From Daniel...
and Tiger...
and especially Ha Jin. LOOK how enthused this child is about christmas!
And Nina, who made the lovely wreath on top of the Christmas tree (which we made from hand cut outs!).
And even squirmy Lily...
And finally May. Possibly the sweetest child in the world.
Wow, it's been awhile since I last posted- I'm sorry!
I've actually been flat on my back with the flu and laryngitis this week. I'd post some pictures, but they wouldn't be pretty- I haven't showered in awhile. Anyways, I finally feel like I'm on the mend and I'll be able to make it to school for the kids' Christmas Concert on Monday! They are all so cute, we've been having practices and they are so enthusiastic. Very sweet.
I thought since I had my first experience being really sick in Korea I'd give you all a run down on what hospitals and doctors are like here. On Thursday my neck was sore and my throat was killing me. The pediatrician in my neighbourhood didn't examine me or anything, he just looked at my throat and said "common cold". He gave me a prescription for three days- they only give you three day prescriptions here which sucks if you're ill for more than three days. Anyway, I thought nothing of it and went to bed.
The next morning I could barely get up- my whole body was just in so much pain, and my throat was so sore I couldn't even talk. I lasted about an hour at work before going home to bed. The next morning I felt even worse and decided it was time to go to the hospital. In Suwon, we have a great hospital that has a clinic especially for foreigners- all of the doctors speak English, and it makes for a less stressful visit for sure, since when you're sick and so far from home all you want to do is leave Korea (I won't lie! I was worried that I had meningitis or something, but I'm neurotic like that). Anyways, I didn't have an appointment so I wasn't sure if I would get seen... but they took one look at me at the foreigner's clinic and said if I waited I would eventually get to see a doctor. Fine by me, since I spent the whole time sleeping anyway. First they sent me to the community health section, where I waited for half an hour before spending 30 seconds with the doctor who then sent me to the ear, throat, and nose specialist, where I waited another half hour before seeing the doctor. He took one look at me and said "laryngitis"... literally two minutes later he had written me a prescription and had me on my way. Again, I was super worried because he didn't even examine me, but there was no reason to be. He was totally right.
Time for another nap. I've never gotten winded typing before!
These very long posters are now everywhere I go. Frankly, there are too many people running for president... I couldn't even get the entire poster in the picture! There are 12 potentials, I believe, but about 9 or 10 of them don't matter anyway- it's still pretty much down to Chung and Lee. From a non-partisan perspective, my money's on Lee. Just watch him win the election. I would still love to be proved wrong, he's too much of a righty for my taste.
Anyways, I would just like to rant a little bit about how the Korean people are royally screwed over by having too many political parties and too many guys running for president. Yeah, everyone has their favourite, yeah, everyone's going to vote for the one they like the most, yeah, democracy is great, yadda yadda yadda. The point of the matter is, there won't be a true majority winner because everyone's votes will be scattered all over the place and while maybe 20% of the population wants one guy to win, there's another 80% that does not want that guy to win. It doesn't seem fair. I know there's the same deal in Canada, but it's on a smaller scale- a larger percentage is guaranteed (not that I'm giving Canadadian political parties a pat on the back; I dislike all of them). Anyway, we'll see what happens in a week when the people go to the polls. At least Lee's name has been cleared (conveniently) in the fraud scandal he was involved in. Sigh. I shouldn't care so much.
You can have a beer or two... or seven...
And enjoy the ambience. The writing's on the wall...
Timeless. Too appropriate.
Someone has an obsession.
Straight outta 1992.
Kim got the extensions she's wearing for her wedding shipped in today, but we wouldn't let her put them away until we had a little fun first.
Wrong colour, right length! I want my hair to grow, stat. 
For Enda? Right colour, but so, so wrong in every other way.
Last Sunday, while shopping around for Kim's wedding dress, we failed to find a place to eat near the Wedding Street (although we found out later that if we had walked a mere block towards the university we would have found a really cool neighbourhood with TONS of places to eat). Since we were only two subway stops away we thought we would go to Hongdae where we were certain we would find whatever we were looking for food-wise.
Hongdae, as I'm sure I have mentioned before, is definitely one of my favourite places in Seoul. If you're young and you like to go out on the weekends, Hongdae is the place to see and be seen. Countless clubs, bars, restaurants, and excellent shopping abound and everything has a very young and hip feel to it. If you feel like having a party outside, there's a park where people gather just to drink (there are vendor's around the park that sell beer and soju). If you feel like dancing, there are about a zillion danceclubs on the same street. If you just feel like chillin' there are other more relaxed establishments. I guess what I'm saying is, I love Hongdae.
Oh, and there's Honguk University, too.
But back to Sunday. We went to a sweet pasta place near the Hunguk University stop and enjoyed our lunch thoroughly (even if they put mustard on their garlic bread).
Imagine five young women sitting at the same table, waiting for their food, and taking pictures of themselves to pass the time. We all had our cameras out and we went a little flash crazy. Very lame? I think so.
A shot of Kerri checking out our waitor as he brought our drinks to the table.
Everyone, minus moi (someone had to take the picture).
Rachel and Amy
My lovely pasta, swimming in sauce. Just the way I like it.
Did I mention there are a lot of young adults in Hongdae? I really wish I had gotten a video of this, but I was afraid of being singled out. These young men and women were dancing like crazy, and were dressed like idiots. Do you see the Adjima's in the background? They're all wearing Grand National Party tee shirts and are there in support of Lee Myung Bak in his presidential campaign. The dancers are a chunk of the young voting population who enjoy their wealth and lifestyle too much to let someone too "liberal" run the country, and they ferverently support Lee. To make him look more appealling to the young population these kids danced in this crazy getup and there were anime versions of Lee everywhere to make him look cutesy and cartoonish.
If you're in Korea and engaged, I've got good news for you. There is an entire street in Seoul (Mapo area, near Ehwa Women's University) devoted to nothing but wedding dresses! I mean, that's fun even if, like me, you aren't even close to engaged! Luckily, Kim is engaged and gave me a chance to pretend I am too. We had gone to this area in Seoul at the end of August to look for a possible seamstress for Kim's wedding dress, and we had found a place where the son of the seamstress spoke English so we thought that would be the ideal scenario... imagine you not understanding a word your seamstress tells you and it's something as important as your wedding dress!
Anyway, we went back to that store on Sunday, Korean friends in tow for interpretational purposes, and found it closed:
Uh oh.
Kim could have been as happy as this bride.
And these little people outfits were very cute.
We waited for awhile...
But what could be done?
Finally, we just called the number on the sign. They told our Korean friend that they would re-open at 3 PM, since they were at church all morning. No prob! We went for a nice lunch and headed back around 3. When we got there, we weren't overly impressed with this woman's seam work, and realizing that we no longer needed the English speaking son we thanked her politely and went on our way.
Lots of jewellry to try on...
And tiaras too! Oh my.
We finaaaaally found the perfect place: the seamstress agreed to create the exact replica of the picture Kim brought in and for a far more reasonable price than the other seamstresses. This is where the fun began.
Instead of getting the bride to model possible veils, the seamstress chose Amy and Rachel to show them off. Amy was loving it.
Showing Kim other veil possibilities...
Oh! Where did that tiara come from... and why am I taking pictures of myself on Kim's day...? I am so vain. And finally, wearing a proper tiara as any princess should wear.
OK, maybe I was having a little too much fun. Leave it to Rachel to bring me back down to earth.
On Saturday I had planned to come to school, maybe do some blogging, and finish my classroom's Christmas display on the bulletin board. As I sat down in my cubicle, ready to buckle down and get some real work done (for a change), I got an IM from my friend Liz saying she wanted to go shopping in Itaewon and did I want to come along. Uh, YEAH I did. I left school as soon as I arrived and we hopped on the subway to Foreign Town, Itaewon's nickname. Now you have all seen pictures from my nights out in Itaewon, but I had never ventured out there in the daytime to shop so this was a new experience for me.
My general feel for this neighbourhood is... uncomfortable. I mean, when you spend your night in a danceclub or a foreigner's bar in Itaewon it's fun because you embrace the seediness- you embrace the homeless people and the passed out drunks and the prostitutes and the gay bars and the street food- you even, to a certain extent, embrace those abrasive American soldiers who prowl the place at night. During the day, Itaewon is the same place, and it embodies the same things (plus about a million street vendors trying to sell you their black market merchandise), but it just doesn't evoke the same feelings.
Putting feelings aside; however, Itaewon is the only place where you can find plus sized clothes, it has great ethnic foods and is a rich, multicultural environment. And it has the Rocky Mountain Tavern, a Canadian bar that I like to frequent, and Gecko's, which has delicious western-style food. But it's still too seedy for my daytime taste. Here are some pics:
Elbow to elbow with strangers on the street
Baby Adidas
3 for 10! Movies that are not even out of the theatres in Korea yet.
Yeah, the sales are good, and the clothes are plentiful... but a lot of these clothes seem to be from American stores from five years ago, and the quality of the clothing is not the greatest.
There were a lot of people who appeared to be Christmas shopping, which gave me the weirdest feeling of all! Think of the seediest place in the world, and combine that with Christmas cheer. Something is just not right!
However, dinner with my friends at Gecko's is never a disappointment.
My lovely cosmopolitan. Sometimes, soju just won't cut it for me.
Liz's boots were the topic of conversation for the night. Countless drunk army guys had been at Gecko's since 2PM (I guess they have early curfew or something) and several people approached Liz to tell her they liked her boots. We also had a conversation with an Army dude who, when we told him where we were from, said " Oh yeah! Nova Scotia. That's near Winnipeg, isn't it?" So impressive. A drunk old Korean man came to our table and told Liz he'd give her 10,000 Won (about ten bucks) if she gave him her boots. It was a riot, since this all occurred at 5 PM.
