carey's leaving in 8 hours!

alright - so wednesday night it was careys going away party. it was good times.. poker, food, and some drinks not on my dime, which i always like.. i took tons of pics, to realize the next day that carey is in none of them. sooo here are some pics of mel and i... haha.. anyways, i just finished helping carey pack (well not so much packing as mooching... i snagged a free jean jacket out of the deal) i'm getting up at 7:45 am to say my formal goodbyes.. this last 2 months i feel like everyone is leaving, and next month so am i.. and marla.. the times they are a changin..

carey's last weekend

ASIAN PRIDE!! yes i'm a little white girl from south western ontario, but i have it..

well, sadly, this is careys last weekend. on this contract at least.. she'll be back in september. so on friday night we went to jeng-iy per usual.. then mel and i danced all night.. then went to watch the world cup game.. korea lost to switzerland.. boo to that!!! anyways, it was an eventful and fun night..


daryl and ben at jengi
carey, joanne, me, marla

so we went out to dinner at tgifridays for carey on saturday.. and right before we had our appetizers, the restaurant stops.. and all the staff begin singing and doing this dance.. it literally went on for 6 minutes.. definitely one of those times where it ends and you look at eachother and ask "did that really just happen?" so frickin bizarre..
rio our favourite tgi waiter!

so sunday was low key.. we went to see the new xmen movie which rocked my socks off! then we went for sushi and a glass of wine.. i hung out at marlas after that and then just crashed..

now it's monday again.. sigh.. hopefully it will be an easy week as the middle schoolers have exams.. 12 in 3 days.. poor kids!

one month exactly till i come home!! woo hoo!!

turning japanese

What better way to start your blog than a pic like that? ^^^^ That's Marlas 'sake face'... So we went to Japan for the weekend. It was great to get away and have another stamp in the passport. We got up at 5 am to catch the KTX to busan and then the ferry to fukoka. all in all it was relatively cheap. transportation and hotel to and from japan for 20o bucks. nice. we arrived at around lunch time, and after the initial 'holy crap, we're in japan' feelings we settled into our ridiculously small hotel room and then went to check out some ancient ruins. i demanded that we do something cultural on the trip, so it wasn't just about the shopping (which, granted is enough on it's own).
This is canal city. a killer shopping district in fukoka. i sold my soul to gap for clothes that fit me normally. someday i'm sure the smell of sweatshop will wear off. this place was awesome though, all open concepts. you can tell that japan actually has money put aside for landscaping and architecture. cough.
here is a little market along the river. it was cool, at night everything was lit up, and people were drinking and eating. really good atmosphere. my camera sucks with night shots so nothing turned out great.

alright, so this year i've had kimchi in korea, pad thai in thailand, and sushi in japan. i don't care if it's dorky

These pics are in and around the ruins we checked out near ohori park.

me, waaaay back on that bridge. there was someone sleeping right beside where i was standing.

view of fukoka from the ruins.



gokoku shrine.
our hotel room. fricking tiny. there are more pics which i will post later when i get them. japan was a short but good trip. i feel as though i was excessively clutzy.. even for me.. i got stuck in elevator doors.. almost pushed down stairs in the ferry, tripped in the ferry terminal.. and had to be pulled out of the way of bicyclists constantly. the latter i don't blame on myself.. i'm just so used to the loudness of korea, and if i don't hear a motor, or yelling i assume noones there..

oh and i now know that 2 gravol guarantee me 2 hours of SOLID sleep.. i fell asleep on the way there with a sucker in my mouth for a couple of hours.. and on the way back apparantly marla fell on me and i didn't wake up.. never knew i was that deep of a sleeper.. whatever, i have a new way to make the long trip home feel a little quicker..

oh..

and i forgot to say, we're off to Japan this weekend!!!!!! Canal City, here I come!

madness i tells ya.. madness!!!!

Me, Mel, Joanne, Carey, Ben

Alright folks. My net was down for awhile but I'm back in action. I've had an amazing couple of weeks. Last Tuesday was Gyeongju, then last weekend was Joannes birthday. See above pic. We are all soaked because it was down-pouring like a mo-fo. We did dinner, then ice cream fondu at baskin robbins, then to a bar called AU. This was the best part of the night because of the table next to us. We noticed that they were buying their liquor by the bottle. So we tried to smile and make contact with them (thinking they were loaded). Then they came over and started doing these amazing card tricks for us! It wa so much fun. We were told that they were Korean pop stars. One guy sang and was pretty good, so it could be true. I'm more impressed with the mad magic skillz myself. A few of us went to a fundraiser after that. A foreigner had an accident a few weeks ago and is brain dead in the hospital. So there was an auction at the Canadian owned bar downtown. It was busy, and apparantly around 3 grand was raised for his family. Dancing after that.
Me, Colm, Kate

Now for the good stuff!! Last night was the first game for Korea in the World Cup!!! Anyone who knows me knows I don't really carea bout soccer, but the peeps are so into it here that it makes it super fun. They blocked off a major intersection and raised huge speakers and screens to show the game! Vendors were everywhere, people were drinking on the streets. It was like a massive version of old boys, with soccer! It was maybe the most fun I've ever had. Korea won!!! The crowd of AT LEAST 50,000 went crazy! Then everyone started marching downtown. We lost Ben, still dont' know where he is. Everyone was running up to us to take their pic with us, high fiving us. DAE HAN MIN GUK!!!! oh, and korea is the red devil team.. which is why i have all the red and the horns.. It was a sea of red horns last night.

Kate and ME
Carey, Marlar, Me.. cheering it up! Suck it Togo!!!!


Me, Marlar


Fricking exciting!!!!


Me, Ben.. Sitting down on the street. I don't even want to think about what's on my pants. Ben, with soju bottle in hand.


Some high school boys who sat behind us.. we were pretty much on them. they took about a million pics of me, i think because of my eyebrow ring.. "piercing.. oooh.. beautiful.."

I tried to take some crowd shots. Mine do no justice to the largeness of this event.



Ben and Mel. Notice Mels lack of red and devil horns!!!! Perhaps a closet Togo fan?

You could buy beer on the street. The selling gave us 'service' squid. mmmmmmmmmmmmm



Pre-game excitement at the school. I was so pumped all day for this game. I knew it would be a party and I was right!

So Kocela, I will never bitch about having to watch a game with you again! I'm sold!

Gyeongju, South Korea

Alright, so on Tuesday it was a holiday here in S.K. I believe it was memorial day. It was nice to have a mid-week holiday, I could handle having a few more of those! Anyways, instead of just hanging around Daegu doing the things I usually do, I decided to head to Gyeongju with Carey. I'm very very glad I did.

Alright so Gyeongju was the original capital of Korea and the Silla Dynasty for 1000 years. It is really easy for us to access from Daegu, eq. of 3 dollar, 1 hour bus ride. We went around noon with full intentions of just staying for a few hours.. 10 later, we dragged our asses home. I loved Gyeongju because I felt like I was either in another country or back in time.

The first pic is of Tumuli Park, which is a collection of Silla Tombs. Here there are 23 of 200 tombs in Gyeongju.

Pic number two is of Cheomseongdae Observatory which is apparantly the earliest known observatory in existance. (7th century)
This is a little bridge we found just outside Tumuli Park. I love bridges, can't explain it..
This pic is taken at Anapji pond. This is the place where the Silla royal family hung out. I think Anapji means place for the ducks and geese.. something to do with ducks and geese.. Apparantly they drained the pond in 1974 and found a crapload of treasures.
This is outside the pong as well. These pics are actually moving backwards, so at this time we are hot, dusty and tired, as you can see.

Again, the pond.
Carey, with her child sized umbrella outside the entrance of the pond.

Here are some kids who loved us at Seokguram Grotto. Since it was a holiday there were some kids tour groups here. Gyeongju is a smaller city with less foreigners so we got much more attention here than in Daegu. "Hello, how are you? I am fine, and you? Nice to meet you!"

Still the Grotto. It is a shrine to Buddha which overlooks the East Sea. No pics of Buddha though, not allowed.

Still the Grotto. She was cute.

Entrance to the Grotto, checking out the city.


So this was right after we visited Bulguksa Temple. Carey made me wear this hat that she bought. We had 50 minutes to kill before we had to catch our bus to the Grotto so we decided to get some food.


So as we are heading towards this Korean restaurant, this Korean lady comes up to us asking us if we are hungry. We say yes, and thinking that she's going to take us into the restaurant, we follow her. She then takes us down the street to her restaurant I guess, which isn't much more than a hole in the wall. She hands us the menu, where we place our order but she rejects it. Tells us that we have to get the above food and that it was delicious. We put up a bit of a fight but then just gave up. There is not point in fighting with an Ajumma, you will always lose.

Here I am walking around Bulguksa Temple. It is one of the best known temples in Korea. Most of it has been rebuilt over time due to fires and destruction by the Japanese, but all the pagodas and stairways are original.

Behind a little temple at Bulguksa.
Bulguksa as well. The weather was perfect for this trip. Hot, but not too hot.. and not too sunny.


This is the 'female' pagoda.

Here is the 'male' counterpart.




There's Carey.






Here is some bondegi! This is right outside the entrance to Bulguksa. Bondegi means silk worm, in Korean. I will never eat this.. the smell is not so good and I have a thing against eating bugs. Come on, you all know I'm not adventurous when it comes to food.. I won't eat a steak, I definitely won't eat bugs.

So, a very good day. I always feel productive when I see new things, and a sense of accomplishment when I manage to navigate myself through a new city. If you knew my sense of direction you would understand.

2 more work days until the weekend.. AND around 7 more weeks till I'm home!