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Published: November 30th 2009
Hello family and friends! December is upon us! We have reached our 3 month mark, and cannot believe how quickly time is flying! How many of you have put up your Christmas decorations already? It doesn't really feel like the Christmas season here, yet, but hopefully that will come!
It's been a couple weeks since our last post, so here is what we have been up to since then!
We went to see an amazingly talented Korean jazz singer with a few friends last Saturday. Her name is Nah Youn Sun (나 윤 선) and she is fantastic! She was playing with a Norwegian musician, Matias Eick, and they were a great duo! We actually got to meet them both after the show, which was cool and get them to sign our tickets and CDs. Youn Sun lives part-time in Seoul, part-time in Paris, and speaks Korean, English and French perfectly fluently! She is amazing! I actually got to speak with her in French a little bit, which was nice for a change! During the concert they used this really cool technique where they would play or sing a few notes, record it then play it on loop, so
Youn Sun and Mathias Eick
It's not the best picture ever, but by the bluriness of his head, you can imagine the way his head was bopping to the beat!switch instruments or sing differently, so by the end of the songs it sounded like there was a whole band and multiple singers on stage, when there was really only 2! Mathias played something like 6 different instruments over the course of the concert, sometimes all in the same song! Afterwards we went to a Turkish restaurant where we are amazing Turkish food - bread, shish kebabs, lamb saute and other delicious food that I can't remember the name of!
This week was American Thanksgiving and a Seaman's Club for the American navy in Busan hosted a traditional Thanksgiving dinner with all the fixings! We were more than happy to take part in this American holiday if it meant mashed potatoes, turkey and pumpkin pie! And was it ever worth it! The food was delicious and definitely satisfied our cravings for real home-cooked food! I got the feeling that we had been away from western food for too long when we all put cream of mushroom soup on our mashed potatoes instead of gravy!! Oops! As I was spooing the "gravy" onto my potatoes the Korean cook came out and saw me, and started gasping going "no, no!". At
first I couldn't figure out what he saw telling me, and then I saw the pile of bowls right in front of the "gravy". I don't think anyone would need a bowl of gravy...and then it hit me - it was soup! You can believe that I felt pretty stupid about that mistake until I found out that just about every other foreigner there did the exact same thing!! Shortly after my run-in with the cook, there were signs posted on the gravy and soup to clarify what each was!! We left that night with the exact feeling everyone has after a delicious Thanksgiving dinner - you ate wayyyy too much and dont want to eat anymore for days! Of course, in the morning, that all changes! I could definitely go for another plate of those garlic mashed right about now! 😊
We also got to hang out with our favourite Korean baby, Sonya, that evening! Our friend Paul is a Korean who was adopted as a child by an American Korean family. He has recently moved back to Korea, gotten married and has the cutest little 8 month old baby ever! I found out that night as we
Dinner with our Korean Class
To celebrate American Thanksgiving we went for dinner with the other foreigners in our Korean class. The two closest people are our amazing teachers Jinji and Sophia! We are eating samgipsal! rode the subway to dinner that they almost named her Daniella, so we have a special connection! haha! Or I keep telling myself that anyways! Korean babies are so darn cute!
Saturday Mike and I went shopping (for the first time in 3 months, might I add!) in the PNU area of Busan. This area surrounds Pusan National University and is filled with tiny shops along windy alleyways. There is no shortage of small restaurants and cellphone shops in this area and it is always bustling! Our shopping trip, while ending well, started off a little bumpy. In Korea, most stores only carry one of each item, I guess in the most common size. The first store we went in to, I saw a sweater I liked, and when I saw the changerooms and asked to try it on, I was a little surprised when the employee said "no", crossing her arms to make an X. This is so common in stores here. We're not sure if it's because we are foreigners or because they think we will stretch the clothes, but it has happened to just about every foreigner at some time or another. Obviously I'm not going
Group at WaBar
Mike is also acting as a model for our new "sexy morning cup" (literally, that's what the box says!) that we got as a gift for going to a new Vietnamese restaurant on opening night! Next is Mara, Melissa, Drew, Lauren and Austin. to buy clothes without trying them on, so we left the first few stores empty-handed, and perhaps a little discouraged. Luckily our luck improved at the next few stores and we ended up finding winter jackets and boots (for me) and a few other things. Finding shoes for Mike is another story. His shoe size is not considered a typical size and many stores do not carry shoes in his size at all (size 285) - often 280 or 275 is the largest they carry. This makes buying shoes quite the task! We met this guy at a shoe store who had been in Korea 2 years, was a size 300 and had yet to find any shoes in his size! Imagine not getting new shoes for 2 whole years! yeesh!
Another thing about shopping here is sometimes (but not always), the price is negotiable..and usually there is a discount if you pay with cash. This is bad at times, because we never know when we are being ripped off...there are no price tags, no receipts or anything. Other times, it can really work in your favour. Take this one store where Mike was looking at a jacket. He really
Mike and a new friend
We ran into this character while shopping in PNU Saturday. We aren't sure what he is, but it's typical to see this kind of thing liked the jacket and the price was 85,000W, but because we were paying cash and because he liked us because we were foreigner, he gave us a price of 73,000W...well we decided to try for 70,000. He was hesitant at first, but being the fun guy he is, he decided to rock,paper,scissors Mike for the price - If Mike won, 70,000 and if he won, 75,000. In Korean, they say something that sounds like "kai, bai bo" and luck was on our side and Mike won! So we ended up getting the cheaper price, but even if we hadn't, it was a fun way to do business and we would have left with smiles on our faces no matter what!
This weekend was also the surprise party and celebration of our friend Mara's birthday! After the surprise part, we headed to a noraebang for the first time...and it was about time! Noraebang literally means singing room (norae = singing, bang = room), and it is a very typical Korean thing to do and a common after-bar activity (since they are open all night). Essentially it is a karaoke bar, but it is separated into small rooms, so you sing
Our favourite Korean baby!
Isn't Sonya the cutest little things ever? karaoke with your friends only. The rooms are about the size of a typical bedroom and have a few couches to relax on while you enjoy the musical talents of your friends, awaiting your turn for the mic! You pay for the room by the hour, and usually it's about 20,000W perhour, so like 1 or 2 bucks a person...not bad for an hour of hilarious singing and performing with your friends!!
Tomorrow is December 1 and officially the beginning of the holiday season. It hardly feels like it here yet, but hopefully that will change soon! In the meantime we hope you are all well and would love to hear your news as well! We miss you and love you!!
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