Differences

I'm sure a lot of people want to know all the differences between Korea and America, but it's tough to point them out because you really only remember differences that are negative, and there's basically none.  I'll try to list the positive differences, as many as I can recall.  Well, I suppose there is one potential negative.  There are no clothes dryers.  On my porch there's a clothes rack that hangs from the ceiling and can be raised and lowered kinda like blinds, but it's not very large.  I had to buy a clothes rack from the store today.  That's what my apt looks like on laundry day, haha.  The washing machine is awesome, though.  There are way more options on it than an average American one, and you can even set it for a delay start.  When you start the washer it spins once or twice and is actually measuring the weight of the clothes.  So high tech.

As for other differences, houses are heated by the hot water pipes which run through the floor, so the floor is the first thing to warm up rather than the last.  Why did the West not think of that?  I think I've already mentioned that showers don't have curtains so you can hose down your entire bathroom every day.  So much more clean.  You take your shoes off before entering a person's house and you put on shower shoes (think crappy sandals) before entering a bathroom.  But that's not everywhere, mainly in houses and tradition restaurants.  They don't have stoves, just range-top cooking (not really a good thing, but not really bad either).  They also don't have dishwashers, but I prefer that b/c I use a dish, I wash a dish, I put it in the drainer, done.  Space is expensive here, so housing is much smaller which forces people to live a more simple life; I love it.  Their public transit is fantastic.  The necessities of life are cheap, but the extras can be just as expensive or more-so in the States.  And by necessities I mean food, shelter, clothing, alcohol.  For example, 10 of us went to lunch on Thursday and then drank from 6-11 and we didn't spend more than $75 total.  Amazing.  A cell phone plan is $20/month, and internet would be about the same.  Everyone her

e is very polite, and everyone strives to be more kind than the next person.  There are heated toilet seats!!  Anything you need is within walking distance.  So basically it's a great place.

One more thing, I went to a Chinese restaurant today which is literally right next to my house.  This is a picture of it.  I mainly put it up for you guys that have been to China.  The food was great but not what we had in our City because the food's from a different region.

Oh, and another thing.  I had some sore on my gum that I noticed Sunday or Monday after I got here, and it got progressively worse so that it hurt to eat or drink.  I started googling  and it's a mouth ulcer that is caused by a number of things, but usually stress.  So, that whole week before I left where my stomach was in knots has created a mouth ulcer.  They tend to last 7-10 days and I can already feel it healing, but I just wanted to tell everyone that leaving you caused a lot of stress and I miss you terribly.