Breaking the Language Barrier

The last couple of days have proved challenging, and at times frustrating, for me when trying to accomplish simple tasks. For example, purchasing a phone card was a three hour event yesterday. Finally today, with some guidance from Gareth I have found a phone card that will work for more then 5 minutes to Canada.
A friend of mine told me last night that she considers her motto in Korea to be "three times a charm"...it takes her three times before she can get anything done....give directions to the taxi driver, find something specific, or in my case, purchase an international phone card.
Anyways, I had lunch with my director today, Mr. Lee. He seems like a very patient man with a good sense of humor...especially when I dropped some pumpkin pancake into the soup (damn chopsticks!).
Gareth, Andy, Julie and Anna were also there for lunch. Looks like my cell phone will be ready next week.Horray!
After lunch., I attempted (for the second time) to locate a temple called Jeonggwangsa. Not surprisingly, since it was only my second attempt, I did not find the temple. I had a tourist map, which seems to be not so accurate with its distances, and no one I asked could understand me well enough to know what I was talking about.
So I wandered down along the river for the second day in a row, meandering through side streets, getting a better feel for the city.
Tomorrow is Gareth's last day, I will be going with him to classes. Not really any teaching going on, it is Market Day at the school. The children get to cash in the stickers they receive for good work in exchange for pencils, candy etc. Should be a fun day - I will keep you posted.
Colleen