My 할머니 (grandma) is cute

So I may have mentioned this in passing, but my grandmother used to live right outside of Seoul. Recently, she moved to a place in Seoul that is kind of like a retirement community - people living here are over a certain age, and while it isn't truly an assisted-living type place, there are many services (on-staff nurses and doctors, a cleaning service, a "cafeteria"/restaurant, etc) and classes available to everybody that make it a comfortable place to live.

I'm crashing here (and feeling quite out of place) until I move to my boarding house on Saturday. The other day my grandma suggested I use the "running machine" in the fitness center (or, "hitness" center) while she went to her water fitness class. I got to see a little through the windows, and it involved little old ladies (and one gent) walking through the water with water noodles, and then playing a vigorous game of water polo (although the water is like three feet deep, so it moves a little slower.) When I met my grandma back in the room, she was so excited because she was the goalkeeper and her team won. It was so freaking cute to see her practically bounce up and down because she was so happy.

Today was my first day of class. I have lots of catching up to do, vocab-wise. It's a little weird because I pretty much understand everything going on, but when it's my turn to talk the words I need to say are right on the tip of my tongue and then I end up sounding like an idiot. I guess lately some would argue that that's how I sound when I speak English. :) At any rate, I think class will be okay. Most of the people in my section are from Japan and China. It looks like people from the same countries kinda group together, so I don't think I'll become best friends or anything with anybody in my class. There's another girl from the US, but it seems like we don't have very much in common. When I told her how old I am, she pretty much said something to the effect of "oh my god, it would totally suck to be that old!" No, she didn't use those exact words, but she just turned the ripe old age of 22 so I guess I seem like a scary old person to her. Also, a lot of students have studied at Yonsei in previous semesters and already know each other. It was interesting to have that first-day-of-school anxiety where you don't know anybody and it totally seems all clique-y.

So here are a few random pictures:

Here's a restaurant that serves semi-slow well-being food. Well-being (pronounced "wellbing") is kind of a catch phrase for anything that is supposed to be good for you. I suppose with time and training, this restaurant will upgrade to actual slow food, but props to them for being completely honest.


I guess the twitter phenomenon is popular here? I haven't really noticed.