cell phones

first of all, who is bear who commented? i would like to know and i couldn't figure it out.

on monday we all bought cell phones. this is mine:my roommate and i bought the cheapest one possible. =) i couldn't think of any reason to get a fancier one. this one cost about $40. a couple people bought ones that were slightly more expensive than this one, but still pretty cheap. one girl, however, bought a white and pink heart slider phone that plays music, takes pictures, and even has a pet she can take care of. she is super excited about it and it's pretty funny. according to our principal, that phone could cook dinner for her. she will not live down that phone, or all the stuff she bought today when we went shopping either. my roommate and i had one regular bag each, and our dish drainer that wouldn't fit in the bag. she had 3 large bags plus 2 *huge* mattress pads (the mattresses here are kind of hard).

anyway, back to cell phones. i'm not sure how much it's going to cost for the minutes, but i know not as much as i was paying in the US. the interesting thing about phones here is that texting is not separate from minutes. so it costs to send a text however long it actually takes to send it after you type it in--so pretty cheap. for this reason, the foreigners here i know text a lot because it's cheaper than calling someone. in the US, i *never* texted unless i had to, because it wasn't part of my plan and it added up fast! i even admit i thought texting was pretty silly for the most part. why not just call someone? well, here there is actually a reason, and a good one--it's cheaper not to call! which i think is a good reason. therefore, i now text. i never thought i'd see the day...

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in general it's been a good past few days. we walked all over the area near where we live yesterday and found some fun restaurants and stores. i know a little bit better how to get around now. at some point i will walk some places by myself to prove it. tonight some of us are going to a noodle shop by ourselves (without someone who has been here for more than 4 days), so that may be a story to tell later. we were exhausted after walking so much yesterday, but jetlag is much better now. i think i'm pretty much adjusted since yesterday since i went to bed at 11:30 PM and i wasn't struggling to keep my eyes open before that like i was the past few days.

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one random thing i saw today that i thought was fun--paddle boats in the mall!! (the blue things in the water) little boys were madlly driving them around.