Shopping in Myeongdong

I had today off of work for Korean Movement Day. This marks the day that Korea started to resist the occupation of Japan in the Korean Empire. Molly and I both did a horrible job of packing with too many work clothes and not enough going out clothes so we decided shopping was a must. Luckily a girl from school, Ashlee, needed to go as well so she was kind enough to act as our tour guide for the experience. We went to Myeongdong, which is like the area for foreigners to go shopping including some American stores that we would actually fit into the clothes. We spent the bulk of the day in H&M and Forever 21. Both of these stores were 4 to 5 stories of clothes so it was a bit overwhelming. Also in Korea a lot of the clothes run small, which was not a good thing. I went in a shoe store and found out the hard way that not only do the clothes run small but so do the shoes. The whole store did not even have a shoe that would be big enough for me. It made me feel like a giant but I mean I just wear a size 8 1/2. I didn't even think I wouldn't be able to find shoes. Luckily H&M did carry bigger shoes so I bought two pairs because not only did I do a bad job of packing clothes but also did not bring the most comfortable shoes, which is not a good thing with all the walking I do here. It was good that we got clothes, but this experience was not for me. This area is like 2 main streets with multiple side streets of stores, so pretty much an outdoor mall. There were SO many people and you were literally shoulder to shoulder walking down the streets with people constantly pushing and bumping into you. I am a big fan of some personal space and this just doesn't exist in a lot of the areas here. We did have a wonderful lunch. It is very Korean style to share everything at your table so the 3 of us all got different things and we split them all. We had chicken tenders and chips, a pork cutlet with orange sauce, a crab omelet (the omelet was filled with rice) and mushroom walnut soup. This restaurant was very Americanized with menus in English, our waiter speaking English and even FORKS... yes I said it I used a fork for the first time in 2 weeks. So the food experience of today was wonderful but the shopping experience.... not so much. Ashlee informed us the time to go is around 10:00 am which is when the traffic is not so bad. Now I am back at home and exhausted from a full day of shopping. Tomorrow we go back to school and have training for the final time in the morning and our elementary students come in the afternoon so I will start teaching tomorrow afternoon. I am so excited and I'm sure I will update tomorrow and let you know how the first day of teaching went!