Hi! This past week was pretty laid back. I had a few cancelled classes due to final exam review and swine flu vaccinations so my week was pretty easy. I also let half my classes watch a movie (in English of course) because I know they're stressed about finals, and I figured I'd give them a break.
Had a dinner one night with some of the people in the Dongducheon area - we love to get together when we can and cook "normal" meals. Korean food is good, but its kind of boring. We're used to it by now, but we also miss the diversity of all of the yummy things we can get back home, so we like to have Indian, or Italian, or Mexican food nights. Mmm!
Friday I went to Seoul with Sara and her mom and Rebecca. She got a hotel room for us again, and took us out for Indian food. So nice! The hotel was in an area of Seoul I've never been, and now its probably a bad thing that I know about it because there's a pretty sweet mall there. Oops. The hotel was in Seoul Times Square, which is a relatively newer area from what I hear. It was really nice though. We just spent the night hanging out in the hotel and being lazy.
Yeongdeungpo Station
Rebecca and the sweet sweatshirt we found - "stold my love". Who is Tom???
Hotel and shopping center at Seoul Times Square
View from the hotel room
Saturday we took Sara's mom to see Deoksugung Palace, Gwanghwamun Square, and Gyeongbokgung Palace. Gwanghwamun, which usually has fountains and flowers, was set up for Seoul's Snow Jam. They basically brought in a bunch of fake snow, since it doesn't really snow here, and set up a small area for children to sled down. There was also a big ski/snowboard jump for a show they put on later that day, and an ice skating rink. It was a bright, sunny, and relatively warm day, so some of the ice rink was melting. I'm sure all of you back home weren't having that problem!
Seoul Plaza
Sledding for the little ones
Skating in Gwanghwamun Square
Which, by the way, I'm so disappointed I wasn't in Madison for all the excitement that happened last week with the giant snowball being left in the middle of University, the massive snowball fight on Bascom Hill...and of course the DAY OFF SCHOOL. Since when does UW cancel classes? There were blizzards when I went there too and never a single cancelled class. I'm mad.
Haechi
Gyeongbokgung Entrance
Gyeongbokgung
Pagoda picture (the winter version - we'll eventually have one of all 4 seasons)
Anyway...after the palace I left them and came to Uijeongbu. I went out with my friends John and Q and Rachel and then we met up with some of our friends from South Africa, Mieke and Werner. We went to a great little Korean restaurant that after we had stuffed ourselves to the max, and drank ourselves drunk, we each ended up paying around $8. Unbelievable how cheap things are here. After dinner we were off to the noraebang for a few hours of ear-splitting drunken singing. We even threw in a few Christmas carols. As much as I love going out in Seoul, some of my favorite nights have been just hanging out in our obscure little Korean towns doing random things.
This week is finals and so I'm spending my week skyping everyone and watching American TV shows online. Yay. I got to leave school early today and went to a teacher's house with some of the other teachers for lunch. So nice!
Christmas is about a week and a half away yet it just doesn't feel like the holidays here. Its true, there's lights up everywhere, but there's no snow. I feel like I've always had a white Christmas, and this year I definitely won't. Sort of sad. But we do have some holiday activities planned, since none of us will be with our families.
What else? Not much to say I guess. Pay day is Thursday, which means this weekend will be much more fun than this past one :)
Here's your K-Pop update. This song is by CL and Minzy (from 2NE1) and its called Please Don't Go. There's no actual video for it that I can find, except for live performance versions, so this link is just for the song.
Also, have you guys seen this video of the little boy playing the ukulele and singing "I'm Yours"? Its freaking adorable you need to watch it!
I really thought I had more to say...but I guess I don't. Sorry. Hopefully next week I will be more interesting. Bye!
"It is not down in any map; true places never are." --Herman Melville
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