Monday, June 18th

In the morning, Rachel and I went to make bank accounts, which are required so that we can get phones with year contracts. It wasn't really that hard. Rachel just told one of the employees we wanted to open bank accounts and get debit cards in Korean and the girl helped us so much. She got us all the forms and marked on them the requisite stuff we had to fill out and sign since we couldn't really understand what the forms said. Then we went up to the counter and were helped by two employees. I don't think many foreigners set up bank accounts in Yeosu because it took them a while to figure out everything. All we needed though was our passports and foreigner registration cards, so it wasn't hard, but it just took a bit of time. It was really nice though because there wasn't any minimum deposit or anything, although I don't think our accounts actually gain interest. Anyway we got bank cards and we think they work as debit cards. We're not sure yet. We also think they might work as T-Money cards since they have the T-money symbol on them (T-money cards are the transportation cards you use in Seoul to pay when you get on a bus, subway, or in a taxi). We were so proud of ourselves though for getting the cards without somebody else interpreting for us. When we were almost done, a Korean Expo worker asked us in English if he could assist us with anything, but we were just like oh no thanks, we've got this. Serious feeling of accomplishment. 


After that, we met up with Latoya and Madison to go exploring again. We got on a bus at a different bus terminal going the opposite direction we had gone the day before. We knew the bus went to 만성리 (the "black sand" beach), but we had no idea where it went after that. We rode it all the way to the last stop and got off. At the last stop. the area was so small that when the bus was turning around to head back the way it had come the back of the bus was just hanging over the cliff. It was really cool, but kind of scary. Anyway, the area we ended up at was right on the coast in a really old, somewhat run-down community called 오천동 (O-Cheon-Dong). We weaved in and out of the neighborhood exploring since it was so small we weren't afraid about getting lost. We found a fantastic beach, which turned out to be 모사금 (Mosageum), the beach I had heard was better than 만성리 (Manseongri) but that I had never known where it was. It was really cloudy and humid though so we decided we should go back to the beach sometime when it was sunny.

 


We had to go back to the Expo because Latoya had the afternoon shift and it has actually started to rain so the rest of us wanted rain jackets. We stopped by at a food stall to eat lunch and I had 야채전 (vegetable pancake). I don't think any one of us though found the food to be that tasty. After lunch, Latoya left for work and the rest of us went to the place Rachel and I had gone the day before since Madison wanted to buy a guitar. She ended up deciding not to because the cheapest guitar was like $150 and so she thought about buying a ukulele until she found out the cheapest one was $110, which seems super expensive to me. After that we went to a bakery and got some pastries to eat. While we were eating, there was this fantastic cinnamon aroma and so we waited 10 minutes until the little cinnamon balls came out of the oven. They were little bread balls coated all in cinnamon, which I thought would be absolutely delicious, but wasn't because the bread was really dry. Most of the bread, especially pastry bread, is super dry, which I don't really like, but for some reason keep sampling anyway. After that we headed to the movie theatre, but obviously the movie selection hadn't changed and so we just decided to go back to my apartment and watch a movie there. We were going to order in delivery, but we couldn't find a place, so we just gave up and made ramen and 김치만두 (kimchi dumplings) although I didn't eat that since it has pork in it. We tried watching a movie, but it seemed sad, so we started watching another one. However, then a group of people decided to go to the 찜질방 (sauna) so we decided to go too, which turned out to be a fantastic decision because the second movie we were going to watch I found out later was also going to be depressing. There were like 10 of us at the 찜질방, which was a pretty large group, so we just all went into the sauna rooms in smaller groups. Some people I think slept there (which isn't uncommon), but I headed back around 12:30 am because I wanted to sleep in my own bed and I was really tired.