Day 10 is Saturday, June 2. I woke up at 7:45 a.m. Gina had been awake since 6 a.m. We met my mom and Mistie for breakfast at 8 a.m. I had my usual rice topped with green vegetables and the little yogurt drink. I am pretty sure the french fries were the ones left over the dinner service the night before. The man who had been in charge of breakfast the two days before wasn't there. Another man who wasn't quite as friendly was there. My mom had brought the peanut butter over to put some on her toast. He came over to get it back. Her toast popped up and he stood at our table while she put some on her toast before he took it back. Luckily, the man I did like came back and I got a picture with him before we left the hotel.
My mom informed us again that she slept through the entire night again. Maybe she's used to the hard beds now. Maybe Mistie laid down the law. Maybe I'm not tossing and turning in the bed to wake her up now, but she's sleeping like a baby now. Nice.
This was the day my mom was taking the train back to Daejeon to meet with more of her international students for lunch. I think she was meeting four students. She had to leave around 9:30 a.m.
I went back to the hotel room to take a quick shower. I turned on the shower to warm it up and pulled the top knob. I thought it was helping the water drain. It was not the purpose of that knob. That knob turned on the showerhead. The square showerhead overhead that I thought was a decoration since there was handheld shower head. I was completely soaked before I had intended to be. My goal was to finish the shower before the water went over the very small lip on the floor. I made it just in time. Have you ever seen a showerhead like this? After my shower, Gina told me, "Oh yeah, I've seen them in the newer houses."
My mom took her taxi to the train station at 9:30 a.m. At 9:45 a.m., the hotel man helped Mistie, Gina and I tell the taxi driver we wanted to go to E-Mart. We heard E-Mart was the equivalent of Wal-Mart. This was not a true statement. I would say it would be the equivalent of Wal-Mart, Kohls, and Dillards were all combined. It was huge!!!
We got a shopping cart. We had to pay a dime for the shopping cart. It's like Aldi's. You pay the dime for the cart, but get the dime back when put your cart back. The carts had a holder for your drink and iPhone. They want you to stay hydrated and want your friends and family to have a way to contact you should you be in there shopping for more than four hours. I could totally go Black Friday shopping in here.
There were escalators to the three different floors. These were not regular escalators though. If you notice from the pictures below, the escalators were flat. This is so you can take your shopping carts to each level. Awesome!
The lower level had a grocery store, Toys R Us section, and everything else you'd find in a Wal-Mart. All the diaper packages had the cutest Asian babies on them. Everything was more expensive than Wal-Mart.
There was a huge toy section. I had to take some pictures of the Korean "legos" for my son.
I also took pictures of the real Legos.
There was a girls section too. There didn't seem to as many toys for the girls though.
The shoe section was ridiculous. There were so many shoes. Mistie spent a bit of time on her phone trying to figure out what size her kids wore in Korean shoe sizes. I think they were size 180 or 190.
There was also a food court on the lower floor. They had a display filled with the food you could order. Good for us Americans. :)
This one didn't look too appealing. First of all, it looked hot since it's so red. Secondly, I see little suckers. That's a no-go for me.
Luckily there was also a McDonalds in the food court. Mistie and I ordered the large Coke so we could get the commemorative Olympic glasses. We thought there was Korean writing on them, but there wasn't. I think Mistie and Gina got chicken nuggets again. While we were eating we saw this mother with twin little girls. They were dresses alike. So cute!
As we sat down, this little Korean boy and his friend ran up to Mistie and said, "HI!" They thought it was pretty brave to say hi to the white lady. They ran away giggling. They ran up to another Caucasian woman and did the same thing. They ran up to the other lady four more times, collapsing in giggles each time. They had on shorts that were made to look like they were sagging with their boxer shorts showing. They sold them in E-Mart. I suppose they were popular.
I purchased a sandwich cutter, candy treat bags and some snack foods for my kids to sample at E-Mart.
We made our way up to the second level. There were classes for children on that floor. They had ballet classes, cooking classes, and something else I couldn't see. The second floor was also filled with clothing.
We finished with E-Mart and took a taxi to Lotte Mart. It is very similar to E-Mart. I think Lotte Mart is not quite as nice as E-Mart, but it's like comparing Wal-Mart to Target.
My heart did palpate a little when I saw some red signs hanging up high because this was clearly a clearance section. I ran right over to check it out. Everything was still pretty expensive even in the clearance sections.
In the clearance section was the only place I actually saw a fitting room. Now I know the Korean people are overall smaller than Americans, but I am telling you this fitting room was small! There would be barely enough room to bend over to take pants off in there!
We went to the grocery section. Check out the picture below. Watermelons for 18,900 won ($18). Crazy!
I took a picture of the Cheetos for my son. The food prices seemed to be pretty much the same.
I loved this. In the refrigerated section there was a kit for kimbobs. Everything you needed. I was tempted to get that, but it had crab in it.
If my heart palpated when I saw the clearance section, I don't know what to call it when I saw the coupon in the ramen section. It's silly, but I did get goosebumps. Loved it. I grabbed some for me and my friend, Mrs. Courtney. I didn't use them though. Since I couldn't read them, I didn't want to griped out by a cashier and have no idea what was going one.
Lotte Mart had the biggest section of ramen noodles I have ever seen! It was awesome!
I think the Koreans must also like Spam. There were many different brands and flavors.
I loved this America and Mexico section. It was interesting to see what brands they put in the section. Tabasco, A1, Heinz, and Hormel Chili to name a few. Is that what you would have guessed?
I took a picture of the baby formula. There were sensors on each can.
We went to the second level of Lotte Mart. They had clothes and sports equipment on the second floor. They also had a lingerie section. This lingerie section was a little different because they sold men's and women's together. In fact, many of the manaquins wore matching sets. Gina was having a hard time finding something for her husband. We assured her that her husband would be happy with a matching set of lingerie.
I found some very big chopsticks. I am waiting to make some rice so I can try them out. When I do, I'll post a picture on the blog! :)
We had so much stuff, we had to go back to the hotel to drop it off. Mistie wanted to take a bath. My mom was still gone, so she could take a bath without worrying about anyone coming in or out and that strange window by the bathtub. Gina and I checked our email. The breakfast man that I liked came by and invited Gina to have a cup of coffee.
I went back up to the room and called Mistie. I had forgotten she said she wanted to take a bath. I called her twice before she answered and said, "I'm in the BATH!" Sorry! Gina came back up to the room and asked me where Mistie was. Gina had knocked on her door, but she didn't answer. So much for a peaceful, quiet bath for Mistie.
At 3:30 p.m., we went downstairs and asked to hotel man to tell the taxi driver we would like to go to the public market. He kind of smiled and called a taxi for us. When the taxi arrived, he told the taxi driver where we wanted to go and laughed. We didn't understand why he was laughing. The taxi driver took us straight.... back to the E-Mart. We had to tell him we wanted to go to the public market, not E-Mart. I guess that's the hotel man was laughing. He helped us get the first taxi to E-Mart. He must have thought, "These Americans really like E-Mart!" Fortunately, the public market wasn't that far from E-Mart. The taxi driver didn't even charge us for the extra mileage.
We went back to the public market we had gone to the night before. As we first started walking, we went by a booth that had something out on a table. It was some kind of.... meat. I saw a foot - only one foot. The other feet were gone. It looked like rabbit foot, but you couldn't tell what it was. I just quickly ran past it. We quickly realized we were in the seafood section of the market. There was a lot of fish. This stuff wasn't on ice like it was on in the inside of the public market. You would turn the corner and see a tray of dried squid. We didn't spend too long there, but we walked around for a while trying to find some shopping. We didn't find much.
We made our way to the clothing section of the market. Mistie got a couple of pairs of shoes for her kids. Gina found some red plaid rain boots.
We went back to our hotel. We decided to walk around the hotel to look for dinner. This was harder done than said. Gina was looking for something in particular, but we didn't really know what. We walked and sat down in a chicken place, but there was nothing appealing on the menu. Since we didn't have any interpretor, it was hard. We ended up going back toward the hotel. We went to the GS25 station. I got some corn chips and a Coke. Mistie and Gina got drinks and some ice.
When we got back to the hotel, Gina asked the hotel man about a pizza place. Mistie and the man ordered a cheese pizza from Pizza Hut online. I went to Mistie's room with her. Gina went back to her room to change and write some cards for her daughter. A little after 7 p.m., the doorbell rings. It's the pizza man and my mom. My mom said she saw the pizza man and knew exactly where it was going.
The pizza was good, but a little different. It was regular cheese pizza in the middle with a ring of purred squash, then a ring a cheese, and then the crust. It wasn't bad, but the squash was a strange addition to the pizza. I believe the pizza was around $27.
My mom had a good time with her students. She made it to the train station and met with them. They ate lunch and had a good time visiting. Since the plans changed when I lost my passport, she was unsure she would get to see them. I'm glad she had a good visit.
Gina and I went back to our room and watched some movie. We never did find out the name of it. We started to watch Knight and Day, but we both fell asleep. Tomorrow we head back to Incheon. It will be our last day in Korea. I think everyone is ready to get back to their families.
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