Today I decided I needed a sick day. I have 15 paid sick days to take, but I know I will never use all of them. Anyways, I called Jiny and Mrs. Kim last night and told them that I wasn't going to be able to make it in to work on Monday because I wasn't feeling well after the Island trip. They were concerned for me and I felt bad lying to them, but some days you just need a PTO day. I woke up at 7:00 a.m. and headed to Yeonsu-dong to pick up my running shoes at Tracy's and then I headed to the gym for a work-out. I really enjoy going to the gym, but with the temperatures rising here in Korea the gym is a sweathouse. They don't turn the air conditioning on, there are no fans on and opening the windows just allows the dust to filter in along with the sweltering heat of outside. I'm usually sweating before my work-out even begins, because it is that hot in there.
After the gym I headed to Lotte Mart to pick up some household essentials. I bought a much needed shoe rack to get all my shoes out of the entrance way and to organize them better. I bought a mop because I really needed to clean my floors in depth. I also bought wipes for my swiffer, some tape, and white board and dry erase markers and some glow-in-the-dark stars for my ceiling. Here is a picture of my beautiful new shoe rack I put together myself and all my beautiful shoes.
As soon as I got home I got right down to the cleaning. I swept the floor and then I mopped the floor. It was so dusty and it's so hard to keep my apartment clean here in Korea because of all the dust. I forgot that I left my window open all weekend while I was on the Island, so when I got home my window ledge was dusty, my toaster, hair straightner, blow dryer, etc. It was pretty disgusting and I couldn't wait for it to be clean. I basically spent the entire day cleaning my apartment top to bottom.
I did take a couple of breaks. The first one was to go buy a box at the post office, so I could finally mail my gifts for family and friends home. Then my second break was to drop my comforter off at the dry cleaners to be cleaned (it hasn't been cleaned in the three months I've been here...Gross!) and to drop my parcel off at the post office. I paid about 50,000 won to have the parcel mailed home to Canada, but it was worth it and they will get it within 15-20 days. I'm excited to hear the reactions to the gifts I bought everyone.
I got a phone call around 2:30 p.m. from Mrs. Kim letting me know that her and Jiny were going to be stopping by after school around 5:00 p.m. to check on me. I was a bit concerned because I wasn't really sick. I just put my pajamas on, put my cleaning stuff away, wrinkled the bed sheets, turned the lights off and left the TV on a low volume, so they would think I did nothing but sleep and watch TV all day. They arrived about 15 minutes later than they said they were going to. Jiny brought me some Traditional Korean Porridge that is apparently really good for you to eat if you are sick. It actually didn't taste that bad and now I have enough to last me a lifetime.
After they left I finished cleaning the rest of my floor and went to the corner store to buy some juice and ice cream. I have never seen my apartment look so clean and I feel so much better being barefoot and hanging out in it now. It even smells cleaner. I would like to think that I'm Ms. Clean as of this moment. I'm hoping to be able to keep up with the cleanliness of my apartment, so I don't need to go to such lengths to get it clean next time. I don't regret faking a sick day to clean because I hardly ever have free time on weekends to clean and those are my weekends. I don't want to clean on the weekend. I will be returning to work tomorrow and I'm actually quite excited to see what this week has in store for me.
Just thought I would take pictures of my growing Korean shoe collection. Here are the 4 pairs of shoes I have purchased thus far in just the 3 months I've been here.
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