Korean Costco and K-Pop

First I'll say I'm happy to announce that the mail system has been proven to work and I got not one but TWO letters on Friday. One from my parents who kindly sent my air miles card and one from my Rach and Aart - an early birthday card! Ok, on to the weeks info.
Costco and K-Pop are totally opposite topics to talk about, but since I experienced both this weekend that's the info you're going to get. ok, K-Pop has been on going since I got here, but I haven't said anything about it yet and it got more serious this weekend. What is K-Pop you might be asking? For those old people reading this (and I include you in that category Mom and Dad - as the newspaper already reminded you this past week) K-Pop is Korean pop music. The first hour after I landed in Seoul our whole group was instantly exposed to the world of Korean music. As we landed at 2am and were wide awake because of the time difference, the coach bus driver played music video after music video or Korean singers. We learned rather quickly that the Banana Girls, Girls Generation, Rain, 2pm and many more bands/singers were very popular in Korea. For a country music fan like myself all this pop music got annoying after a bit. However, every single Korean student is obsessed with one or more of these bands. I have learned more information on the male singers of 2pm from my 14-16 year old female students than I know about North American pop singers! While channel surfing the other day (ok, surfing between the five channels that play a fair amount of English movies or tv shows) I ran into a music video being played. Can't say I know what band it was, but they were singing a song every single student sing constantly. So I got to listen to the whole song to figure out what my students loved so much about the singers. I would've listened to some on youtube to know what the students love so much, but as there is still no sound on my computer, that was a procrastination I could not indulge in. Anyway, I'm not sure what's so fascinating about these singers since about all I can get out of the girls is "they're soooo hot!" (about 2pm) and the boys "they're soooo pretty!" about the girl bands. Oh, I did learn that the main singer of 2pm said some bad stuff about Korea and has now left to go back to the USA which is apparently where he grew up anyway. All the girls are depressed about that right now.
Costco! Yesterday a girl we're friends with from church took us to Costco in Daejeon about a two hour KTX train ride from Gwangju. The KTX is faster and a nicer ride, but a little more money. Unfortunately for me, my school administration is "lazy" (my co-teacher's words not mine) so while they were informed I needed my plane ticket reimbursement and settlement fees by the 25th they didn't get it to me on time. Therefore, I had very little money to spend at Costco and since it cost about $40 round trip, I had even less. However, that also meant I actually thought about my purchases before I bought them. Unlike when Mom and I go to Costco...basically everything that looks good ends up in the cart. Korean Costco's don't carry exactly the same stuff as in Canada, but we were able to get a few necessities...like real cheese! which I had to force myself to only eat a bit of when I got home. Just some cheesy potatoes and cheese and crackers. So nice to finally have cheese again! I also got, cream cheese and sour cream, sliced turkey, frozen strawberries and veggies, croutons, caesar dressing (unfortunately for me, there was no ranch so I had to settle...), bread that wasn't white bread, peanut butter, and best of all, pumpkin pie! Cherrah, the girl from church, was buying apple and pumpkin pies for church today (I'll explain why later) and when we got to the pies they were giving out samples of the pumpkin pie. I ate three. oops. so good! I decided then and there a pumpkin pie would be my birthday gift to myself. That became a regular justification for a lot of things I was planning on buying. Like a massive bag of pistachios. Mom, you know the huge bags you and I buy (well, you buy and I eat) and then you and me eat through the whole thing in a week? yeah, I was going to buy that (as a birthday gift of course!), but it was $34 and since I didn't have much money to begin with (and I really wanted the pumpkin pie for thanksgiving) I had to put it back. I did find out after I bought my stuff that I over estimated the cost of my things and could've afforded it, but maybe it was a good thing I didn't buy it... I'll wait until I need to buy myself a Christmas present! There was so much I wanted to buy like marshmallows, icing sugar, campbells soup, real baking soda (the bag was WAY too big for my needs!) and more, but sadly my brain decided to think that day and told myself half this stuff you don't need because there's no one to eat all that baking you do, or the massive meals you make and if you buy those pistachios you WILL eat it in a week (sadly, my brain was probably right). Maybe it's a good thing the Costco isn't in Gwangju. My Dutch self won't let me go back there until Christmas.
To end this post I will mention about this morning and Church. This morning I watched the Leafs pre-season hockey game against the Red Wings on line. Sadly, without sound. Last night I got a call at 10pm from Amanda (Hwasun friend and fellow Haldimand County resident) who missed her last bus home and needed a place to crash. So I didn't get to sleep until late and slept in. Not that it mattered, church is late out here. Church this morning was a special service where afterwards we listened to the best Jazz band I've ever heard. The pianists we phenomenal! The stuff they could do on the key board was amazing. I have never heard anything like that. Then there's the drummer...so good! and the bassist played this solo which was amazing as was the other guitarist who got this hilarious look on his face when he went all out on the guitar. It was so worth it and all FREE! We also all got served lunch - for free - (the best sandwiches I've had in Korea!), fruit, and of course apple and pumpkin pie. The most wonderful thing about Koreans is they don't care for pie too much and the foreigners who attend the church apparently are all on a diet. We got our huge section of pie, but they forgot the whipping cream. I went up to get it and had to teach one of the korean's how to use a whipping cream bottle. It was hilarious. He didn't understand so I kept showing him and kept getting him to practice - on our pie section. In the end, we had a TON of whipping cream. Best apple pie ever. But then, I say that every time. Then, because the Korean's don't eat much pie, Cherrah brought more over. Between Kristen, Amanda, and I we ate about 3/4 of those massive Costco pies. Turns out Cherrah and her friend ate another half to themselves. There had to have been at least 50 people at the lunch. Four pies for everyone and five girls ate over one to themselves. I'm stuffed. Don't worry, the pumpkin pie I bought is safe in the freezer...now (yes, I ate a piece when I got home from church too. oops.) Oh, and we got welcome/new comer gift number THREE today. Apparently they're just going to keep giving us welcome gifts even though they all know our names and we come every week. This time though it was this amazing pound cake stuff that I've been forced to eat a number of times at school so I wasn't complaining. Yes, it's in the freezer too. Man, these Koreans are going to make me fat. Now I have to lesson plan for next week. I've done nothing yet. oops again. But, it's a short week next week! Korean thanksgiving - so I have a four day weekend and a trip up to Seoul to look forward too!