Lake Park (호수공원)

I have always found it annoying to read Korean. Part of the problem is that there are always other languages mixed in, mostly English or Chinese. Part of the problem is also that the English is generally phonetically spelled out in Korean, rather than just written in English. Sounding out a word in Korean that I already know in English is just a big ol' waste of time.

Since I am currently living in Korea, I've had to adjust to the abundance of Korean all over the place. That hasn't been fun.

Yesterday (Saturday), my aunt (my mother's only sister) came with household supplies for me (pots, pans, dishes, chopsticks, etc.) and we ran around, catching up and talking. The weather was nice, thankfully, and though it was cloudy, it never started raining.

Before she got here, I went to Lake Park (호수공원), a huge man-made lake with very nicely landscaped and planned areas around it. Koreans know how to do nature, even when it's man-made. Since it was a Saturday, there were quite a few people- some jogging, some on bikes, some sitting on the abundant benches and eating or talking. Lots of old people with visors and wide-brimmed hats, chortling with one another. A father teaching a son how to ride a bike. Very bucolic stuff.

I took a couple pictures with my phone (there's free WiFi at a lot of places, so I carry it around even though I can't make or take calls), but the weather didn't really make for good photography.

That building, second from the left, blue-ish with red lettering on top, is where I live. This area was sort of the parade of flags. I've been here less than a week but I was already happy to see the American flag.

The silver sculpture at the center of the picture is the beginning of another park, a smaller one. I need to cross the little park (it's long and narrow) to go to work, which is nice. I'm glad that I can walk to work here.

Better look at the flags. And the perfectly manicured grass. I saw quite a few people with dogs, but didn't see any dog poop anywhere, which is good.

There aren't that many trash cans in public places in Korea (the land of really picky recycling), but there's not much litter. Isn't that odd? There are tons of trash cans in America, but there's still trash all over the streets.

I'm going to try going to Bethel Church (enormous, gigantic mega-church close to me) today, but I'm not very hopeful that I'll like it.

I start working tomorrow. Looking forward to it, on one hand, since people there will be bound to give me advice about the area, but also not looking forward to having to work. That month and a half of not working went by in a flash!