So, as we all know in the Nolan family, June is the month of unending birthdays. Well, it seems that's just the way it is in the rest of the world too.
June 1st was Lizzie's birthday, June 2nd was Kyla's birthday and June 6th was yours truly and Emilee's birthday. Yay! Another birthday buddy! (There were several other June birthdays that popped up on my Facebook news feed, but these four are the only ones that matter in this post)
So, since Kyla and Lizzie's birthdays were so close, we thought about doing a combined celebration. But, they didn't want to do the same things, so we didn't do that. Instead, I went with Lizzie to the orphanage and surprised her with a cake and the orphans sang her happy birthday. Then we went shopping afterwards. It was pretty fun. I think she enjoyed it.
Kyla and the other two girls went to this beach somewhere south of Gunsan but came back in the evening and we all met up for dinner and went to TLC afterwards. It was really fun.
Birthday with the orphans! That cake was really yummy, I picked a good one! :) (The guy is Justin, my friend from Buan that reminds me of Mikey. He came to hang out that weekend.)
Then, the next weekend it was mine and Emilee's birthday. We also wanted to do different things (since our original plan of going to Jeju didn't work out" so we decided to celebrate together on Wednesday and then do our own things on our actual birthday (Thursday) we all had Thursday and Friday off of work too because Thursday was a national holiday and we had planned on going to Jeju so we all took Friday off. So we were pumped for our 4 day weekend.
So, Wednesday we went and got Chinese food at this place that Emilee recommended. It was really good! Then we went to TLC afterwards and I was surprised with a cake from Lizzie and Billy did a fire shot for me. (but the fire on his hand went out right as he spit the alcohol, so the blowing fire trick didn't work! Sad! He felt so bad, it was so funny!)
Birthday Buddies!! So glad I got to share my day with another special girl!!
Birthday cake!" Buu-ing Buu-ing!" (I look rather like an owl don't I?)
But after all that, the fun was just beginning for me!! On Thursday, my actual birthday, I went to Deajon to see Yura and Ara (who live in Deajon) and Eunju came all the way from Busan to meet up with us too! I decided to get to the terminal early, just to make sure I wouldn't miss my bus. So I ended up getting there almost an hour beforehand. It turns out that Kyla, who should have been on a bus with the other girls to Wando (the place that Emilee decided she wanted to go to for her birthday) was also just getting to the bus terminal and had missed her bus. So we got some coffee and talked while we waited for our buses.
Public places seem to attract crazy people. Almost inevitably at a train, or bus, or subway station you will see at least 1 homeless person or crazy person. Well, Gunsan's bus terminal is no exception. As Kyla and I were minding our own business, as usual, this very dirty and obviously either homeless or mentally unstable man kept walking up and down from one end of the terminal to the other. (It's not that big, it just has a long hallway type thing) After a few minutes he stops in front of us and starts talking to us in English. We were both really surprised since he was older and didn't seem like he would know English at all. But he did. And he kept talking to us. Then he would walk up and down again, then stop and talk to us again. The things he asked were so weird. He asked if Kyla was my girlfriend (what?) and then asked me if I was a dentist (WHAT?) he asked me if my water was cold (obviously it was since I had just gotten it out of the machine and there was condensation.) so I told him yes. And then he just stood there for a minute...then walked off. It was so weird and Kyla and I would just look at each other and mouth "what??" every time he stopped and asked us a weird question. Anyway, thankfully our buses came around the same time and we headed off to our respective destinations.
So, Deajon. I loved it there. The girls came and met me at the bus station and we were all so excited to be together again that we seemed like high school girls. We chattered and giggled so badly in the the taxi that the driver asked us to be quiet (which kind of killed our mood, but whatever. Mean taxi driver)
We went to lunch, shopped a little and took sticker pictures (refer to the obviously anime type pictures below and you'll know what they are. The little ones that I have are actual stickers. So I need to find something that I can stick them to. Any suggestions?)
Then we dropped my stuff off at Ara's aunt's house where we would be staying for the weekend, and then went to an amusement park. I've always wanted to go to a Korean amusement park because I've heard they are really fun. I wasn't disappointed. The park was called "O world" and it had rides, a safari, and a big flower garden. We went on the safari and saw lions, tigers, bears, giraffes, elephants, zebras and some other African animals. We were in these buses with huge windows and drove though the enclosure, so we got to see everything really close up! The bears even came and stood up with their paws up against the windows. It was awesome! We rode some rides and saw a short 3-D movie, and just had an absolute blast. We were too tired to see the flower garden, so we left and got some dinner where I was surprised again by another cake. It was so fun. Yura went back to her house while Eunju, Ara and I went back to Ara's aunts house. Ara's aunt is the sweetest lady and when she found out that it was my birthday, she made us all some Papbingsoo (a traditional Korean treat with shaved ice and fruit and some candied rice cakes) and by this time, it was like 1am, but that didn't phase her at all. It was awesome.
It's Deajon! We're Here!!!!!!
Waiting to for a photo booth to open up so we could take our sticker pictures! 
STICKER PICTURES!!! (We look like Anime girls don't we? I love it!!)
In front of "O World". Yay! I was so excited to go in!
Riding the rides! This one was actually really scary...I haven't been on a drop ride in so long! (We're smiling because we're going up...we were all hysterically laughing from nerves after we got down.)
We found a HUGE post box! Too bad I didn't have a letter to send!
On the Safari ride! Having fun!!
I found a giraffe!
Haha, playing on the baby rides...
Riding the Carousel! 
Acting cool in our 3-D glasses... for an 8 minute kids movie about a penguin that goes up against Poseidon.
Birthday Cake! So sweet of those girls! We also got some free food from the restaurant. And the cake was absolutely delicious! It was a blueberry cream cheese cake. Yum!
The next day we went to a temple in the mountains and walked around and played in the mountain stream. There was a "water fountain" which was a dragon head coming out of the side of one of the walls and a stream of water was coming out of it's mouth. Pretty cool. But there were these communal plastic dippers hanging up on the side that people could use to drink the water with. All of the Koreans did it, but I wasn't about to touch those things. Right before the girls drank, there was a group of ajummas that used them...I'm sorry, I'm not about to used a rinsed plastic thing that's not only been used by who know how many people, but that's put back up against a stone wall so that all the bugs crawling on it can get their germs on it to. No. Thank. You. But, aside from that, everything else was great. Then we went back to town for dinner and just hung out the rest of the evening.
Lunch at the temple...not sure what some of these things were, but it was pretty good! 
One of the temple views
One of the temples (there were a few actually)
At the temple!
Playing in the water!
Waiting at the bus stop!
Waiting at the bus stop!
I had decided recently that I really wanted to get a perm because summer humidity just makes my hair crazy and I remember the headache I went through in China trying to figure out a way to make it behave. I didn't want to do that again. So I decided to just make it curly since it wants to do that anyway. I didn't want to get a perm in Gunsan because I don't really trust a city this small to have a good hairdresser that can do non-Asian hair...plus I needed someone that I could explain what kind of curl I wanted and translate correctly, so I asked Ara and Eunju if they could take me before I went back to Gunsan on Saturday. We went, and I was nervous, but I think it turned out okay! Its a little curlier than I wanted, but the curls have fallen a bit, so its better now. But, this was the finished product!
So as you can see, I look a bit like Shirley Temple, but that's okay, my hair will grow out a bit and then I won't look so much like a kid...but for the time being, I'll just have to deal with it. :)
So, that was my birthday weekend and nothing interesting has happened since then except that I've found a place to do ceramics and I saw this thing hanging up at a shop. I'm sorry Korea, but no matter how much you try to bling it up, its still just fanny pack, and they will never be cool.
AH! Oh yes! So, crazy story for the day! (No, the crazy man at the bus terminal wasn't it)
So, last week Emilee and I were coming home from girls night at Laura's house. We were waiting at the bus stop minding our own business, when we see a lady walking up with a bunch of weeds in her hand. Not really that unusual as ajummas are always picking weeds off the side of the road. But she seemed a bit too young for that. A few seconds later she leans over to me and says "your watch is very beautiful!" I of course say thank you, and keep minding my own business. Then she asks what time it is, so I tell her. I had this really strange feeling that this had happened before. The whole situation felt a little strange somehow, Emilee and I didn't really know what it was...then I remembered that we had been in an almost identical situation like this on our second day in Gunsan. I reminded Emilee of that and we both laughed because it was so similar. So, we were kind of laughing about it as we got on the bus. The lady got on the bus too and sat a few seats ahead of us. About 5 mins later she turns around and says "Where are you from?" We tell her America, and she says, "You lied, you told me were from Oklahoma." We were both absolutely shocked. She had only asked us for the time at the bus stop. We had never said that at all. Then it dawned on us.
*Flashback*
Our second day in Gunsan, Emilee and I had gone exploring and found an Emart Everyday (the equivalent to a Walmart neighborhood market) and done some grocery shopping. As we were waiting for the bus back home, this lady leans over to Emilee and says "your watch is very beautiful!" and then asks what time it is. We were both surprised because the lady was a bit older, not quite an ajumma, but still, older and we wouldn't have suspected that she could speak English. But she did, and she kept talking to us for about 15 minutes, asking us where were were from, why we were here and whatnot. The usual stuff. We were both weirded out because she was just strange. Her voice was weird; kind of high and childlike and she was just...weird! Finally her bus came and she left, and we just took a taxi home since we hadn't figured out the buses yet.
It was the same lady.
SO CRAZY!!
She was a bit offended since we didn't remember her, but of course Emilee and I didn't remember what she looked like since it had been about 3 months ago that this happened! And, we've been living our lives. So many strangers come up and talk to us that we can't remember everyone on sight. But after we realized it was the same crazy lady from before, we definitely remembered her. We couldn't believe that we ran into her again and she recognized us. I had had longer straight hair then and now I had short curly hair, and Emilee had changed her hair too. I guess it is easier to remember a foreigner, but the fact that she remembered that we were from Oklahoma (which we don't remember telling her, but I guess we did) really weirded us out. Anyway, it was just really strange and we were both thoroughly creeped out for the second but it was funny as well.
So, I'm sorry this post is so long! I really should update more often so its not so long, but I do what I can. Anyway, hope you enjoyed it!
Have a great day! Monsoon season just started here and it came with a huge thunderstorm and torrential rain on the first day...haha, a taste of things to come.
Talk to you later! ~TWGA
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