Random English: part 1

I am an English nerd, I'll admit it. It's always been my favorite subject in school- hence why I majored in English Language in college.

Since living in Korea, I've seen English used in some crazy ways-- like "What the heck?!" type of crazy. When I see something in English that says something really off the wall- from silly spelling mistakes to intense sayings- I get excited and I have to take a picture. A lot I've found are at restaurants. Many have these really deep, emotional messages written on their wall or window.

My collection is building of these type of photos, so I would like to start a "segment" called Random English. Here's what I have so far- Part 1:

"Many people want to feel the nature in the raw. In Nature, Many people find ways to live in harmony."

"Don't bite me or You will love me!!"

Someone with love you

This was drawn in a bathroom stall.

A kids' notebook.

Written in a nail salon's wall.

From the same nail salon as above.

It's always a good time with fried fride chicken.

First Busan trip

Busan is South Korea's 2nd largest city and is about an hour to an hour and a half from Gimhae where we live.

Today we finally decided to go check it out- well, a part of it- not all of it. All of it would be too much to do in one trip.

We went to a big shopping district called Nampodong. It reminded me of the 3rd Street Promenade in Santa Monica. There were TONS of people (South Koreans and foreigners) and it was consumer heaven. A lot of shops, restaurants, street vendors, etc. You could get a pair of socks for 1,000won or get a Gucci purse for 700,000won (1,000won is about 1$).

We're not big shoppers, so we weren't that impressed or excited- we were just overwhelmed by the amount of people, stores and restaurants that were there.

Of course the first thing on our agenda was to find a place to eat. We went off to one of the little side streets and found this great place that was packed with a lot of Koreans. We ate some good food and I am still stuffed 8 hours later! After lunch we got some ice cream and stopped in a few shops just to look. There was also some kind of little parade going on, too. We then went to check out Gwangbok, which is an underground shopping center (nothing too impressive, just a lot of little shops selling random things like paintings, electronics, clothes, etc.) By this time, we were pretty tired, so we headed home on the subway.

We plan to explore other areas of Busan- like the beaches, aquarium, and temple- but just going to the one shopping area was exhausting enough.

I'm not a big-city girl, so I am glad we don't live in Busan. I like our little city. Big cities are just nice and fun to visit.

Here's a few shots from our adventure today:

Yeonji Park

We like the area that our apartment is located. It's close to good shopping, restaurants, the light-rail, and it's only a 15 minute walk to work. We also live 5 minutes from Yeonji Park, which is this beautiful park that surrounds a small lake. It's always filled with picnickers, love birds strolling hand in hand, people playing basketball, bike riders, small vendors, and those getting their daily exercise in. Jason and I "accidentally" stumbled upon it while we were walking around the city a few weeks ago. The cherry blossoms were in full bloom and it was absolutely beautiful. We've gone back a couple of times and plan to go more often as the weather warms up.