I'm sorry that the video is so pixelated! Apparently the camera/recorder is not very good on my phone.
Today I am feeling a little bit discouraged. I ventured back to Lotte Mart to do some grocery shopping, and despite being in there a few times already, it was still a bit overwhelming. It is really, really hard to grocery shop when you don't know what anything says. As well, not everything looks the same either. I'm not even sure if what I bought is actually rice! I know overtime I will get more familiar with grocery items, especially when I start to pick up and learn more Korean. BUT, I'm also feeling discouraged (if that's the right word) because groceries are super expensive here. It's insane. Even things like produce and pasta which are generally super cheap at home, are expensive here. Here is what I bought today:
rice (I hope) - pineapple - eggs - trail mix - fettuccini noodles - alfredo sauce - fruit cocktail - granola type bars (they are called ultra bars) - all for about $40 (cad).
I know that doesn't probably sound too bad, but it is. For example, the noodles would normally be around $1 at home, here they are $3. The pasta sauce was almost $6 etc. Toilet paper here is expensive too, a normal pack I'd buy at home would cost around $20 here. So I'm not really sure what I'm going to be eating. I know I can get buy with very little food, but that's not healthy. As well, I won't be eating too much meat, so protein is something I will need to get elsewhere. I was hoping to find beans (kidney, chick peas etc) but no luck. Also, not having an oven makes things a little harder too. Here I thought I could make my own pizza - ha! Also, they only have brown eggs, which I've never had before and don't know what the difference is but am a little worried about the potential of not liking them. Hopefully I do though, in which case, I see a lot of rice and eggs in my future. Here are some pictures from a flyer from Lotte Mart - for currency you basically take off three zeros and they would be the approximate dollar amount. For example - if something is 15,000 = $15 - if something is 6,500 = $6.50 etc.
They also have a foreign section except I don't recognize any of the items except these two:
Skippy and Nutella!! But again, very expensive! Food is my second biggest woe of the day.
Also, I forgot to mention before my silly blonde mistake. I went to blow dry my hair with my Canadian hair dryer and made sure I used the adapter. I also kept in mind Claudia's advice to use the low setting in case anything goes wrong, so I did. I turned it on low and immediately it was piping hot which I thought was strange but then the burning smell came. Immediately I turned it off and just let my hair air dry instead thinking that it was just a bad idea to think my hair dryer could be used here.
Have you caught my mistake yet?
It didn't occur to me until later that day that I didn't use the converter! Ooops. I have not tried it since but I hope I didn't ruin my hair dryer!
There is a great website called MeetUp where people create different groups you can join. I have found a bookclub group that I am going to try out. The next meeting isn't until the end of August but that gives me a month to read that book they are on - The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. Because I don't know where any bookstores are yet, I bought and downloaded it off Kobo (because it was cheaper than on the Kindle) to read off my phone. I'm hoping that that will be a great way to meet some new people and I'll be doing something that I love as well :)
<3
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