Adventures in Korea: ...미국에 있어?

Very, very short post for today because I'm pretty tired and the classes for this program run Mon-Thurs so this is the equivalent of my Friday night haha.

Today for lunch, Anna, Lily and I took the subway down to Itaewon. I had been told about Itaewon by many people since arriving in Korea. It's a "special tourist area", and caters very much to tourists and foreigners. I couldn't stop giggling the entire time I was there, it was so strange to go from Anam-Dong, where Korea University is, where the signs are all in Korean, to Itaewon, where the signs are in English and instead of Kimbap and noodle stores there are Taco Bells and Outback Steakhouses. We ate lunch in the basement of a shoe store (advertising, like many other clothing and shoe stores in the area, that they sell "big size"), where they sold noodles, soup, and mandu (Korean dumplings). Upon seeing us, they immediately brought Lily and I a menu in English/Chinese, assuming we couldn't read the wall menu in Korean. I smiled inside thinking how I was going to show off my Korean and surprise them, but that kind of flopped when I ordered Mandu, and the waitress turned to Anna and asked her in Korean whether I wanted the regular mandu or the mandu soup. I was a little annoyed that my attempts to practice Korean were ignored, especially since I've been spoiled this whole past week by praise of my Korean and the graciousness of the shop/restaurant workers in Anam-Dong when I use it instead of English. But I suppose in a place like Itaewon, they're surrounded constantly by Americans and other tourists and don't have time to put up with it. But whatever, the Mandu were delicious and I got over it.

We got back on the subway and made it to class just in time for it to start. The rest of the day went normally, classes and dinner. And now I'm going to rest in my dorm and enjoy my three day weekend! There's a party at a bar scheduled for tomorrow, so I should sleep plenty tonight!