Living with Elaine in Pyeongtaek..... What an adventure!!

I would have to say my experience with living Elaine has been quite an adventure....

Some highlights:
1. almost poisoned her and made her throw up all night.  I accidentally sprayed bed mite spray with cinnamon n the hotel bed.  I forgot she is sickly allergic to any form of cinnamon.  Oops.

2. She took me to the by the Osan military base and showed me where the Filipino "juicy" girls worked in the bars.

3.  She took me to the  downtown Pyeongtaek area where the Korean prostitutes were displayed in glass windows like mannequins while Korean only men took their pick and were solicited down this entire strip.  I also discovered that a barber shop pole does not mean you can cut your hair there!!  It means that prostitutes are in and working when the pole is on!!  Oh my!!  We were lurking in the night so we could discretely capture these pictures without getting caught!

4.  almost poisoned poor Elaine a second time.  I was preparing my clothes with permethrin (solution to fend off the malaria mosquitos in India) and spraying them on her back porch.  Her face accidentally touched solution and her nose started to burn!!  She was in the bathroom rinsing her face off for 10 minutes.  I'm so sorry Elaine.

5.  I decorated her apartment and bought her the most amazing new curtains to make her feel more at home and update her pad.  Yes, I actually paid for this beautiful fabric rather than finding it on the street! :)

6.  Got sick this morning but I don't know if it's from inhaling that crazy mosquito repellent or from drinking soju (a clear, distilled alcohol beverage native to Korea ) or was it the Hite Beer (#1 top selling golden beer in Korea) with our delicious Korean BBQ!!  Yummy!

7.  The best is scavenging the streets and picking up furniture for her fellow teachers for their apartments!  The teachers move here with absolutely nothing in their apartment.  New furniture is so outrageous and not affordable with a modest teacher salary so they are left to be creative and just recycle furniture that is often left on the street.

During my 6 day stay in Pyeongtaek, my friend Elaine had managed to find a mattress bed, a box spring, a desk with a glass table cover, and a shelf for her fellow teachers who had no furniture at all.  Elaine also had absolutely no furniture 3 months ago.  I have to say that her apartment is quite lovely and cozy considering everything piece of furniture was either a hand me down from a teacher who left or found on her local street corner.