of us foreigners who can’t pronounce their tongue-twisters). I was super happy about my camera so went straight home to put it on charge. I had been craving a burger and chips, MacDonald’s style for two days. It was all I could think about, so I headed out to the main street where there is a MacDonalds, Burger King, KFC, Pizza Hut etc. and ended up in Burger King because I couldn’t find the MacDonalds in the maze that is Shinsegae department store. I wanted a simple cheeseburger, chips & coke, good ol’ fast food, but the clerk couldn’t understand me and I couldn’t understand her so I ended up getting one meal of something called a bulgolgi burger (sounds scary!), chips & coke, as well as a cheeseburger. This I only discovered when I got home. As first I was annoyed but I soon got over that when I realised I could eat two burgers without feeling guilty because I hadn’t actually ordered two. I couldn’t let it go to waste now could I? As I said before, not gonna lose any weight in this place! The junk food was delicious and JUST what I wanted.

This morning I spent ages doing girly things like painting toes before heading out to the shops for some random goods. It is Children’s Day here so it’s a public holiday. The roads are quieter than usual, I suppose a lot of people are with their families, so I took the opportunity to take a few pics with the new camera. Then I met up with Karina at a coffee shop called Tom n Toms and another friend of hers, Dina, joined us.

My talk of burgers got us started on the burger topic and we decided to go to a place called Kraze Burger for dinner. We met up at 8pm and caught a taxi there, then I proceeded to eat a big gourmet burger and chips…the third burger in two days for me. I think I’m all burgered out, but it was delicious. After we got back I walked to the main road and caught the end of the Childrens Day parade. Wish I’d seen the whole thing, it looked impressive. Lots of floats and ladies in traditional dresses carrying beautiful lotus flower lamps.

On Saturday Karina and I are going to Seoul to watch the festival of lights put on for Buddha’s birthday on Tuesday so that should be impressive. Then on Sunday morning we & two other girls are catching the express train (KTX) to Busan and staying the night in a hostel there. Really looking forward to seeing some more of this country. Busan is the 2nd largest city in South Korea and a major port so should be interesting.