Can't Get Much Better - The completed version!

Hello, Hello and Hello!! Glad to be back on the face of the planet once again. I find it slightly funny (in that ironic kind of way) that if your computer ceases to work, so does your contact with the world. What did we ever do before computers? After showing the blue screen of death, my computer just decided that life was too difficult and didn't want to live anymore. I dragged it around the greater Seoul area for the better part of 3 days, and finally got some one to give me a little help. It seems that with it's last dying breath, my laptop erased all its memory as well as it's entire Windows program. So we were dealing with a computer that had not operating system whatsoever...swell! The nice people at HP fixed it up for me, but seemed to forget that I am wey-guk (foreigner) and installed the Korean version of Windows. I currently have a computer that is entirely in Korean....haha. I will be taking care of that at some point this week, but for now I can stumble my way around the interface. The moral of the story is that I have a working computer, if not 100% functional. Then again, I can type in Korean now :) I want to thank you for all your patience, and you shall be rewarded for that, as this may have been the best weekend of my life.

I first feel that I should give you a brief life update since I have been absent recently. Work is going well, still teaching, still tutoring and still revamping the curriculum monthly. Outside of work I had been spending time grading essays and finishing report cards. I have also been keeping a pretty standard Monday schedule of dinner with Stephanie. She was here when I first came and lived across the hall. She did some traveling after her contract and now she is back for round 2...it's nice to have her back in the country!! Josh and I have also been spending quite a bit of time together along with his co-workers Kelly and Chris...who are pretty much totally awesome!! Most night that we hang out end with some sort of strange fun. One night a Korean businessman and his friends decided to pick up our bill and then take us to a noraebang. We have been making a ton of new friends, and just living it up...I mean I only have 8 weeks left, I'd better make the best of it!!

Ok, now on to this weekend :) Let's start with Friday. I went to dinner with my crew from work, and ran into Josh on the way. (ok, I actually went to the restaurant that he was at to find out a plan for the night...but let's pretend that it was accidental, haha) After some good conversations with my friends, I took off to meet with Josh, Kelly and Chris. We were going to head to a JimJilBang that night. Which is a Korean Spa. Now, these places are famous in Korea and quite different than the spas at home. We get there (after dinner...at midnight) and pay $10 to put our shoes in a locker. They give us our little outfits; the girls' are pink and the boys' are blue...how cute! The we go inside and change. After that, we pretty much have free reign of the 3 floors of saunas, hot tubs, snack bar and television rooms. The main difference between here and home, is that people will go here to sleep. It's open all night, and for $10 you can pretty much stay as long as you'd like. There were special rooms for sleeping, but there were also people sleeping wherever there was a free spot on the floor...it was cool! The best part, was that if you paid an extra $5 you could have fish nibble on your feet. (ok, I know most of you just gasped) It's a really big thing here, these fish eat all the dead skin on your feet...it's like a live pedicure. I will not lie, I wasn't wholly comfortable with this at first, but I eventually got used to it. Chris and I kept looking at each other and telling each other it would be ok. haha We hung out there for a few more hours and then we headed home for the night.

On Saturday, Josh and Kelly had to work, but we had plans to hang out again that night, and to try a 'famous' Korean dish :) Josh's friend knew of a place that serves this dish, but it unfortunately closed before we were able to get there. Slightly sad, but not beaten, we decided that Taco Chili Chili would be a great place to formulate our next plan of attack. Our new Korean friend (that we met at the jimjilbang) got to work to locate another place that serves this dish and after we had all finished our tacos/enchiladas, we were apparently on our way to eat dinner...again. Now, I am sure you are all curious as to what we were so focused on eating...especially since we were willing to eat dinner twice in succession in order to get some. I think some of you may have a hint already, and in Korea it's called BoShinTang...translated: Dog Soup. (eek!) It was pretty expensive, but I can't lie; it was pretty good. Josh and I were slightly worried when it was ordered, but we figured 'when in Rome.....or Korea.' Kelly was less squeamish than Josh and I, and Ball (our Korean friend) was really excited. After we finished, we headed out to Itaewon for the night. (and Josh and I tried our hand behind the bar at ClubSpy...more so Josh than I...he's a good bartender!!)

Sunday, I had another day packed with fun and adventure. This weekend is the beginning of Buddha's birthday celebration in Korea. There was a festival this weekend with the culmination being a huge parade and celebration of togetherness in the main square downtown. I was planning on going with my crew, but Josh called me around 3 and was antsy to get out of the house. (I was too, as I wasn't able to nap and had already finished all my work for the day) I met with him, Kelly and Chris and off we went. We enjoyed a yummy lunch and wandered in search of more Korean delicacies along the main street with all the carts selling food. We saw some guys selling candy and they were kind enough to give us a demonstration, which I took a video of and posted the link for you :) After that, we moved onto the main event, which was the parade. Chris and I luckily managed to make it to the front of the crowd (which was good as we are both kinda short) and were given lanterns to hold as a gift from a nice man. The parade was really cool, and it lasted longer than any parade I have ever seen. There were traditional dancers, muscial performances, floats and fire breathing dragons! (also included videos of that) After the parade ended, Chris and I had to go in search of a bathroom, and eventually found one in the biggest, most maze-like Burger King ever. (I was reminded of a Dane Cook joke about the Whopper Layer...) We stopped by where my friends were to say hello and then headed out to the main square where the party was to begin!

The night ends with a 'Celebration of being Together' and so we all decided that it would be fun to do some celebrating in our own way. We grabbed hands and started dancing in a circle with each other. Soon some Koreans grabbed us (and we thought we were in trouble) but as it turns out, they just wanted to join. Before we knew it, there were about 20 people in our circle and there were circles forming everywhere. There was singing, and running and conga lines...the camera men didn't know what to do and were running all over the place! Josh and I took full advantage of the silliness and were all over the place. Our pictures made it onto the big screen above the square, we were filmed for Korean TV and had the newspaper take about 100 pictures of us! It was truly an epic moment in my life. This carried on for about 2 hours or so, and then we decided that we had to call it a night. Only in Korea are you able to start a dance riot in the streets and have that much fun on TV :) I was still running on adrenaline when I got home, so I decided to call mom and my little brother to fill them in on the madness. It's nice to be able to call home again!

I am looking forward to see what wonders next week holds, and I will be sure to keep you all updated on that. I do have vacation, but still have to work, so I will be around Seoul for the next week. (my crew is in Thailand...how I miss them!) I must get back to being productive, but here are the videos of the parade and the Dragon Candy men. Enjoy!! Ok...I am totally un-savvy when it comes to computer related things...so I am just adding the web-links to the videos I took. Click on them and you should be directed to my YouTube page :) The camera is old, and the videos aren't great, but hey...I'm not trying to win any awards here! haha

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WC35XMHFdg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEx0iIxuHmY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXnwYSnVJ8Q

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