Occupying my Time...

"They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself."

    For so long I have have easily filled my time.  Since I was 11, I have spent most of my weekends bababy sitting.  Then in college I worked 18 hours every weekend.  Here I have been sort of lost, my weekends were free and I did not know what to do with my time.   Most weekends I would just sit in my bed and watch movies, not exactly a good use of my time.  After last weekend's outing with Beth I decided that it was up to me to find things to occupy my time.  So this weekend I did just that.  First, on Saturday I decided to go to a movie by myself.  I was so proud that I figured out the bus to get to the theater.  That pride was shortly lived when I couldn't figure out how to use the ticket machine even though the instructions were in English.  

 When I started university my goal was to earn my degree in social work and work with international adoption.  While researching teaching in Korea I came across a blog about an American girl living in Korea who volunteered in an orphanage.  That pretty much sold Korea as the country I wanted to teach in.  Since being in Korea, I have found it much harder to actually find an opportunity to volunteer as I live in a fairly wealthy area.  Through Facebook I learned of an American woman who organized volunteers to visit a home for single mothers.  So today I figured out buses and trains to go two hours South to go along with this group.

The Vin Home is a home run by an order of nuns for single women who are expecting.  The women can then stay at the home until their babies are 6 months old.  Besides organizing the volunteers, Christine also collects donations from all the military bases here in Korea and in the US to give to the women and babies.  Today we had two cars packed with baby clothes, maternity clothes, diapers, and everything else the women might need.

   Currently there are 5 moms at the home and 3 babies.  It was so nice to visit and share a meal with these women as they never have outside visitors because they have been shunned by their families.  Not only was it nice to be able to visit for the sake of the mothers and babies, selfishly it was really nice to be able to meet and talk to some other women. I even made plans with two of the women for next weekend, yeah friends!

The rest of this post is going to be very random.  A collection of random photos taken since I got here.  

Korean's are obsessed with skin care.  The best part of their obsession is that they love face masks.  I bought this one because it was an animal face mask.  I think I look like Scar from the Lion King.  The package said monkey, I don't see it.

 Then I tried this lovely pore reducing mask.  I'm not really sure if the masks have done anything but they are fun to try.

This one makes me look like the guy from Silence of the Lambs.

 While there are many things that don't quite makes sense in Korea, there are a few things that makes me wonder why we don't have it in the U.S.  This is one of those things.  In the convenience stores they sell these pouches of beverages this one is lemonade but there is also coffee drinks and other juices.  So you buy the pouch and then you get a cup of ice and a straw.  Its kind of genius.

I found a pizza place, which may have not been such a good idea as now I order at least one pizza a week.  The bow just makes the pizza look sophisticated.

 A couple weeks ago I attempted to make pancakes.  As I cannot read the directions on the mix it was very much trial and error.  I never quite got the mixture right but oh well.

The last mask I bought was this very sophisticated mask mask.  

 I forgot to post this after Chuseok but my boss gave us all a present of shampoo and conditioner.  I'm still not sure if the boys got the same present or not.

 These were gift sets that were for sale for Chuseok as well.
Who wouldn't want 9 cans of spam?

I got so excited when I found these in the grocery store.  These are Australian cookies that I was introduced to by my Australian friends in Copenhagen.  We could never find them in the US, but for some reason they are in Korea.

Sometimes I am just bewildered as to why someone decided to write words on things.  Its even more trouble as they had to find someone to translate the words into English.

This is another of my amazing finds from the cosmetic store.  At first I really thought that these were pore strips for baby acne.  Then I found out that it is saying that you can get baby skin by using this.

 In college I had a slight addiction to snapple peach ice tea.  Korea is not helping that addiction as they have an equally as good substitution in Lipton peach ice tea.

 So this week's post is not super exciting but I think that is what makes it good.  This is the first post where I could actually write about something normal that was positive.  Hopefully as time goes on I will continue to find constructive ways to spend my time and continue to find new friends.