Spring Update

First period was cancelled today, so I thought I would take these extra few minutes to share a few pictures of life in Korea lately. I have taken 114 pictures on my camera since I talked about our trip to Muiido. Sure, some a lot of them are food. But I thought I'd share some with my few readers.

I don't talk about school very often (because my job is boring) but I really liked this activity. I got the idea from my friend Allan way back in 2009. I color coded cups with celebrities placed on them. Using ordinal numbers, students made an apartment building by stacking cups. It was a reading comprehension game and pretty fun. Since they were color-coded, I could check to see if students made the correct apartment building pretty easily. 

 I've been attending Korean classes again in the Jongno area. This means every Wednesday I am downtown so I pack my dinner and at next to the Cheonggyecheon for lunch. My class is in the Mirae Asset building, which has a pretty fantastic view.

St. Patrick's day was a bit of a blast (though also a tad to much to drink on my end). The festival started in Sindorim, where I met up with a bunch of friends to drink and chat while listening to Irish music. The weather was glorious. In the evening, we went to Itaewon to my favorite 이모집 (auntie's house) for dinner. Our group had picked up some random Korean girls in Sindorim, and we spent the evening playing Korean drinking games and practicing speaking A LOT!

 The next day, I met up with Megha and Cameron for a photo shoot. Megha is doing some sort of project, but nothing has surfaced. We'll see if it ever does... We got some awesome pumpkin porridge, and for second dinner I met up with my boyfriend, HS, for rice with tons of 반찬 (side dishes). And I mean TONS! For six dollars, we got 28 dishes. Yum.

 Speaking of HS, he is pretty awesome. Our relationship is pretty serious, though we aren't certain what the future brings. It looks like I'll be heading to San Diego for graduate school in September. For now, we are just enjoying the relationship as much as we can. That included going to the Tim Burton museum last Friday, despite it being incredibly busy.

Our trivia league ended in March. Our team got second place! First place would have included an interview in 10 Magazine, but second place was pretty awesome as well. Mag was a bit sad about second place, but at least we finished with integrity.

I've also been trying to exercise lately. My knees have been bugging me (I need new shoes!) so instead of running I've gone on long walks and taken awkward selcas (selfies). Like this one:

My two walking partners are probably C and HS. C and I explored the Seongshin University area the other day followed by a delicious meal of duck. I'm going to miss duck...

On the 13th, we celebrated Julie and Sanghun's birthdays. Dinner in Sinsa followed by clubbing in Itaewon. The following week, Stacy had returned to visit, so we went out in Sinchon and Hongdae. A lot of partying, but less drinking. I'm aiming for a flat stomach this summer!

Last Sunday, I had the chance to see the exhibition at Culture Station 84. This museum was constructed within the old Seoul station. The exhibit was free, and focused on random collections: barbies, toys, coca cola cans, etc. Luckily, I went on the 14th, because I think it closed this past Monday. 

That took longer than my extra forty minutes this morning. 헐. This weekend I am planning to go to Jecheon. It will be nice to get out of Seoul (and away from North Korea's saber rattling?).

^^

Yesterday was pretty spectacular. I woke up, got ready, and then took the subway as normal. On the subway, I checked my e-mail to find that the decision had been made for my John Hopkins application. Unfortunately, I couldn't open the letter on my smart phone, so I had to wait for school.

Waiting made me pretty anxious

I opened the letter (well, e-mail) to find that I had been accepted into the International Development program at John Hopkins! I certainly am proud about this feat, but still not really sure where I'll be going to grad school. Too much rides on financial aid packages... I've gotten one from John Hopkins, and, even though it is generous, I would still end up with 40,000 in debt. Ouch.

Anyways, back to my great day. I had some good lessons and fun activities that worked well with classes. I had Korean class downtown at 7 pm, so I decided to take a jog from work. The route was a bit loopy, but quite wonderful. I ended up running east from my school under part of Bukhansan, through Pyeong-chang dong, Bu-am dong, and Cheong-un dong. It was VERY hilly, but so beautiful. I'm one of the few joggers in Seoul, so it is a bit awkward to be running in the streets. But I find such wonderful places, so I just ignore when people stare.

View from the north

So many cute cafes on this street

The ticker said 'Welcome to Korea' in English. Not really sure why...

As I was getting further south, there were more and more policemen. I wasn't really sure why, until I ran into a plaza with a huge plaque for the Cheong Wa Dae museum. Huh? Was I near the Blue House?

Yep, apparently I had run right by Park Geun-hye's new residence. Pretty awesome. Also explained a lot of the barbed wire on the mountain.

After a bowl of tuna jjigae to warm me up, I had Korean class downtown. I haven't attended the Korean Foundation courses in a long time, so it was great to be back. I've downgraded a level, but it is ok because I need to review grammar. Maybe I'll make this run a weekly thing.

ROK's Air Force Does Les Mis

Les Mis was pretty popular in Korea. So popular that the Air Force decided to make a parody. There are some great voices (which is unsurprising, since there is conscription in Korea so everyone must be in the army for 20 months. Even music majors). They released the video with English subtitles. Pretty enjoyable.

In crazier news, a Korean American shot his neighbors over dog shit. No joke.

New Year Wrap-up

I had a post at the beginning of the year with New Year's goals. Time to see if I succeeded.


1) Write a blog entry at least once a week. 
I was doing really well with this until September. However, I have been writing in my other blogs plenty, so I'll say success!
2) Try at least twenty new cuisines. 
This was definitely a fail. I did try one West African restaurant in HBC and some new foods at the Itaewon culture festival... Maybe this was a bit ambitious. I probably tried 20 new dishes! And I ate a bunch of new foods in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan and Macau.
3) Get into an advanced Korean class.
I think I'm in an advanced class right now. Level 4 at Sukmyeong.
4) Keep in touch with my family and friends back home more often. 
Hmmmm... I don't know if I did very well with this. Seriously, why don't I phone my family?!??
5) Watch more Korean dramas. 
Didn't happen. I tried to watch Life is Beautiful, but never finished it. I also almost finished Coffee Prince, but hasn't happened either. Still watching American television if I watch anything.
6) Take a Korean cooking class.
I didn't take a class, but I learned some techniques from my co-teachers, so I'm pretty happy.
7) Study my vocab! 
Success on the GRE! And my Korean vocabulary has expanded a lot.
8) Learn more ASL.
I broke up with BH in March... Since then, I haven't studied.
9) Exercise more. 
Success. I did a really good job at Beondong Middle School since our school had a gym. C and I were doing well for a while, but we got lazy as the days got colder.
10) Travel to at least three new countries. 
Success here as well. I went to Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan and Japan. That's four countries! Yay!

Six out of ten... not bad. 

Thanksgiving in Seoul 2012

I can't remember when I was home for Thanksgiving... it must be at least six years. Luckily, most Thanksgivings I've had a great group of friends both in college and abroad who make the holiday worthwhile (even if we don't have the day of in Korea). This year, we hosted Halloween at our house and had quite a great turnout. We pretty much had every Thanksgiving fixing plus some extra dishes. I was going to make rice pudding, but since we had cupcakes and pumpkin pie I was discouraged from making the pretty much flavorless Swedish dessert. C made the turkey and did a fabulous job; she brined the turkey which resulted in a great bird. I might have to adopt her method...

This was my first plate

 Our house was pretty packed. Not only were we celebrating Thanksgiving, but it was also a chance to celebrate three of our friends birthdays. I love house parties!

One of the best contributions was given by JB; he bought a huge bottle of baiju: a Chinese liquor. As I was studying for the GRE, I was not drinking Thanksgiving night. Lots of our guests, however, hit the bottle decently hard. Love was in the air that night. Seriously, there were at least 6 people that kissed on Friday night. That baiju is horniness in a bottle.

They kissed

And we kissed (and JB is straight!)

I hope you kissed... J certainly was dancing like a stripper

 There are probably videos of all the sofa dancing that went on at that party. I'm not sure I want to see it. Embarrassing videos of people dancing are signs of a good party, though, huh?
So Happy Thanksgiving! I'm thankful for having a job that I like most of the time, an enjoyable life, good health, and great friends. I'm thankful that I live in a world where I can live across the ocean and still see my family back in the US at least once a year. I'm thankful to scientists for such amazing breakthroughs in agriculture that we can have amazing food all the time. I'm thankful for life ^^

I haven't posted on this blog in a while... I've been a bit busy with studying for the GRE, studying Korean, working, and, of course, my social life. Things are great in Korea, but the weather is certainly getting colder. Since I'm not the smallest guy, I like this change: more layers hide my body and just make me look like a tall and slim guy. Back at the house, we haven't turned on the heat yet because the utilities are pretty expensive; since I grew up in Minnesota, this hasn't been too difficult. What I dread, however, is waking up in the morning and making the trip from bed to shower. Plus, our shower only stays hot for five minute intervals. Sometimes I feel a bit bad for Catie. She's more like this:

At least she has a heated blanket....

Work has been work. Nothing too crazy, but I do have to get ready for winter camp. This could be a decent amount of work because we are preparing a textbook, but luckily there are four teachers on this product.

Shit, I just dropped a piece of squid covered in red sauce all over my lap... I probably shouldn't blog and eat.

Bye!

Water Gun Fight!

Having fun in Seoul Dream Forest ^^

Team ugly face

Team larger than life

Chris the sharp shooter

Playing in the fountain afterward

Next time we have a water gun fight, I'm thinking larger teams and some sort of objective. Capture the flag or something. Either way, Chris and Magaly will lose again.