Happy Superbowl USA.  Im not there to watch it, but in the end I think Im glad Im not watching this fail.  I had in my mind that the haws were going to win but not by this much!  I heard there was a couple places here that were showing the game but … to wake at like 7am to head out to one of these places? Ill pass. Only if it was my team and the situation was what it was last year would I have woken early. 

Im back in a cafe before my afternoon classes looking for other random movies and tv shows to download to watch later. 

 

Yesterday was the last day of vacation.  I went with one of my friends to Cube city shopping center to walk around then to a sauna to just relax and do nothing. 

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Last week I went to walk around the more historical part of seoul .Ended up walking by the Blue House, where the president is , way up on the side of the mountain. 

 

Lunar New year spent with new friends ~ Eating pizza in Itaewon.

Dinner in yeoido mall. Ive spent the last couple days walking around the various indoor shopping centers in Korea since its been kinda rainy and dreary here. 

This week things go back to normal.  Hopefully we will have this cold spell this week and after things will warm up.  The cold weather feels like its been dragging on and on here since Korea really had no fall. It just became cold one day and poof. Winter. 

Time to sit down for hours and just upload stuff!
Happy Lunar New year everyone. Its the year of the Horse, aka my year! Seoul is very quiet today and will be through the weekend.  It took me a while to find a cafe that was open.

I thought id take some time and upload some of the pictures I took while in my short visit to the south part of Japan in Yamaguchi.

Very..rural japan but nice to get out of Korea for a little.

All of the shrines are so brightly coloured, it was very pretty to walk through.

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Also went to the aquarium here in Seoul at the Coex center. Not as impressive as the one in Baltimore but what can I expect.

Its pretty mild weather here today , temperatures in the mid 40s..its going to get colder as the week progresses though.  I will upload more photos when I have a faster wifi connection, the images here took forever to upload by themselves.

Hope everyone is doing well, surviving the frigid temps at home ~  ~

Happy 2014~ Its amazing that its already a new year. 

Lets backtrack to Christmas time.  I hung out with some close friends close by for Christmas…eve eve and Christmas Day. One of my friends rented out a hotel room to just sit and…get away from her family, so a couple of us went over there to sit and eat and watch a few holiday movies. 

 

I guess Korea dosnt really care about January 1 as much as January 31, which is the Lunar new year.  From what I have read and heard, everything is closed on the Lunar New year which means I have to stock up on movies to watch that day . 

For New Years me and my friends got a group together to go out and celebrate.  We ended up going to a bunch of different places since by the time we all met up it was past 8pm and most places were already crowded with people. 

They were trying to do some kind of funny pose but ..clearly only some of the group got the message. 

 

Fun night, its always good to see a bunch of people and hang out when we can.  Its the third day of the new year right now, Friday, my day off.  So I came to the cafe this morning to talk to parents, and download a couple movies since stealing partial wifi only works about half of the time.  Having Fridays off is a good break since I have to work both saturday and sunday.. 

Today im off to see another friend at a cafe and dinner on the other side of the city. 

Merry almost Christmas world! Its terribly cold here in Seoul…. much more so than it was in NY or MD. Its Saturday afternoon and I have returned from classes, did a small amount of shopping and now resting in a cafe… its busy though..no tables next to an outlet..so I will have to work with the 80% power in my computer. Good enough.  

For the most part Christmas in Korea is kinda a bust.  It isnt treated like a big holiday here so … there isnt as much excitement here…rather…as much energy.. most people seem to be looking forward to the new years holiday here.  People only take off Christmas day…and thats about it.  The eve isnt even treated as much as a holiday Im trying to feel a little more in the holiday by sipping on mint hot chocolate. 

Yesterday I had the day off and met up with a friend to walk around different parts of Seoul.  We went north of the river to walk around Shinchon, and itaewon areas.   Went to the Leeum art museum which ..was quite the hike to get to up a steep hill to see a Hiroshi Sugimoto exhibit.  

Last week I went with one of my friends to go eat Bossam. (steamed pork you eat with various picked vegetables etc ) 

Missing red meat. 

Once again, another week has flown by and I feel like I am always on the go.  I have time now to just sit and enjoy the majority of the Saturday afternoon in the cafe sipping this ‘blueberry latte’ Its ok…no caffiene though which I desperately seem to need these days! 

SO I left off when I was getting together with my friends for Thanksgiving and…was fun for the most part.  We were all invited to a house in Itaewon which had a good amount of people… maybe between 45~55? Im not too sure since I didnt really venture outside the group of people that I came with. But overall it was fun to just talk and … see someone elses big villa haha. There was some turkey and ham but ..in the end it didnt even look that appetizing. Thanksgiving in Korea fail .

 

It was really fun to get a small group together to just hang out and…not worry about work or running around for once.  Even though it was a long night with a couple bumps along the road it was worth it ^-^ . 

Walked around the National Museum of Korea

And sat inside the national Cathedral for a while. 

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This is one of my students on friday at the school I work at in far away land..haha He thought it was fun last week to throw paint on the wall…. Im not sure why but it wasnt too fun for me to clean up haha

otherwise they are pretty cute and harmless with pieces of paper. 

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Last night my friend took me out to eat Hwe. Or sashimi. 

One order of fish comes with all these side dishes to fill you up incase the fish wasnt enough haha. 

Happy thanksgiving to the USA! Its good to sit here and write that with no traveling, or no preparation for Black Friday going on in my world.  The rest of the world needs a holiday for shopping, even though sometimes…rather in some places it gets out of hand and ends up in people getting stepped on and arrested.  

Its Thursday here and its just another day of the week here. I had a morning class and decided to stick around the area because I had never been here before (soh-hyun, down in bundang) 
Next week is going to be a test with two classes way in the early morning with a group of biz men.  New experiences all over the board. The weeks have been lagging but hopefully this weekend can be a bit more fun. Im trying to get a small group together for a dinner on Saturday night since most of us seem to work late Thursday nights. 

Its always interesting to see articles other english teachers in Korea manage to post of a forum online. Today this one seems to be getting the most attention. 

 

http://www.cracked.com/article_20713_5-reasons-english-language-makes-no-freaking-sense.html?fb_action_ids=10151904008172949&fb_action_types=og.likes&fb_source=other_multiline&action_object_map=%5B174293149446157%5D&action_type_map=%5B%22og.likes%22%5D&action_ref_map=%5B%5D

Time spent in cafes really flies. I feel internet deprived since I dont have a router at my apartment currently. The cafes outside Gnam all seem to have slower internet for some reason…. it bothers me but..its still getting the job done.. just a little bit slower. Right now Im sitting in ‘Tom N Toms’ cafe .  You walk down and some chipper baristas say ‘안녕하세요, 톰앤톰스입니다’ Basically, ‘Hello and welcome to Tom N Toms.  I have to say that this place has given me the worst chat latte I have had in a while.  Only Starbucks seems to make a decent one. 

Picture from the Cub A with Sujee.  Both tired from work but wanted to have a look around. 

Rice donut from Mister donut, not much flavour but..food on the go seems to be my thing these days. 

No fret, CPK is in Korea, the pizza crust is significantly thinner….but its still pizza.  Prices are a bit higher too -_- eh the price you pay to eat something non asian food.  We even shared a bottle of questionable red wine :] 

Dduk-mandoo guk. Rice cake and dumpling soup in a bone broth.  Its the best food to eat on these 24 degree nights.

More pictures to be taken this weekend when I gather with my friends. All us Americans are homesick with the holidays rapidly approaching but hopefully we can band together and do something fun to  make it memorable for the year we arnt home :] 

Running around in the cold weather is draining.  Today is Wednesday and its about 35 degrees here at 12pm.  Ive been sitting at a cafe this morning doing some reading and catching up on some other small things.

Its been a pretty tame week.  Going to classes. I went yesterday morning to the samsung repair center to repair my phone screen that shattered when I dropped it on the floor. It looks surprisingly like the dmv there.  People get a number and wait to be called…you talk to a representative then you continue to wait even more till your phone is fixed.  The whole thing took less than 45 minutes though which was good.  The market for phone screen repair must be huge.  I guess I should be thankful that I never dropped my phone that bad in NYC to break it and have to pay the repair fees there.

Its been a couple hours here and Im still trying to think up some fun activity to bring to my class with a 9 year old boy and 4 year old boy. Both have a somewhat reluctance on doing anything english related but with some persistence they at least try and before I know it the hour is over and its time to move onto the next class.  Wednesday isnt too bad, when i think about it there isnt a class that I have that I really just dont want to go to .  I wish I was provided with more materials though instead of me sitting here all the time having to constantly think up new things to do to keep the kids attention.

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Last night I went out a little bit after my evening class. Simple short nights with friends in small dosages are good once in a while.  I makes me feel like I never left new york since I can see many of the same people here and do somewhat the same things.

Right now Im contemplating what to do for the upcoming holidays. Thanksgiving clearly dosnt exist here, but I found a place that is doing an American style dinner over the period of three days (thurs-sat) so I have a few friends that want to go possibly on the Saturday since we all work during the week, most of us working somewhat really odd hours.  So if all goes according to plan it should be fun to pretend that we never left the states. As for Christmas I really have no idea what people do here.  Apparently its not too much of a family holiday since people only get the 25th off.  New years is the holiday for gathering and relaxing..celebrating etc.  I want to try and travel but that might have to wait till sometime late winter or spring. Hopefully I can make it out to Hong Kong 😀

Ill try and take more pictures for the next post

 

Ive been so busy everyday I totally forgot about this blog for a while. Its well into November already and I know its gotten cold both in the states and here too.  Its a chilly 36F here right now with a wind thats been here on and off. Its Sunday, I had two classes in the morning then spent the rest of the day basically talking to one of my friends online. We can literally end up talking for hours and not even notice the time pass by. Its good to have friends like that. It makes me smile each day. 

Since work has picked up I feel like Im constantly in classes or on the road traveling to said classes. Its good, it keeps me from being from being too idle and wandering or sleeping. haha. I do feel like Ive lacked a bit of sleep in the last few weeks. With the cold weather its harder for me to stay asleep. We are being resistant to turning on the heat to save money so even inside its a bit chilly even right now. 

My friend Catherine is leaving tomorrow to go back stateside for a while then to Hong Kong to live for a while. Its sad to see her go but Im glad I got to see her last week before she left :] 

 

 

 

Its quite the rainy Saturday here in Seoul…. its basically been pouring since I woke up this morning and it hasnt let up in the least.  Spent my Saturday traveling down to Bundang for class then another one two hours long close by. Tired … teaching english makes you really wonder why some words are the way that they are…..why english as so many rules and irregular patterns… 

ANYWAY, so Halloween came and went and … for the most part it wasnt as fun as times Ive had in years past but it was still something. I went with my friend Catherine and Sujee to Itaewon and we wandered around with other westerners in somewhat costumes.. ( didnt try too hard because we thought no one would care) 

Was still fun even though its nothing compared to what the west village on Halloween 😀 

 

Ok I guess its time that I write something before I forget again for multiple days. 

Im in…Im past the two week point of having a cold…at this point Im pretty sure that its turned into a sinus infection and Im just riding the wave till it goes away… Times like this I remember that feeling normal is taken for granted haha and Im SO SO tired of feeling stuffed up, coughing, headaches. blah its all crappy. Plus its getting cold…I need more blankets.. Its only getting colder from here! 

Today is Tuesday…Thursday is Halloween! I have the feeling that most of the parties for Halloween here happened last week but I want to try and get a small group of people to do something at least for the spirit of being Americans in Korea haha. Though I have not really planned….anything yet…….. Spontaneous ! So lets slowly recount the last couple days…

This past Saturday one of my friends invited me out to a opening for a new/restaurant…brewery thing over near myungdong. Not the closest thing but decided to go and drag Catherine along for cheap-er beers and free food. 

American wings…chicken fingers,,fries..and salad… whatever free food! 

From there me and Catherine decided to head back to south of the river to go bowling and ended up waiting a long time but eventually got to bowl two games before we decided we cant bowl well and left haha. 

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The next day I had a friend that I met in the first couple weeks of being here. We walked around Hongdae and went to a dog cafe for me to…miss Hilo even more .

Its just as the name implies…a cafe. .that serves coffee and other random beverages then has a ton of dogs just walking around for you to pet and interact with.  Im so thankful these exist ❤ 

Art fair in Hongdae, reminds me of Union sq market. 

 

Nothing too exciting in the last days since I havnt felt that great.  Lots of random cafe drinks for me to sit and vegetate in my free time to use internet. Its 12.25.pm here Tuesday and im debating to eat lunch or not.  How I miss mass supermarkets to just pick up any kind of ingredient.  Or rather, I miss having things to cook with..the only thing in my apartment is a stovetop.  No microwave…no oven..how to people survive without these common appliances!