Seoul!

We finally made it to Seoul! The bus drive took about 4 hours. We decided to stay in an area of Seoul called Itaewon which is the foreigner section. We were REALLY surprised by how nice our hotel was!! We were expecting a sort of middle of the road Holiday Inn type of hotel, but we really lucked out! We felt really spoiled by how luxurious the hotel was and wish we could have stayed there longer! That night, we went to some foreigner bars in Itaewon and met a new friend from Michigan (so far we have met four people from Michigan -- is there something really undesirable about this state or something?!). The bars were really fun and we saw a show at one of them. We headed back to our hotel for (a very short) sleep and woke up early the next morning. We wandered around Itaewon a bit...it was so bizarre because SO many people were foreigners, children, senior citizens, babies, you name it. A lot of people looked like they were there on vacation and of course, there's also a large population of military people who stay in Itaewon.

We took the subway to Miyungdon which we had heard was a really popular area for shopping. It was so unbelievably crowded. I guess that's what happens when you have such an enormous population crammed into such a small geographical area. The shopping was good, but the crowds at time were really overwhelming, especially because we've spent three months in a small town with a population of 500,000, but feels morel like 50,000.

We went to an amazing Chinese restaurant for lunch/dinner and I don't think either of us have ever eaten so fast and enjoyed a meal so much! It was such a nice treat and change from the Korean food we've been eating. We walked around for hours and hours until our feet fell like they were going to fall off. We shopped ourselves out but really didn't buy too much! There was a forever 21 in Seoul as well as some other American stores, but the crowds in the stores, the temperature (Koreans seem to really like hot, hot temperatures inside) AND how overpriced many of the things were deterred us from buying too much.

We took the 9pm bus back to Pohang and got here around 1am. We really love Seoul, but there is SO much to see and do. It's definitely a place we will need to come back to several more times in order to really see and do all there is to do. We got a little taste of it and it was really refreshing to get out of Pohang. Now we're less than 6 weeks away from our trip to Thailand. The countdown begins!!!!

Fun weekend!

This was a really fun and busy weekend! Friday night we went out to a restaurant with new friends, Misty and Brian. They're a couple from Atlanta and have been in Korea for a year and prior to that, they taught in Spain. After dinner, we went to a hookah bar and had a little too much seju. Seju is very similar to soju, but the taste is a bit sweeter and tastes less like rubbing alcohol. After a couple hours, we headed over to the noory bar and belted out a few songs. We won't torture you with any videos (although there are plenty) except for our 10 second dedication to Ellen with our (very poor) rendition of Tomorrow. We can't wait to come home and go to the noory bar with all of you. It just might be one of our new favourite hobbies!

Saturday night we went to a Halloween party at a foreigner's apartment and then to one of the foreigner bars downtown. We only stayed at the bar for about 10 minutes, mostly in part because of my paranoia that we would win best costume. One of the bartenders had come around and asked for our names. Then some guy got on the microphone and called out the nominations for "sexiest costume." Four girls were chosen and had to stand on a table and the audience had to cheer for which costume they thought was best. Because the audience cheered equally for all four of them, the girls had to do a dance-off. For MaryAnne this would not have been a problem, but there's not enough sojo OR seju in the world that could get me to do that.

Today, we went to the grocery store and bought all of the ingredients to make a Korean traditional stew. MaryAnne has been become quite a fan of this Korean chef on YouTube and is in the process of making the dinner right now. We realize we've been really negligent in making videos, but there is now new inspiration with MaryAnne's adventures in Korean cooking.

Today is November 1st and I am covered in mosquito bites and still wearing shorts and tshirts. It's very strange.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!

For Ellen...

You can barely see us, but you can sure hear us! We did this song for you, Ellen! Happy Halloween!! We miss you so so so so much!!!!!!

Limited Desaturation

We've been playing around a lot with photoshop and love the look of these photos! We actually use a program called Pixelmaker and it's really easy to do, but so much fun and kind of addicting, especially because we've really started to enjoy taking photos! I guess this is what happens when you only work 20 hours a week...we're also going to try an experiment when our groceries run out: No Western food for one week, only Korean. We will either start to really enjoy Korean food or we'll lose a lot of weight! Stay tuned for the results!!!

Halloween in Korea?

We are trying to think of Halloween costumes for a party on Saturday. Koreans don't celebrate Halloween so costumes are really limited. If you have any ideas, please send them our way!!

Getting a Colonoscopy in Korea...Viewer Discretion is Advised

You're looking at some lovely colour wallet-sized photos of my colon, which is normal and healthy with the exception of a few hemorrhoids (I said viewer discretion was advised!). I got to the doctors to have the usual pre-op stuff which included blood pressure and checking my heart. I've had this done at home before where the nurses put a small suction, bandaid-like thing on you for a couple minutes. The only thing I can use to accurately describe the "clamps" placed on my ankles and wrists are car jumper cables. This was the 1st sign that the quality of care I'm used to at home may not be the same here.

Next, I was given these short pants with a trap door in the back and told to lie on a bed where my feet dangled at the bottom (the beds were either very short or I have grown since being in Korea). The nurse placed an enema inside and instructed me to wait 5 minutes and then go up a flight of stairs and I'd find the bathrooms. The public bathrooms I was using weren't even connected to the doctor's office in any way. They were also really dirty and (obviously) smelled like sh**! It didn't help that I could hear a grown man grunting and farting in the room beside me or the woman in my room grunting every minute.

I was finally taken to the operating room and placed on a bed with a leather blanket and leather pillow. That's a first. The nurse then put a tight elastic around my head and stuffed this piece of plastic into my mouth. She said "to help breathe better." It actually has the opposite effect and I felt like I was in some 1950s psych ward.

Anyway who knows how coherent this will sound in an hour. I have already made several typos because I'm writing with one eye open -- think that means its' time for the night nightsl