Entry: The Third

Well, orientation is done and I'm currently in my apartment in Gurye County, putting my life together piece by piece. Before I put together a post on that however, I'll just finish up with some of the last bits of my orientation session in Gwangju. All in all it seemed as though everyone was growing a bit restless, though the regular meals and a place to come back to after a night in town was nice. One of the final major things we did during orientation was a trip to a bamboo forest somewhere outside of Gwangju.

There's not a whole lot to see in a bamboo forest besides bamboo and the occasional panda bear statue with uncomfortably human facial features:

There were a few buildings dispersed here and there however, some with foot massagers for some reason.

So that was the Sunday, with two traditional Korean meals thrown in, one including an incident with a hot pepper that reduced me to a crying, snotting, sweating (somehow more than usual) shadow of a man. I tried to play it off, hold up a conversation, maybe pretend like I had planned it all along. It didn't work really. On the upside I found solace in a bottle of traditional rice wine called makgeolli. It's got some light carbonation and a milky sort of consistency, and it's dirt cheap. I bought another bottle later on for about $1.50. Actually, shopping for your own food here is pretty expensive, but liquor in all its shapes and forms is unbelievably cheap. Making alcohol my main source of nutrition may prove to be the wisest financial move I've made in years.