I have a place in the community of expat wives. Well they have willingly and happily invited and included me in any thing they do that I would like to join with. It started with a hike that Katie (a 26 year old wife of an engineer of some kind from Huston who hangs out with me while on these wife trips) invited me to join the night of Michael's party where I meet a handful of the women who then invited me to go on the flik (foreigners living in Korea) ladies trip to gyeongju folk craft market. So that is what I did on Monday.

Gyeongju folk craft market is north of Ulsan and up a bit more in the hills (as far as I could tell but no real promises on that) where people hand make and sell traditional Korean crafts, like pottery, wood crafts and metal things. I mainly found pottery which was fine with me because it was amazing pottery. And a lot of it... So we spent about two hours exploring and shopping and admiring then got back on the bus to go to lunch.

Lunch was at the Hilton hotel (I think) buffet where they served a variety of "traditional" Korean food and western food. Oh joy more guessing what the heck I am eating! But it was actually very good. Everything was labeled in english so less guessing than normal and there really was a good variety. I tried kimchi pies (little round flattish pancake things that I guess are made of kimchi), some root of some kind and Vietnamese spring rolls which had pineapple in them (which was just weird. I love veggie spring rolls but the pineapple was weird.).  My favorite dish was labeled bean curd and veggies which was in a sauce that was slightly sweet but salty no idea how else to describe it. To my surprise when I got back to my seat and was actually picking through things to eat them it also has squid in it. And by squid I mean little inch in diameter squid tentacle rounds. It was totally delicious. The fact that there were obviously tentacles in it and it looked a tiny bit like I was eating a colony of happy baby squid playing in a broccoli forest was the only thing that stopped me getting a bigger second helping. My imagination really doesn't help me some times. It did have bean curd in it though so the label wasn't lying!

That was on Monday then on Tuesday I went to the yoga class they have at the foreigners compound at noon, then dropped off Michael's dry cleaning and bought some bread (well actually I bought bread, tofu, milk and alcoholic cider which I though was an odd combination of groceries...) and went home for a few hours. Than ulviya picked me up and drove me to her house where she feed me dinner with her family (which was traditional Russian because her house maid wanted me to try it and it would be way better hand made. In was so good. Like little tiny meatballs wrapped in dough then boiled like ravioli served with onions and home made yogurt with garlic. The best thing was actually the eggplant which was fried then had mayonnaise and lots of garlic on it. I know it sounds gross but it was really tasty. Needless to say after that dinner vampires didn't stand a chance around me.) Then ulviya and I went to Zumba which I have gone to twice now. Once last Thursday and then again yesterday. Yesterday there was only four of us and I was the only one who wasn't Russian. I don't think I had ever meet someone who spoke Russian before and now I am the deprived one for only speaking one language. Which everyone just nods and says your American when they find out. That's a very weird feeling. I really should start another language. Maybe I will have them teach me some Russian. Not that that will help with the Korean taxi drivers but it would be cool!
Now that brings us to today. Nothing is happening. I am staying home and I have cleaned out the fridge, put away my clothes, done some laundry, talked to my family and just relaxed. Tomorrow I am going to learn to play mahjong with some of the wives again and then explore around where they live a little bit. Tara and Michael get here on Saturday. I am very excited but I will honestly kinda miss having the house to my self. No more midnight private dance parties. Just have to have mid afternoon for two dance parties. Hope your excited Tara! Can't wait to see you.