Seoul Trip

Hey finally managed to upload this!

Travel

Back to writing! Not much has happened over the last month or so. I've hung out with good friends, Kyung Jun, Dan, Campbell and Nick a lot. Robert has come back from the States and it's been great to see him again.

Nick, Dan and I went bowling the other day. Dan kicked our buts! Nick had never been, what he called, "big ball bowling" before so that was pretty funny. I haven't been doing anything outside the city because I'm trying to save money for my next big trips, Japan and Thailand/Cambodia. Once Japan is done then I'll start planning my next trips for around May/June. I'm thinking China and maybe Malaysia.

My friend from high school (NMH) came to visit from Iksan. We had a blast. We joined up withSeth, Camille and a new friend named Tiger (well his Korean name translates to Tiger). We went downtown and when to a few bars and then even dancing. That's right I said dancing. It was great. We were in a club named Frog and it was packed! I mean you can barely move kind of dancing. It was fun none the less though.

Next week is my birthday so I'm super pumped up for that. I'm actually going to be flying to Japan on my birthday! Nick and I have our bus/KTX tickets booked so now all we have to do is actually get to the bus station for our 7am bus. It's going to be painful! In Tokyo we have our hostel booked. We're playing most of our weekend by ear since we're not sure how to navigate the city all that well. It's HUGE so we're going to have small ideas and see where they take us. The only thing that's planned is a tour of the Imperial Palace. We had to apply for that so hopefully it'll be worth it. We also want to go to Harajuku where Lolita is popular Lolita is a cutesy fashion that resembles doll like innocence. Yeah they really do dress like this. I'm excited to see it!!

After Japan we have Thailand and Cambodia. Below is our itinerary for that huge trip! I'm so excited. We're going to Siem Reap where we can see Angkor Wat. We're staying in a hostel run by Canadians who are awesome, already. They're going to help us get a taxi for the day (costs about $30 for three days of driving, it's crazy. Then they're going to help us get a bus/train to Thailand. In Thailand we're first going to Bangkok and staying there for three days. Then it's off to Bottle Beach on Koh Phangan for basically five days before heading home. I'm planning on hiking, scuba diving (or at least snorkeling), riding elephants and getting pampered. Nick and I also have the 26th off since it'll take us the majority of the 26 to get back to Daegu. I'll be posting a long blog about Japan when I get back! Don't worry Nick and I are registered with the US-Gov about where're we're going just in case.

SNOW!

I've been super bad this month. Things are crazy at work and I've been lazy to boot. There are major changes about the happen at my school. Long story short my job will change into a "floater" at the end of February. My branch will go from eight foreign teachers to four. Steven already left and so did Angie. Angie and Steven were replaced by Jessica (returning from USA) and Scott. Scott is leaving for another job so Nick will take his place, and not be a floater. Sean is leaving with me and we're already down one teacher because they didn't replace Jessica when she left to go to USA. So at the end of February Sean, Scott and I will leave Siji.

That means that I'll be a supply teacher, aka a substitute. It'll be interesting but also frustrating. I'm also still staying until the end of July so my end date won't change. I still get to keep my apt. and other such things. I do get a slight pay bump though! So that'll be nice. It'll be some nice bonus for my trips.

Speaking of which I've decided to go to Japan in February for my birthday and then to Thailand

in March. I think that I'll go to one more place maybe Malaysia or China in April but I'm not sure. I am of course going on these trips with my friend Nick who's a wicked good travel buddy.

Christmas was a blur and so was New Years. Both were relaxed with a few friends, good food and wine. I can't believe it's 2012 already! ALSO......

We finally got snow here in Daegu! I spent the afternoon with Nick running about in it.

It was a ton of fun. We made snowmen and drew pictures in the snow. Afterwards we met up with two friends, Campbell (Gyeonghun Lee) and Daeseo Koo. Fun times were had.

Seoul 2011

This weekend was a whirl wind of awesome. Nick, Campbell and I left for Seoul on Saturday morning. The KTX was a ton of fun and relaxing. When we got to Seoul we managed to find our way to our hostel Fully Guest House. It was a great hostel the bed were good, short (perfect for me but not so good if you're tall) and korean style hard. We then found SUBWAY! I was so excited and Campbell had never had it before.

After we went to two palaces. They were fantastic. The structures were often remade because of fire and or the Japanese occupation. We ran around and met a lot of people from all over the place. That night we tried to find Mexican food...found it....they were closed. We were not impressed. Got mediocre Italian instead. We decided to just go home and get an early start. We wound up talking until about 2:30am.

The next morning we woke up and got going at the reasonable hour of 10. We found the market we wanted to go to and then FINALLY got Mexican food for lunch. It wasn't as spicy as I would have liked but it was good enough. We also did a bit of shopping at the big stores, well Nick did, Sorry Korea I'm not a size 8. We got over to the train station with plenty of time...especially since Campbell got the time wrong by about an hour and a half. Luckily it was later and not earlier. So we ran around the shopping center at the train station and got coffee. All in all, it was a great trip one that I would like to repeat in the future.

MOVIE

out with Nick.

in daegu

strange

This is double eyelid tape. It's designed to give asian women eye folds. So strange.

This weekend so far has been fantastic. First Nick, Robert, Su Hyun and Taewoo (two amazing Korean friends, who're getting married!) went to the Persimum festival. Su Hyun and Taewoo actually ran a half marathon and did great! Su Hyun came in eighth for women. While the festival was pretty lame we still had a good time walking around being ridiculous. The real fun happened
afterwards.

WE WENT TO GRANDMA'S HOUSE!

Seriously. Taewoo drove us to his grandmother's house for some amazing Ramon and persimums. His grandmother was one of the coolest people ever. We got to help her with making Samjang 쌈장, The picture shows a big brick of red stuff. This is a bean paste of sorts. After making the brick you wrap it up with straw then hang the brick up. You can see them hanging behind Taewoo's head. Gran was really nice and showed us how to do it. She needed help hanging them up so that's what we did. After the bricks hang for

about two months the next step begins but I have no idea what that is. In the end it looks like this.