the foreigners club

It is a miserable day outside today. Very rainy and foggy - I can't even see the mountain across the bay from our apartment.


I went to the Foreigners Club - http://www.gfra.net/home - this morning for the women’s coffee. After arriving here, I have realized that the website is a little outdated, especially with the activities. But I enjoyed looking at it prior to arriving. The Foreigners Club is housed in a building right down the hill from me. There are various businesses housed in the building. There is the Okpo Mart, which is a small supermarket that I go to pick up milk and other staples if I need them for the week. The Epicurean is a bakery that sells fresh baked bread and baguettes. They also have a changing array of refrigerated American and European food items like different cheeses, salami, etc. I bought some sour cream there one time. There is also the DSME store (DSME stands for Daewoo Shipbuilding Marine Engineering – more on that another time). It also sells different food items – I have bought things like flour tortillas, Crisco (to bake with) and dill pickles. You definitely pay a price for these items – around $3 for a package of 12 tortillas to $6-7 for a block of cheese. But it is worth it some of the time.


Back to the businesses. There is also a small wine store, a daycare, a barber and a few other places I don’t know about. And the Foreigners Club. It is basically a big room with a bar on one end and a kitchen on the other end. They have a lunch menu that Ken and I have frequented a few times. It can be a bit British at times with curries and mincemeat pie. However, we did have the fish and chips once and it was good. They also are open in the evenings but we have not gone during that time. The coffee morning is not a real organized sort of thing. You just donate a dollar (1,000 won) and sometimes different women bring something baked. It seems to vary on who is there week to week. I have enjoyed meeting a variety of women. Today I mainly talked to 2 women from Sugar Land (!!!) and another woman from Germany. I would say that Americans are usually the minority, British and Norwegians seem to be the norm. There is also a small library of books in the back that you can use. I think you just bring one and then you can take one – the honor system I guess.


Tomorrow morning I will be heading back for my first Korean brushstroke class. I will let you know how that goes!