So yesterday, instead of going to the great wall with the dodgy looking people, we went bike riding around the Hou Tong (i think that’s its name) area. Anyhow, it was both scary and fun. A bike rental guy offered to watch our bikes outside Bei Hai park and we went in for a walk.

 

Later that night, we met this amazing woman named Thelma Bauer who has been living in and out of China for 35 years, she currently is a professor in Mongolia, her ex-husband is now the chief something officer of Taiwan and she was just SO smart and had SO much to say. We also met two other travelers who teach in another city in China and come here to Beijing once a month to do some shopping. We went out for hot pot with them that night.

 

Today, we woke up bright and early and took the nice and safe tour which included breakfast and lunch to the Great Wall. We met a couple too who went with us. I think their names were Fabian and Elaine or Helene He’s from Austria, she’s from Paris. It was tons of fun, we walked up the stairs to the wall, and took lots of pretty photos, near the end of our trip, it started to snow which made things even more beautiful. We took the closed cable car back down and went for lunch at a restaurant in the area.

 

The van took us back to the hostel, and I think tonight, we’re planning on seeing a Martial Arts show. *crosses fingers* we’ll see how things go. I think Fabian and the other girl are going to join us.

Today we went to Tianmen Square and the Forbidden City. Took tons of nice photos, even found ourselves a nice little tea shop.

 

I think we’ll be headed to the Great Wall tomorrow. Gavin found someone who is willing to take us for 200 RMB a person which to me, sounds like a pretty good deal. Maybe a bit sketch.

So I went to Beijing for the Christmas break. I figured I’d just retroactively post my emails I sent home here.

Hello and Merry Christmas!

 

It is currently 6:46 pm in Beijing. I am staying at a Hostel called Red Lantern House which is close to (i think it’s called) BeiHai Park.

 

We arrived safely this afternoon, took a shuttle bus and managed to grab a taxi and are now safely settled. The hostel is providing us with free breakfast every morning and has cheap internet from 7am to 1am every day. So hopefully I can let you guys know my plans as they happen.

 

So far, we will be staying here until the 30th of December when we take a train to go to Xi’an. We wiull stay in Xi’an for two days and then come back here.

 

Aunt-Yu, I have your phone number and it sounds pretty cheap to make local calls, I can try and contact you tomorrow. We are thinking about going to the Great Wall soon, the Hostel here is offering to take us there and back and provide breakfast and lunch for 400 RMB. I forget which of the 3 parts of the wall this is, but that is the one we were thinking of going to. I was wondering if this price sounds reasonable to you or if you know of any cheaper alternatives?

 

Anyhow, there is a party in the main building of our hostel tonight and it starts soon, so we’re off to go to that. That’s it for now! love you all! BYEEE!!!!

okay so I’m sorry I’m terrible at this blogging thing. Lately, there’s been a lot going on all at once. There was report cards, and then all this other crap, every weekend has been packed with randomness.

I’ll try and fill you in on most things, but suffice to say a lot has happened. 

Lets see…A few weeks past, I went to this electronics district and I went in looking for a nice Canon lens, and ended up buying a big pair of headphones. Apparently they’re ridiculous, but i love them. The sound quality is amazing. It feels like you’re in a room with music playing all around you. It came with a CD and one track, makes you feel like you’re lying in a shallow pool of water. cool stuff. For me, anyways. Britt bought a teenie tiny 320gig external HDD and I’m jealous. She got a really good deal. I plan to go back and buy one for myself. 

I met up with my buddy Nicholas Blicharski from Sheridan in HongDae, since he’s leaving probably this or next week to go back home. It was nice, we saw some live indy bands on the street and did some shopping in a market. 

Oh hahaha funny fact, That Curry Chicken place we found a while back? CLOSED DOWN. The Gavin curse continues. It’s now a running joke that places we like and are trying to find invariably close down.

I’ve decided as well, that I want a Nintendo DS. I dont think i’ll get the new one that just came out in Japan, since it wont play GBA games and I like to keep my options open. Also, I know for a fact that the DS is region free, so i’ll be able to play games when I get home. I’ll buy a USB charger as well so that plugs coming home are not a problem. I think Noreen wants to send me a care package with DS games in it, so I’m going to be building her a nice package too full of Korean things.

I also decided to start a music project with my good friend and famous Illustrator Alexei Vella. We’re going to be making weird obscure industrial/soundscape/noise music. Should be fun, although it’ll be very long distance, since he lives back home and I’m here. I think we’ll be sharing lots of huge files with each other. I’m going to try my hand at my first real song tonight, prior to this, I’ve just been making beats and creepy sounds with Adobe Audition (formerly CoolEdit Pro). My ideas have basically been to simulate musical instruments with my voice and distort them until they sound mechanical and inhuman. Brittney plans to contribute. Whether she likes it or not.

I met a few really cool Korean musicians (They’re all studying at universities in the states, but not currently.) this weekend who are friends with Gavin and I think we’re going to have a jam session soon. I’m not sure what I’ll play, but it should be fun just to be in that kind of environment. 

There’s apparently tons of sound studios in HongDae where you pay about 15 dollars for an hour with all their equipment and it’s all wired and set up with drum kits and amps ready for you to go in and rock out, so I think we might give that a go.

This weekend, I also went to this really cool store, called Å market or something. But it was basically a Korean Urban Outfitters, but I spent all my time on the 3rd floor, looking at vintage stuff and stationery. I bought a couple presents for Christmas. I realised I have to do all my christmas shopping for family this next week or so, because November 8th, I’m taking a flight to Hong Kong to see my Dad and Mom for my Dad’s birthday, and I can also give them presents for everyone to take home with them. 

Today is Noreen’s birthday!!!! and coming up this week, It’s Amanda Horan’s birthday on wednesday and even though she’s in Toronto, I want to get her something, and then again, there’s Noreen’s care package and of course Adam Calergis and Vanessa Morihovitis just celebrated their birthdays so I need to give them legitimate presents too. I haven’t figured it all out yet. But i’ll be spending money for sure. Lots of it possibly. My DS might have to wait, but friends and family definitely come before games. Infact, I haven’t played a game in 2 weeks. 

So Gavin, Leah, Brittney and I have decided to go to Beijing for Christmas, and Gavin’s mandarin instructor might come too and be our tour guide. In preparation, we found an AMAZING Chinese restaurant here in Seoul, and they had a lot of the things I’ve been missing. like Barbecue Pork and Roasted Duck and an awesome tofu dish and REAL TEA! and by real, I mean the stuff they serve in Chinese restaurants back home and in Hong Kong and China. I was really happy and bouncy in the restaurant. Also, all the staff spoke mandarin which was a breath of fresh air, but confusing, because our interactions with them were an amalgamation of english, cantonese, mandarin and korean. I spoke korean and english and cantonese to them, and Gavin spoke a mixture of korean, english and mandarin to them. They usually replied in either mandarin or korean. 

Brittney found her most favourite store, Forever 21 and unfortunately, was not able to buy anything, because they were closing in 10 minutes. HA. but i think we’re going back soon, so I guess Britt can buy her happy clothing.

Alix came and hung out with us this weekend too! Her and this English girl that she met on some Jewish facebook thing. Regardless, it was nice to hang out with her again. She’s hilarious. And hearing her friend talk, just made me miss Melissa Cracknell back home. I was kinda sad. Drinking just isn’t the same without my drinking partner. Omar too. The three of us used to tear up Toronto with our antics.

Speaking of old friends, It was – as aforementioned – Vanessa’s birthday recently (Nov. 22nd) and they called me on Skype and it made me the happiest person in the world to see Vanessa, Adam, Mike Woodruff, Omar and KT Time. They played music for me, and since I was eating  with Brittney when they called, she sung for them. Rather, we forced her to sing for us. It was really nice, and Mike and Adam sung Mr. Clean (Billie Jean) and It made me sad, because Mike sung that so well at the cottage, and I miss the cottage a LOT. So no I’m typing this and listening to David Cook’s version of Chris Cornell’s version of Michael Jackson’s Billie Jean. But i like Mike’s version better, his singing voice is much grittier and I think it fits the song better. See that Mike? that means record it so I can listen to it constantly! DO IT!!!

So what else? what else…I should actually be doing my lesson plans for the day, so with any luck tonight I’ll add some more. Don’t hold your breath though. My recent track record of posting when I say I will has not really been good. BUT LOOK! I POSTED! : O

Okay, have fun everyone, I miss you all.

So the day was very boring, did lots of resting. Me and Britt also went out for a bite to eat across the street, and the man who kinda speaks English there told us to tell Alix that he was sorry if he offended her when he said that Alix had a boy’s name (earlier this week i think). He wanted us to tell her that in fact, Alix was a beautiful name for a girl and he hopes to see her soon! 

One thing I wont tell you about the events of the night is the time that things occur. But I think from reading, you’ll be able to make certain assumptions about the time.

Here we go:

So Gavin and I, in the same vein as Tuesday (day 23), we take a bus to Samsung Plaza and meet Leah. Then, we take a bus to some station that I still haven’t figured out, and from there, we took a cab to Hongdae!!! which is Hongik University Subway Station. 

We walked around for a bit trying to locate a Salsa bar, since Leah felt like dancing. We decided to check the internet to see if we could find directions. So we found a place called Let’s PC. And as Gavin put it, only in Korea could you find signs that use PC as a verb. Anyhow, we found two different directions who both made it sound very easy to locate. NOT TRUE! We actually gave up looking for it.

Instead, we ended up finding this tiny cafe that sold cookies and cakes and cake decorating lessons! But upon entering, we found out that everything was very expensive, and their cheesecake was actually a cup of “cake”. So we left and went to a Starbucks-esque place. (They have Starbucks everywhere here, but we somehow ended up at this place. I had an Iced Caramel Macchiato, Leah had a Caffe Latte with an almond cookie and Gavin had an Iced Caffe Latte with a chocolate chip cookie. It’s important that i note Gavin’s bracelet. We were looking at it, and he told me he’d bought it for 30 dollars and it was one of his favourites, because the stones were obsidian, and they seemed to absorb light. Really cool stones. We also discussed the fact that he wanted it re-strung, out of fear that it would break some day. I counted them, since it’s my OCD thing that i do (15 beads).

The bathroom at this place had one of those strange grabby hands where you squeeze the thing and it closes fingers on a hand. WHY you’d need one in a bathroom is beyond me. for sanitation?? that doesn’t make sense because people will just touch the grabby hand thing instead. still gross!

Anyhow, we left the cafe and went searching for a bar. We found this place called Zen Bar, which is such a ridiculous place with such cheap drinks. but we’re now convinced that they water them down. Anyhow, we drank and had some really deep discussions over loud hiphop music (yeah, the zen bar is a hiphop bar. there’s a mural on the wall of a Buddha-esque person DJ-ing and smoking, and drinking all at once with multiple arms and tribal tattoos.)

We spent a few hours there and then Leah decided she really wanted to dance. From there on, we were jumping from one dance bar/club to the other, but only hitting the no-cover ones and dancing our hearts out to everything from Muse and Green Day to Blondie. Good times. My shirt was soaking wet by the end of the night. The last place we went to had paper circles taped up all over the walls. We started taking them down and sticking them to ourselves, but mostly to Gavin. Leah helps me smuggle some circles out for my devious plan (I wanted to cover Gavin in circles and have him wake up with them the next day.)

So from there, we decided to catch a cab home. We specifically discussed 30,000 won to get home (about 30 dollars. conversion is dead simple here) in Yatap and then to drop Leah off in Jeongia. He agrees and we hop in, he doesn’t start the meter. About 30-45 minutes later, we arrive in Yatap at our building, and we try to sort thins out, we pool 30 for Leah to give to him when she gets off. He then says it’s 35. after a bit of arguing, we discover he wants 45,000 to take Leah home. So we say no, that we’ll just get off here, and try to give him the 30, which he refuses. We start getting out of the cab, and he follows us out screaming in Korean. First he grabs Leah and she tries to give him the money, which he crumples and tosses on the ground. Then he grabs Gavin, and we continue to argue with the bastard. I rip his hand off Gavin’s wrist, and then he grabs me too. I give him the death stare and rip his hand off me, trying so hard not to clock him in the mouth. He grabs Gavin again so hard, it breaks his bracelet. Beads all over the sidewalk. Now we’re pissed, but instead we start picking up the beads. The cabby realises he won’t win this one and picks up his cash off the ground to leave, but not before tossing an empty plastic bottle at us first. It misses entirely, and he drives off. Leah crashes at Gavin’s and we arrange to hang out the next morning for breakfast.

After all this, I realise I still have the circles in my hand and the ones Leah gave me too. So I tape them all to his door, in a jovial looking arrangement. (yes, it was jovial)

The next morning, I have breakfast with Britt and go down to visit them and plan our day. Not much happens though, we go with Gavin to meet his Mandarin teacher in a waffle house. I drop Leah off at the station, and go back home to hang with Britt. I walk Britt to the station as well, since she has to go to this church to sing, and I take us down a short cut, but I fail to notice all the loose bricks on the ground and Britt trips and cuts open her foot. (I FEEL HORRIBLE ABOUT THIS!) we go buy her some bandaids and off she goes. we arrange to meet up in Jamsil, but I end up passing out and missing our meeting time instead. 

THERE! that’s the post I’d been trying to type all week! now I’m off to get ready for work. I’ll try and bring this blog back up to speed soon. BYE!

These photos have been posted on Facebook, but for those of you without it, here’s what my tiny living space looks like:

That’s where the sleeping and blogging gets done. If I’m in the mood, art, photo editing and gaming happens there too.

Here’s where I can shit, shower and kick the washing machine all at once. It also needed a thorough scrubbing before I started using it, as when showering, EVERYTHING gets soaked, and you can imagine, it gets pretty gross pretty fast.

That’s all for now, I’ll be posting more photos as things progress. I’ve got an entry to finish before work and then I’ll probably post more photos soon.

On a side note, the homesickness is settling in. I got some kind words from Niosha which cheered me up some, but I’m hoping the continuous support of friends and family will help subside any feelings of sadness. As of this morning, It’s not working too well. I think I’ll do some drawing or painting tonight. It’ll clear my mind. I’ve no scanner, so If I make anything worth mentioning, it’ll most likely be photographed. 

Have a great day or evening people, Talk to you again soon.

here’s why!

so the day started out pretty normal, woke up, fiddled on the computer, took and shower, and then met Gavin before work. He tells me about his adventure last night, meeting some artists in Hongdae and how they were having a performance art thing and then an after-party and i was welcome to come too. Naturally, i jumped on the idea of going to it. So i grabbed my favourite dress shirt, folded it nicely and put it in my bag and left for work.

work was standard fare, I got bored and concocted a fake conversation between me and Gavin over MSN by typing from his computer, running upstairs, typing on my computer, running downstairs, and so on. On my trips up and down between offices, I have to pass through my boss’ boss’ office. So inevitably, i started talking to her. She was editing Alix and Britt’s photos in Photoshop, so i asked why MY computer didn’t have Photoshop. She then went on to tease me, asking oh, you can do this stuff? okay, then i don’t have to do it. Can you answer the phones too? And then she showed me my embarrassing photo and said “I tried to remove your mustache (I have a mustache? is that even possible? me? facial hair?!) so I did and you looked like a girl with a boy haircut, so i changed it back.” How flattering is that? I already hated the photo, but now apparently, when you remove the “mustache”, I look female-ish. Thaaaaanks. I’ve discovered that Koreans are very blunt.

So anyhow, the kids were tolerable today. nothing to really report, except that my EAS 4 kids thought my feet were dirty, because my socks had lint balls on them. *sigh*

okay so on to an awesome evening:

I get changed in my classroom after class, meet Gavin and we take a bus to Samsung Plaza to meet Leah. from there, we took a bus to somewhere, I forget where, but thereafter, we took a cab to Hongdae subway station, exit 4. Leah had drawn a hilariously crude map, but we got there eventually, only to find we’d missed the performance by about 5 minutes and the after party was basically an interview with the artist and stuff. i can’t even describe it, it was just really interesting walking in on the aftermath. burnt scraps of paper on the ground, a man speaking Spanish and covered head to toe in i think chocolate. and chocolate smears on the walls, a giant cactus, a big scroll of paper, some branches….just crazy. They had a video camera going. If we see those people again, I want a copy of it. 

So the 3 of us went exploring for dinner and ended up at a Korean barbecue place. I had Soju 😛 

but the rest of the food was awesome. 

I’ve decided Hongdae is my most favourite place ever. EVERYTHING has so much character! everything’s just so interesting there. I took a photo of this store, that’s basically someones garage. there’s even a car parked inside it, but they have clothes on the walls, and the door at the back of the garage leads in to the actual store. Ridiculous. 

Now as we were walking, we just happened to gravitate to this tiny sign for a bar that was downstairs. Walking down, we discovered the most amazingly chill bar ever. We sat down on the floor, pillows everywhere in a small room with red walls and patterned silk drapery things hanging and the place was just super amazing. there was a bathtub in the middle of the main room, with leaves and branches growing out of it, and a low hanging chandelier. The girl running the place was just sitting at her computer playing awesome relaxing music like Elliott Smith and Cibo Matto’s Sugar Water.

So after a most relaxing drink in the most relaxing bar, (I had a jack and coke, i think Leah and Gavin had vodka somethings. or maybe Gavin was drinking gin and tonic? i forget.) Gavin showed me this strange abattoir looking place with white lamb legs hanging on the walls, and insane ink paintings. I wanted to stop there, but they’d been there yesterday, so instead we moved on to another amazing looking bar. This one was much bigger, and is characteristically almost always full. the place was set up very interestingly. The back of the bar had one of those BIG ladders that rides on a rail, and up there was a DJ booth, and shelves gong all the way up to maybe 20 feet, the tallest was the longest shelf, and the lowest was the shortest, and each shelf had bottles of liquor. We saw the bartender slide the ladder over and climb all the way up to grab a bottle a few times. Again, i had a jack and coke, Gavin his gin and tonic and Leah had a vodka lime.

it’s funny, as you enter or leave this place, all the staff, no matter where they are in the place, yell “Annyeong Haseo” as you come or go. I found this hilarious for some reason. Anyhow, we left, they said bye and off we went to find another bar! (remember, this is a Tuesday night) and so we take a stroll around, just soaking up the amazing Hongdae nightlife. full of musicians playing random stuff and really crazy graffiti. 

Anyhow, we eventually end up at this random looking really crazy fusion bar. it had such a moody atmosphere, tiled floors with fountains everywhere and hanging chandeliers and tiny rooms with small tables and tons of pillows on the floor. It had the atmosphere of a Hookah bar apparently. Super chill, but massively expensive. so Leah and I had a beer while Gavin had a very stiff gin and tonic. Leah also showed us a Russian handshake, and we also devised another handshake which involved the itsy bitsy spider thing and some weird butterfly hilarity. I’ve decided Leah is an awesome person and i need to hang out with her more for the simple fact that she comes up with such hilarious and random shit.

Oh and something i like about these bars: they give you free snacks! the first place had square animal cookie things, the second had seaweed strips with some sauce and the last place had these fried sugary things and also what i can only describe as candied green beans. TASTYYY!

So as we were all falling asleep on the pillows in this place, we topped off our drinks and headed out for a cab. 

also, on the cab ride home, I kept hearing some beeping noise. Now remember how i mentioned I keep stealing shit from my kids at school? well today my kid Kyle, brought a timer thing to school and it went off during class, so i took it. and of course, forgot ALLL about it, until I spent the cab ride going “what the f. is the cab driver messing with? constant beeping!!” and then when i got home and emptied my pockets, i realised it was me and the kid’s timer. the driver must have been thinking the same thing, hahaha anyhow, that’s it! Altogether, amazing night. I loved it. this should happen EVERY Tuesday. I’m getting to love this place more and more. (but also missing everyone from home more and more!)

Bye guys!

I did end up going to that place again and having the curry chicken, it wasn’t exactly what we had in mind though. It was more like a thing you added soup to. I think it was me, Gavin, his friend and Brittney. During dinner we found out that Gavin’s friend also did swing dancing. She’s from the states too (Britt’s from Florida). Afterwards, the 4 of us went back to Britt’s place and Alix and I watched the 3 of them swing dance. basically, Britt was teaching Gavin and his friend. I got really sleepy, came back to my place, uploaded photos from Saturday (on Facebook) and then I went back. By then, they had given up on dancing and were just on the computer looking at swing dancing videos. 

Oh, Brittney has the most hilarious swing dance DVDs, the hosts are just so…weird. I can’t explain it, but it’s kinda like my P90x DVD, how they’re just over enthusiastic and use weird terminology and stuff. 

So anyhow, this week in school wasn’t too bad, some of my kids are still about as smart as a bag of bricks. Some of my kids, I found out this week were supposed to put on a play about the 3 little pigs. Except that when i asked them to tell me the story, they had no clue. So, we re-read it, and then i asked them again. Nothing. I tried to explain the concept of Before and After (because apparently Devin had taught them) and nothing at all. I ended up spending so much of my time just trying to explain that. SO FRUSTRATING! i actually got angry at these kids, because we went over the events together, wrote it all out, and then I had them do a quick comprehension quiz, where they had to sort through fragmented events of the story. like “the third pig built a brick house” and “the wolf huffed and he puffed and blew down the straw house” and so on. They failed completely. I’m convinced that maybe these kids can’t read the material, despite the fact that they’re supposed to be in the advanced class. 

Oh also, Sharolyn – my boss – was watching all my classes this week for the first hour of each one (once for each different class i have) and that kinda put pressure on me to have better lesson plans and have my kids work harder or show that they’re learning SOMEthing

anyhow, I also really buckled down on some of them near the end of the week. I took a watch and some weird MapleStory Pog looking things from my kids. They brought them to circle time, and were messing with them, so i just grabbed them and said “mine now.” I forgot to give them back! I’ll give it back to them next week. hopefully that makes them think twice about bringing toys and stuff or just messing with random things while I’m trying to teach. I might come off as the hard-ass teacher, but I want them to learn and pay attention. Their parents are paying good money for them to be here.

Anyhow, the rest of the week’s events aren’t solid in my head, but basically, one night I went over to Alix’s for some dinner. Dumplings and stuff. We also went to Kim’s Club (a big multi-level department store) and I bought weights. Ive been using them every day, a few sets of random stuff, I’m trying to keep it light, since I have to watch my back. But I feel like it helps. If I keep myself motivated to use the weights I’ll be able to stay in shape and feel less self-conscious about my appearance. I always feel too thin and lanky. oh  and they were ridiculous to carry back home from the store.

But moving on, hmm…what else…I know there was a night that Britt, Alix and myself all had dinner with Gavin at his place. I brought apples that I’d  bought. I forgot to mention this before: FRUIT IS EXPENSIVE HERE!! hugely expensive. I bought these apples from a vendor on the street. I kept calling the fruit floor fruit because the lady just arranges them in bowls on the sidewalk. But these vendors are everywhere, you can buy all sorts of vegetables and fruits from them. but I bought 8 or 9 apples for 5ooo won (a little less than 5 dollars Canadian). In the mornings sometime, you can see a whole bunch of them on any given sidewalk, washing their vegetables or roasting something. LOTS of street vendors. The other day, some dude came onto the subway and tried selling the commuters a chestnut opener. Apparently soliciting isn’t illegal.

Oh, i completely skipped Gavin’s dinner thing. So anyhow, I got there early and we found out that Gavin gets cable. Nothing special, but he does get the two Starcraft 24/7 channels and Discovery Channel. I wonder If my TV gets anything? I think we have the same internet plan.

Oh another thing that started happening this week: both Alix and Brittney have been leeching internet from unsecured wireless connections in our building, the most promising one being a 4 or 5 bar connection called Unicorn. But Unicorn has disappeared and all the other connections are 2 or 3 bars, so it looks like they might have to start buying internet like the rest of us 😛

So Thursday, we discovered, or had our suspicions confirmed, that Sharolyn is leaving. She`s been in Korea for 3 years now and it`s time for her to go home, or move on to other things. Her and I keep having conversations about art and commissions and illustration, i think she wants to get back into the scene and start doing that again. That to me, is encouraging. I don’t want to get so sucked in by this teaching English thing that i disregard the idea of pursuing what i really want to do. Hopefully, I can go home and become an art teacher. 

Okay what else, what else…So this Friday was Chuseok. That’s basically Korea’s Harvest Moon Festival. the kindergarten kids all dressed up in really cute traditional Korean clothes and basically, it’s a Thanksgiving equivalent. They eat lots of food, do lots of family things, and bow lots to their grandparents. For us, it meant a 3 day weekend. 

Friday, I was also thinking about going out to swingdancing with Britt and Gavin, but Gavin forgot about me and bolted off to the subway before I even let my kids out of my classroom. Soooo, I just went home and didn’t do much.

That night, when Gavin and Britt got back from swing dancing, the 3 of us went to Alix’s and we all sat around and chatted. Alix told us about her Shabbat (did i spell that right, Alix?) dinner fiasco. It turned out to be an adventure and a half, because she got lost in Itaewon in the process and somehow managed to find the place after, but she claimed to still be pretty hungry after. Usually, I guess It’s supposed to be a LOT of food. and you’re not supposed to use electricity or something either, but she took the subway home. I’m all for religious customs and stuff, but I guess it’s a cultural thing.

Saturday, I got started and finished a poster that Farrell wanted me to design for him. I like how it turned out, I passed up going to the temples and stuff to do this, but i figure illustration is what i really want to be doing, so any opportunity to do that, I’ll take. Besides, I’m here for a year. I can do those things later. That evening, I was expecting to go out with Gavin to Hongdae or somewhere. Never ended up happening. according to Britt and Alix, this was out “Man-Date”. I went over to Gavin’s, we made really good curry chicken, and then ate it while watching a really bad Chinese movie which was adapted from a comic book. It was Tiger Dragon Gate or something. no wait,…Dragon Tiger Gate? (Long Fu Moon or something in Cantonese) anyhow, after that really crappy movie, I was exhausted, and didn’t quite feel like going out. That, and Gavin’s friends all cancelled on him due to Chuseok or because of other random things.

Later that night, I went back downstairs and Alix was there too, and she told us about her and Britt’s adventure climbing a mountain, getting up the thing exhausted only to find out they’d only gotten halfway up, and the gazebo they assumed was a temple turned out to be a free public gym. With workout equipment and everything. How hardcore is that?? these people climb a mountain to work out. Crazy.

Sunday was pretty fun, although everything was closed in our neighbourhood, Gavin and I met up with Vanessa (a former MapleBear teacher. I mention her in my first post, she’s the one I had my very first dinner in Korea with) and we took a bus to Itaewon. Upon getting off the bus, I spotted Georgia and Christine just walking on the opposite side of the street, I flagged them down and they joined us. 

So Itaewon is white-town. actually, no. just foreigner town. Full of Africans and East-Indians, some of whom speak PERFECT Korean. And apparently the whole city turns into Monkey Beach at night. which is kind of gross. But during the day it’s cool. We went to this awesome used and new book store called What the Book? which was great, i bought a Grimm fairy tales book and another book called Stiff, which is basically a non-fiction about what people use cadavers for. So using them as crash test dummies, or something i read about in Vincent Lam’s Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures book – Med. school dissections. 

From there, we stopped at a Foreign Food market and I bought a package of Chinese Vermicelli rice noodles. I haven’t tried them yet, I hope they’re good. I need to buy accompanying food before I make something with it. 

After that, Christine and Georgia split, and Gavin, Vanessa and I went to this Irish pub in town and I had he Sheppard’s Pie and a glass of cider. It wasn’t bad. I certainly enjoyed the atmosphere. After that, we headed back home. We met up with Britt and wandered around Samsung Plaza looking for a bar to go to. Wait, I’m missing something. Oh, okay so we went to a pizza place before that in Yatap. Mr. Pizza. and they totally forgot about Britt’s food until we asked. It didn’t sit too well in Britt’s stomach and before that, Gavin had Fish & Chips at the Irish pub, and his stomach was not happy either. We pretty much gave up and came home after not finding a bar in Samsung Plaza. 

Monday, I finalized the poster design for Farrell and then met up with Alix and Britt for breakfast waffles. mmmm…

and then we met Christine and Georgia and together, we set off to the ZOOOOO!!!! Gavin was making fun of us before we left. Apparently the Zoo is not on his list of places to go. Me and Britt took lots of photos on my camera, I’ll have to upload them later. But it’s really sad, someone should do something about this place. Koreans were feeding the animals! like throwing food at the gorillas to eat. one dude threw a bottle of iced coffee, which the gorilla drank. HORRIBLE. And then people were literally whipping grapes at the bears to entice them to do tricks. (which they did) and parents let their kids stick their hands into the Llama area and it was just so weird, We half expected parents to drop their kids into the Gator pit or something and be like: “Go play!” jeez, no wonder you hear stories about kids getting mauled by animals at zoos in Asia. The kids, although cute, are SUPER obnoxious, and will shove you out of the way to see something. or they shoved me, anyway. Oh, and this one money look SO sad, he had is hand up to the glass, and looked so forlorn. Some monkey areas were just smeared with monkey shit and the windows were all scratchy. It was pretty depressing. I’m glad this place didn’t have any truly endangered animals, because they’d all die instantly due to the amount of Asians throwing food at them and ducking under railings to get closer to things. f-ing crazy. I’m missing some stuff, but that’s the gist of this place.

After the zoo, I was soaked in sweat, and exhausted, so we all went home. I got take-out from the dumpling place with Christine and Georgia got a pizza. Coming home, I took a relaxing shower and got my Skype set up. I haven’t bought minutes yet, but essentially, It’s set up. Find me if you have Skype, my name is carson.vs.korea 

That night, I made Adacar on Spore. They’re pretty convincing. I’ve got my cardboard box, and Adam has his,…robot legs and gun-turret arms. VERY realistic. oh, and wooden hair too. then, Sleep.

So it’s Tuesday morning, day 23. Almost a month!!! I’ll try to do a mid-week post. Bye guys! Miss you! talk to me on Skype or Facebook or MSN!