Korea! The first 24+ hour day

Hey guys! To say today has been weird is a bit of an understatement. Yesterday, aka Thursday, I went to the airport at the buttcrack of dawn to start my journey to Asia! There was nothing terribly special about my first flight, which was from Dulles to San Francisco. From there I hopped on a plane to Seoul. Let me tell you, when they say Airbus, they mean Airbus. There were so many people on the plane! I prayed that I would get to sit next to a cute oppa but I guess God had better things to do because I was sitting next to an ajhussi (older man) who smelled like car tires and kept reaching over to imperiously open the shade on the window. He also was taking pictures of the guy sitting on the other side of him without that guy knowing. So, creepy. 

(Dulles Airport's architecture is AWESOME.)

(Classy airplane wine. Complimentary!)

I made it safely into Seoul and managed to find an ATM too! I'm still getting used to won-- one dollar is 1,016 won, give or take, so I've offered people 10 times what I owed them twice now, since I'm convinced that 10,000 won is about 1 dollar. I tried to pay for my 4,000 won soup with 40,000 won and the nice lady was like "yeah, no, little girl." Also while putting my new currency in my wallet I took out the 1,000 yen in there. Some dude saw it and just kept saying "Watashi" at me, which is "I/me" in Japanese. Needless to say I got out of there fast.

(Korean won)

Now I am currently ensconced in my hostel, which is in Hongdae, the artsy/college-y/hip district in Seoul. Walking through the neighborhood was pretty neat and I ventured out for some dinner at a place that had an English menu. Here is my dinner, spicy seafood ramyun (ramen).

Eating with metal chopsticks is a lot harder than it looks, since these were slightly flattened. (FYI I do know how to use chopsticks). I then headed to the nearby convenience store, to get some more to eat since my ramen was a little too spicy. I also had the dumb idea of picking up eye makeup remover even though I don't speak or read Korean. So, that was a basic fail. I did however pick up: SNACKS! Got some dried squid, which was delicious if a bit sweeter than the kind I'm used to (I'm a snob) and THIS 

... Which was my guilty pleasure in Japan. It's like the ice cream version of taiyaki-- waffle outside, vanilla ice cream and red bean. Red bean is delicious, if an acquired taste. Here I am pigging out on this. 

I also got mystery tea that tastes like bread. My guess was terrible, I was hoping for oolong. 

And now I might be going out with some new hostel friends! 

Byeee