the craziness of my thursday (the day that never ended)

thursdays have, by the very nature of our rather dull schedules, fast become the highlight of the ANCA teachers' week. we finish our drab job and then we go into town to first eat dinner somewhere and then we go grocery shopping, usually at Megamart (not quite as exciting as it sounds, i'm sure).
yesterday's thursday was by far the best thursday i've had yet in korea.
it was a very long day.
here is how my day unfolded, and unfolded, and unfolded....

1. yesterday, the teachers did our usual. we all went for pizza this week. i tried to order a sweet potato pizza, which is the absolute korean favorite (and i've yet to have it), but we accidently got potato pizza, minus the sweet. which, wasn't bad, but sort of like eating a baked potato on a pizza. or maybe more like eating oven roasted potato wedges on a pizza.

2. then we went grocery shopping. nothing really too great here. i did buy toothpaste though.

3. we arrived to our apartments a bit before 8 pm. i immediately went up to my next-door-church-neighbor-friends; two adorable kids (jonathan and timmy) father, mother (daniel and ella...i named ella myself) and aunt (katie...the same katie who makes up a third of my korean posse, who i named as well).

I was using them for their oven.
yes, i certainly need to pause and explain something here. some of you are aware of this, others were like me prior to living in korea. it is uncommon, in fact rare, to have an oven in korea. i brought a brownie mix in my suitcase back in september, thinking it would come in handy for a "i miss america" moment. instead, it's been sitting in my oven-less kitchen for 7 months.

So, i arrived to their house with brownie mix in hand, admittedly a bit nervous because, i haven't baked for 7 months and, i soon realized that, though there is an oven in her house, ella hasn't baked much either. we set the oven and then found a few small "oven proof" containers to bake.
shockingly, or rather, against all odds, the brownies turned out to be quite perfect.
(after all they'd been through, i was kinda proud of them)

4. Then...as the brownies baked, my posse showed up (Esther, Eunice and Katie) and we (along with Ella) prepared for our 10 pm departure to Seoul's Dongdaemun Market, "the market that never sleeps" by consuming as much coffee as is humanly possible. We arrived to Seoul at around 11 pm, drinking coffee and eating brownies the whole way there.
We spent from around 11pm-2 am in the Doota Mall, near the market where, much to my waistline's embarrassment, my posse proved determined to find me a pair of jeans in Korea that actually fit. And, after trying 25 pairs (this is no exaggeration) and 2 hours later...I found a pair that I bought. Unbelievable. You must remember that we are in the land of the size 4 woman here.

5. Then, at around 2 am, we entered the Dongdaemun Market.
Now, I have virtually no idea who these people are that fill the market at 3 am on a friday morning looking at Adidas knock offs, Calvin Klein underwear and pirated DVDs, nor do i have any idea who these vendors are who decide to be awake to sell things to the people who are walking through the market at 3 am. But, the people were certainly there. I mean, this outdoor market was buzzing with people like it was Saturday afternoon or something (minus the sun, of course).

It was intriguing, it was beautiful, it was bizarre.

At around 2:30 am, we decided we were hungry. That happens at 2:30 am. So, we sat down at one of the 50 food vendors and ordered an array of spicy wonderfulness.
duckbukee, mando, soondae, soup. yummy.

We finished up the food, shopped a bit more and then headed back to the car at around 3:15. we were home at around 4:15am... i was in bed for a few short hours and then off to my friday of teaching. teaching deliriously, but teaching none-the-less.

going to the market, combined with baking brownies, may have easily been the most fun day i've had in korea yet. pretty dang fun. and certainly worth the market hangover i've got today.