Still here

Hello all,

It has been an amusing week to say the least. Korea is fun, most of the time but some of the people are really starting to get to me. It is almost as though they have never had to deal with foreigners or even seen one for that matter. I want a t-shirt that says “take a picture it lasts longer” in Korean! I am really tired of being stared at like I have 2 heads.

Last Saturday afternoon I decided that I was going to meet Lexi to go to Insadong to get purse for Lisa who wanted it before she left. Anyway to make a long story short I was waiting for Lexi in the subway station and I was so frustrated because not only was everyone staring at me but they kept on sitting on me, here I am waiting on a bench and it was like I wasn’t even there, one person even had the guts to physically push me out of the way. Needless to say I was not a happy girl. So Lexi arrives we get into the packed subway and off we go. We had a great afternoon and lots of fun eating street food, some of it is great if you are adventurous… I find a lot of makes me ill as there seems to flour in everything but there are some things that I can eat. Anyway it was a lovely afternoon and then I went meet everyone else for dinner at this crazy expensive restaurant, it was good though. Everyone one else was going drinking and I wanted to come home so I was subwaying it alone. What an adventure it was.

I got on the train and noticed this large group of teenage boys, they quickly became more interesting than my book. They were playing rock, paper, scissors (with guns! Just for you Myrrh) and then when they lost they had to do a dare, like 15 push ups, or getting out of the train at a stop and seeing how many cars they could run before the doors started to close. There was this one poor kid who kept on losing and he was so embarrassed, it was highly entertaining to watch and I was so busy laughing I missed my stop and had to go back.

I got on the next train and was standing beside a very intoxicated individual who spent the entire ride telling me in his broken English that Koreans are wonderful people, he had beautiful daughters and that I was beautiful and then he would bow reverently. This charade was repeated over and over for the entire 20 minute ride, I was hysterical by the time they got off the train and his wife and daughters were quite embarrassed.

I spent this last week trying to get things organized for Taiwan and that too was an adventure. I went to the embassy to get a visa and they tried to tell me that I could not get one unless I was in Canada, crazy embassy. Needless to say I did in the end, get a visa. I also had to find a travel agent who spoke English, I did and she was very nice and helped with the crazy embassy stuff. I now have a visa and a ticket and I am excited! I am currently apartment hunting online, it is quite fun to be looking for a place from the other side of the world.

Wednesday this week was a holiday and I thought that since it was a beautiful day I ventured out to Myong-dong to shop. I knew that every where would be crowded as it was a holiday and so I purposely avoided that places that draw families, amusement parks, parks and the river walk. I didn’t realize that not only would those places be packed, so would everything else! Me and a million of my closest friends spent the afternoon knocking into one another as we tried to walk through the packed streets. In the midst of the million people they were was a movie crew filming a movie, I am not lying it was the funniest thing I have seen, the crew was yelling at people to get out of the way and no one was listening to them because there were so many people.

Yesterday was Saturday and Lexi I went, can you guess… shopping. It was fun but nothing too exciting. I did find some good books at the used book store though.

Anyway it is Sunday today and it is pouring with rain… sad but true so I am not doing anything to exciting, I have to work in a few hours so I am going to go now and meet Lexi at the mall for a coffee (Starbucks) as there is not much else to do in the rain, it is pouring and has been since last night.

Miss you all, watch for a new photo album later this week, it is almost finished.

Love
J