Korean Fashion: shopping, badonkadonk and shoes.

I don't really know how to even write about this. People here are always dressed up and looking their best. They are always checking themselves out, too, even the guys. Everyone looks great all the time and I feel as if I'm watching a fashion show 24/7!

Just a few highlights:

Shopping: There are numerous opportunities to spend your hard-earned Won in Korea. There are endless places to go shopping. There are malls everywhere. You can shop while you're waiting for the next subway. There are street vendors. There are underground shopping areas. There are beautiful department stores with 8 floors. There are markets with discounted clothing. In Seoul, every day is Black Friday.

Department stores:
Shinsegae Department Store: I could spend hours just walking around this department store. Plus, there's a Tiffany's, Coach and Burberry store inside (and a lot of other stores!).


Lotte Department Stores:

These are all over Korea. I work really close to one and sometimes after work, I go and people watch and go window shopping.




A big plus to these nice department stores: their amazing food courts. Many department stores have a huge grocery store on the very first floor and attached to the grocery stores are the food courts. Even the food courts are nice here and the food is always good! :)

Street vendors and underground shopping:

Markets




Heels:  Many people at home make fun of me because I tend to wear heels or wedges most of the time. Well, it doesn't even come close to the girls in Korea. They wear huge heels all the time! I'm always shocked at how they can run so fast so they won't miss the bus or the train in those HUGE heels. Props to them.

Baby got back: My height allows me to wear a lot of the dresses and skirts here but not the pants! I've tried on a few pants and jeans since I got here, and well, they won't go up around my butt! It's a good thing I brought a lot of pairs of jeans with me. Sir Mix-a-lot, please come sing your anthem here and help me out!
Speaking of butts, these padded undies are everywhere, too! I think it's funny that in the rest of the world, we try to hide it but here, some ladies want a little padding. :)

Shoes
My booty might not fit into the pants but my feet fit into the shoes! Finally....a place where I can find shoes. I don't really like shopping and I haven't liked shopping for a long time but Korea's shoes may change this for me. Finding size 5 shoes is hard to do but here they actually have small-sized shoes.  Usually, I'm stuck stuffing my shoes so they can fit or wearing granny-type shoes because they are the only ones that fit, but not here. They even fit my sister.  My sister has smaller feet than I do (mom calls her Cinderella):) and I sent her shoes as a Christmas gift and they fit perfectly!

N Seoul Tower, Lantern Festival and Heated floors!

Seoul Tower

One night after work, we went to N. Seoul Tower. Seoul Tower is an observation and communications tower located in the center of the city. It offers great views of the city because it is situated on Mt. Namsam. You can either hike to get there or take a cable car. Which one do you think we did? :)

 At the top, they have various cities of the world and how far away each one is....:)

 I am far away!

Lantern Festival

All of these lanterns lined a large portion of the Cheonggyecheon Stream, which is a 5.8 kilometer stream in downtown Seoul.

Ondol:온돌

So it's been getting cold here...really cold. Okay it hasn't been terribly cold for your average person but for me, anything below 70F is cold. You know how I feel about winter! So of course, I wanted to turn the heat on. After getting help from another teacher and googling it, I didn't figure it out. Stash did. Haha. 

Heating here is really neat. Ondol is underfloor heating and it uses direct heat transfer from wood smoke to the underside of a  floor. Translation: my feet are nice and toasty when I walk around my apartment. 

My thermostat:)

More adventures to come later!

Cafes and Waffles!

Seoulites love their coffee and their waffles...and so do I! No matter where I've gone in this huge city, there are a ton of cute, little coffee shops and in many of these, a yummy waffle to go along with your hot beverage. Now, I know you might be thinking, "A waffle?" Well, they don't taste like eggos or college dining hall ones (even though the ones at LU were pretty good). Here, they put all sorts of good stuff on your waffles and they make for a wonderful dessert, too. They are SO good!!!

Here are some random pictures  (note: I live within walking distance from 6 different cafes and that's just counting the ones I can see from my window!) :)

Cafe Bene=free Wifi...yes!

There are 3 of these all in walking distance from my apartment and I also stop at one by work in the mornings:

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This is my favorite waffle so far! :) Yum!

 There are even  on-the-go waffles in the subway stations. streets and grocery stores!

Yes, I love eating and there will be many more food entries:)

Onnuri Church

One of the first things I asked my director was for a good recommendation for a church. He recommended Onnuri Church and I also read about it on www.daveseslcafe.com. The second Sunday I was here, I decided to check it out and I liked it from the very beginning. Onnuri is a mega-church with various services held throughout the week. They have an English ministry that meets on Sunday afternoons and thankfully, I have met some really great people. The pastor is also a great preacher;  preaching on relevant topics and is very biblically sound. (I still plan on going to Yeoido church from time to time).

 On October 10th, the church celebrated its 25th anniversary and in order to house all of their members; the celebration was held at the World Cup stadium, here in Seoul. (For those of you who are not soccer fans, Seoul co-hosted the 2002 World Cup with Japan).

Here are some pictures:

My small group is currently reading a book called Hearing God's Voice by Henry and Richard Blackaby and I would highly recommend it.

 My family prayed for this a lot before I came here so I am very thankful for finding a church! It has been a great blessing.

More firsts....

Hiking
Hiking is a popular form of recreation in Korea and I wanted to take part in this. A few weekends ago, the weather was so nice so I decided to go on a little adventure and go hiking. I had heard about Mt. Achasan, which happens to be really close to where I live, so I googled information about it and put on my cool hiking clothes (aka: workout clothes) :) and headed on my little adventure. The information I found online said that this hike would give me great views of the Han river and the city and it was true.

 Awesome view of the city; just what I wanted!

 This was at the top!

 A nice couple took my picture. They said "Smile and say kimchi!" (more on kimchi in a future post)

 Liberty, I even represent you in Korea! :)

Along the way, I took my time looking at everything and taking pictures and I was surprised at the amount of little, old ladies running past me! They were all dressed in their super-hiking clothes, too. :)

The information I found online also said it was the perfect mountain to hike for beginner hikers so I thought "Okay, all that Zumba and Bodycombat should have prepared me for this!" Well, it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be but my legs felt like they were on fire for a couple days after my hike. :)

Soju
Soju is a distilled drink native to Korea. It is traditionally made out of rice and is a common beverage for social settings. Now, I'm not much of a drinker and frankly, I don't like the taste of alcohol. I had heard about soju from other people and they said it's a pretty strong drink but Sarah told me about "girly" soju drinks and at a late-night dinner with her, I tried kiwi soju. It was actually good (probably because it was very fruity)!

Market-shopping
There are many places to shop in Seoul but I think my favorite places are the huge markets, Namdaemun and Dongdaemun. I haven't actually done a whole lot of shopping at these markets (except for a comforter and food), but I really like the environment. You can find anything from shoes to luggage to souvenirs to aprons to knock-off Chanel earrings to pots and pans to fish and the list could go on and on. And of course, there is the bargaining which is always an adventure within itself.

It's a lot of fun at night, too.

The tents are little restaurants