Daegu Trip...Success!

It's been a busy few days here in South Korea! I'll do my best to keep it short, but a lot happened, so no promises. One of our friends from orientation had a birthday last week, so we all made plans to meet up in Daegu on Saturday at a place called the Traveler's Bar. It's was like a tiny room of American goodness!! There were burgers, cheese fries, fried pickles, Dr. Pepper, American liquor and so many more American things, plus darts, pool tables and shuffle board!! And believe it or not, I haven't even said the best part yet...American music...any place with Dr. Pepper, Kelly Clarkson and Taylor Swift is a place for this girl! But let me start with Friday first, because as always, something weird happened to me. Oh Korea...

Friday:
I knew it would be a great weekend when I was leaving school for the weekend and my co-teacher said, "Oh, you have a package!" I was SO excited and couldn't wait to get my hands on it. After a few minutes of frantic searching, we found it! It was the wonderful care package my mom sent me! It was full of everything wonderful...see for yourself.

All of my favorite things!

We were supposed to go to Jeonju and meet up with Brittney, but those plans changed and I decided to get dinner with Emilee and Kiyana. We found a little place called New York, New York! Sounds American enough, right? Wrong... I found a picture of lasagna and was pumped! It looked so good and this pasta lover has been missing out for almost two months now... I should have known it was too good to be true. In the picture it looked JUST like lasagna. But what I got was this crap...

I forgot to take a picture until it was almost gone, but here it is! 

Yeah, that's 'lasagna' in Korea! haha A lot of Korean things have a hint of sweet to it, but not normally things you'd want to be sweet. For example, Korean chocolate...not great...very bland and not sweet. Korean lasagna...sweet. So strange. So after taking off the two maraschino cherries that adorned the top of my pasta, I dug in. The first bite was a little sweet and there was not spaghetti sauce, so I kept digging. The next bite had what I thought was a bean, but turned out to be raisins. The next bite? You guessed it...SPAM! Little pepperoni like Spam. They love that stuff here. I'm like, well this is odd, but I'm hungry so I'll keep going and see what else is hiding in my pasta. Next up...sweet potato! Yuck! I love sweet potato fries, but sweet potato as substitute for spaghetti sauce, no thanks. So I keep going, but eventually just give up. Luckily, I treated myself to some ice cream, so all was right again. lol

Saturday:
I wake up entirely too early and head the bus terminal to catch my 8am bus to Daegu. One nap, one Red Bull, and a four hour bus ride later, we make it!! From the bus station, we catch a subway and follow directions to the Traveler's Bar. We're still in that stage where if we can successfully complete all of those steps, we're pumped. And we were! I was so proud of us! So there we are, meeting up with all of our friends from orientation and enjoying Danielle's birthday with some good ole American cheeseburgers. They were amazing! Nothing sweet about them...my stomach was overjoyed!

I look ill, the lighting was really bad...or I was so happy I was about to faint, I'm not sure which? haha

RANCH DRESSINGGGGG!!!! 

So happy! 

Just playing some darts! 

This is us trying to decide what kind of food to get...so many choices! 

After hanging out for a little bit, our friend Jay took us to find somewhere to stay for the night. We found a tiny motel and drop our things off, and were off to explore the city of Daegu. It's the 3rd largest city in Korea! It was basically the best day I've had in a while. I love Daegu and can't wait to go back! We walked around the "Time Square" area for a little bit and went in and out of stores, fantasizing about what we were going to buy with our first paycheck next week! There were people everywhere, obviously, but it still blows my mind how many people are everywhere here. We met back up at Traveler's bar later on that afternoon and hung out some more. There were so many TaLK Scholars there, it was amazing! I feel like I hadn't seen them in years, when in reality, I have only known these people for a month and a half. lol So weird! It was an awesome reunion though!

We decided we would split off with a smaller group and go find a Korean bar that's a little more low key. Traveler's Bar was SO crowded and loud, you basically had to yell at the person you were trying to talk to. After searching for close to an hour, we finally find one that has enough room for all of us. Emilee, Colt and I are the first ones there, so while we're waiting for everyone else, we watch groups of Korean girls get up and dance on the tiny dance floor area. After a few minutes, I decide I have to join them. They were so cute and looked like they were having a blast. About that time, one of them comes over and grabs us! It was the greatest moment and we were off! There is a good chance I burned a million calories that night. I danced for so long! They all had on these flashing headband bow things, which I luckily got later on so I would fit in with all my new Korean friends. They were so nice and welcoming to us. We were the only waygooks (foreigners) in there, but they didn't care at all!

Searching for some street food and a place to go! 

Street food waffles, omg. 

this happened...

Friends and blinking bows! 

In the streets of Daegu

Street food! 

bad pictures...good friends! 

Yay! She loved me! haha

Time for the awkward story of the night: I don't know how to say, "You guys are so awesome! I like you guys so much!" in Korean, plus it was really loud in there, so I just did what I thought would best convey that message. I kept making a heart with my hand and saying, "I love you guys!!!" and pointing to all the girls I was dancing with. I was trying to show them how much fun they were and say thanks for letting me dance with them! Finally, a slower song came on and we all took a little break so I again said, "I love you guys!", one of the girls said, "Oh, no... I like boys." hahaha I was like, "Ohhh, no, no, no! So do I!! I'm just saying, I like dancing with you guys!" She just kind of awkwardly laughed, so I'm not sure she understood, but oh well! lol Language barrier-134 Kyla-0...still. They kept dancing with me though, so they weren't too scared of me I guess. haha After that, Emilee and I made our way home and crashed! It was such a good night! It doesn't sound as awesome when I write it down. Guess it was a 'had to be there' moment, and I wish you were all there, because it rocked.


I also had quite possibly the coolest moment of my life happen at this bar. Apparently it was a 90s music Korean bar, but there was no Spice Girls or Nsync, so I didn't know the difference between 90s and 2013 Korean music. And then, just like a little music angel from heaven, a song came on that I recognized. It's a newer song, so I guess they play a mix? Okay, so picture this, here I am dancing with all these Korean guys and girls and a song comes on that I know. Not only do I know this song, but at orientation, my awesome friend Nick taught us the dance to the music video for our Group 4 video blog. I was beyond ecstatic and couldn't wait for my part to come on and show these Korean people how cool I was. Finally, my part comes on and I do my little dance to it and they were all cheering for me and very impressed by it. No big deal... jk...it rocked and I was so happy. haha It's the little things.


Sunday:
Sunday rolled around and we set out for Mexican food! (I told you Daegu was amazing!) We find a mexican restaurant and dig in! It was SO good! After that, we found a famous park in Daegu called Dalseong Park. We didn't know what to expect, but it turned out to be awesome. It was a huge, beautiful park full of people (and yes...I was still amazed at how many people were there. haha), benches, space to run and.....a miniature zoo!!! That's right, my failed monkey school trip last weekend was totally cancelled out when we accidentally found this mini zoo! In fact, I took this awesome video for you guys!

Caliente Mexican restaurant! 

Amazing chimichangas! 

Dalseong Park Entrance

My pictures don't do this place justice. It was so pretty! 

Again, not near as pretty as it was! 

Dalseong Park

 Awesome, right? There were quite a few animals, so we walked around there forever, burning off all of our Mexican food calories from lunch. We eventually head back to the bus station and check bus times back to ole Gunsan. We had an hour to kill and walked around in an outdoor market. These things amaze me so much. I wish I knew how to cook some of the stuff they sell there. My pictures don't really do justice, but I'll show you anyways. So many fish, fruits and vegetables everywhere!

Eels for sale! 

I hope you all had a wonderful St. Patrick's day, and have a great week!

-Kyla