Mama Mia!! And pasta

So I slept in a little later today -- 8:45! Wowza! After breakfast, I lounged around and did some travel research on my computer and took it easy. This afternoon I went to see Mama Mia in the theater in the "old downtown" area of our city -- I had never been there before -- with Seiko, the Japanese teacher actually from Japan. She is suuuuper nice! I hope we can hang out more! :-D Anyway, the movie was alright -- part of me really wanted to love it, but part of me really wanted to hate it. So I think it was both good and bad, but on different levels. After the movie we walked around the area, which is apparently where all the good shopping is! We went into 1 store and I found a scarf and 2 shirts I really liked, but didn't buy any of them. The shirts probably wouldn't fit me and the scarf was too expensive -- 29,000 won. Clothes tend to be more expensive here than my cheap taste! :-P And you aren't allowed to try on clothes, so I'm hesitant about buying anything. After the movie I came back home and cooked wagon wheel pasta for my host family! I sauteed garlic, onion, and mushroom to add to the sauce. It was decent -- at home it's better because I use italian sausage, whereas this didn't have any meat whatsoever. The garlic bread, however, was amazing. I just made toast and then had sauteed tiny pieces of garlic I mixed in with the butter and then spread on the bread -- YUM! My host brothers loved it. My host mom said she would make it more often (yay!) and for breakfast on the weekends, which is when we usually have toast (not so yay! -- garlic bread for breakfast? Koreans typically eat the same food for breakfast as they would for any other meal). Anyway, tonight I've been helping Ike look for some grad programs to apply to -- it's tough because he's not real sure on what kind of program he wants to enter -- history, international studies, asian studies, public policy, etc. We'll figure it out soon, though, hopefully. I also had some very political discussions with my host family about Japanese-Korea relations, N-S Korea relations, foreign opinion of US, etc. Interesting stuff -- but I think they get frustrated when I ask questions or play devil's advocate, but I think it's good for them, and I think they are realizing that too. Anyhoo, off to bed before a busy week ahead of me -- teaching and preparing for JAPAN!! WOOO! :-D