This particular day off was spent with a Korean friend an one of the teachers, Jenny. The Korean friends name is Joo Hyun, I call him J, because I am miserably horrible with Korean names. I met him for coffee at the Italian Coffeehouse across the street from where I work. This makes life in Korea livable as there is always good, cheap, hot coffee, espresso, cappuccino, etc, when one needs something. They also have an Italian Eatery, but as of yet I have not sampled the food.

After meeting with J, I called Jenny who decided to join us for lunch and we left the choice of eating place up to J, after he asked us several times where we wanted to eat. We tried to explain that since he lived in Korea and we had not been here nearly as long, he would have a better idea of where to eat.

Finally, he picked a place and we were off and walking. Turned out the Restaurant was close to my apartment. It was a Korean style cafe, which means there were many people seated at the small tables. In Korean style cafe's you take off your shoes at the door, and sit on the floor at the little floor table. I like the little floor tables and think all tables should be made this way. We ended up having a very tasty fish soup with handmade noodles (I actually spent several minutes one weekend watching a woman make noodles on the street. She would roll out the flour and then fold it about ten times and cut it into noodles, I was fascinated and she was amused, but I now have an idea of what handmade noodles look like) which was very tasty, served with kim-chi, and tiny little green bell peppers with red pepper paste. We also had a little bowl of rice. Apparently when you finish the noodles you put the rice in the left over broth and eat that. Both Jenny and I tried, but neither of! us was able to finish the noodles and eat the rice. We managed most of the noodles, but it was really allot of food.

After that J said he wanted to take us to People and Dog for tea. The People and Dog is right across from my apartment, and although I have seen it several times, I had not been in, perhaps because I was a bit afraid they served dog soup. Instead it turned out to be a very nice Restaurant/Cafe, where I had coffee, Jenny and J tea, and the dogs had treats. The restaurant is full of big dogs, retrievers, huskies, a couple of weinemeirs ( I think that's right), a Dalmatian, and several other types of dog, some smaller. You go in and have drinks, or food and the dogs come by and are your friends. It was really quite pleasant. The dogs live there full time, and are very well cared for as there are about ten Korean's on staff and it was not that busy. They also have stuff handy for wet spills, and other accidents, as the dogs are dogs, and do what they will do. We could not determine if they left or were properly housebroken, but they were very cute and friendly and Jenny and I have decided it will be a very nice place to hang out.

We spent allot of time wondering why we didn't have these great cafe's in the states and could only conclude that it would be because of insurance. Who knows.

After all of this, I ventured out to find an ankle brace as I left mine in Indiana and I managed to twist my ankle on the slippery sidewalks because it has been raining for the last week non-stop. The weather has been pleasantly cool if more than a little wet.

That's all for now, I'd love to get some more mail, as I am having a bought of homesickness.