Korean ski vacation... so good!!

We just got back from our 4 night/5 day Christmas ski trip and it was so much fun! It was Dan and I along with 3 other teachers/friends from our school who are all from Canada, Dan, Linda and Leah.

We had a ski hill view from our 14th floor hotel room (see pic of hill). Sue (a Korean teacher at our school) hooked us up with the accommodations through her husband's membership at this resort that was a 3 hour bus ride from our homes. This hook up gave us a discount on the room (we each paid about 75.00 for all 4 nights) and we got 40% off on the lift tickets! The runs were pretty good. The snow is all man made and overall made for good skiing, in my opinion.

Dan and I skied 3 days and although he had to wait for me here and there (he's really good on the ol' skis), I was able to keep up for the most part. I fell a few times and the third day was icy and so cold, and I was slipping and falling all over those hills... some of the wipe outs were pretty funny, some kind of painful, but not too bad.

We played cards and board games. We went to the arcade and gamed it up. There was a billiards room where we shot pool. We went bowling! And, of course skiing! It was a really fun trip. Woo hoo!!

Happy Hanukah and Merry Christmas!

Tonight is the last night of Hanukah and tomorrow is Christmas eve. We lit some candles in our makeshift menorah tonight, they then fell over and we propped them back up without any of them going out!

We went to Seoul tonight and there were many Christmas festivities. Lots of light displays and a few Santas walking about. There were more vendor booths set up along the streets than usual and many people with their families and cameras there to enjoy it all.

The pics are of our menorah, the Christmas decorations in Seoul, a jam packed train that we rode and some of the vendors.

Things here are going good. My ears are clearing up. We are on Christmas vacation for 10 days and on Monday morning (Christmas day) we (Dan and 3 other Canadian teachers from my school) leave to go skiing for 5 days! Happy holidays!

A few things I've noticed about Korea.

Korea:
Fish- The scent of fish wafts through the air. Fish stands, selling fish soup, fish sticks, fish stu and fishy fish stuff too. As you walk by one of the many stands, the strongest fishy smell fills your nostrils and my first thought is always, "Ewww! That stinks! I just can't get used to it."

Bowing- As I enter any restaurant or store I am met with a bow and verbal greeting. Other people do it to, like the kid's parents or some people I work with, or just strangers on the street. Make eye contact, give a small bow and greeting. I smile, cause I don't know how to say hello properly yet, or I am just too self concious to say it.

Red light runners- The busses and sometimes other cars run the red lights, the ambulances and cops don't seem to. Hmm...

Meat sticks- They sell yummy bbq'd meat sticks at these stands all over the place for 1000 won here (like $1.50), sooo good!

That's all for now. More later, as there is way more to mention!

p.s. I'm doing well, by the way. I had my ear drum cut opened by a doctor the other day. My ear was plugged for nearly a month, as no natural drainage took place. So, I had to resort to the cutting. It hurt, the anestetic was weak, but I didn't want him to stick a needle in my ear drum either. He sucked some fluid out with a sucky thing... that was the most painful out of everything. Then I had to lay on that same side that night with tissue under my ear and hope for maximum drainage, as the incision was due to close by the next day. I go to see the doc tomorrow to check the progress... my hearing is better, but not perfect yet. I am hoping for some good news, which I am pretty sure I will get. Bye!

Freakin' lady freakin' out on us!!!

So, this freakin' lady freaked out on Dan and I today! The pic below is from our screen that shows whose ringing our door bell... 2 are of her, cause she's crazy and she rang it twice in a row!! and the other one is the security gaurd from our building... I wasn't able to fit her husband's pic in this pic, but he came to our place too!

First thing this morning a man came to the door. Dan was still sleeping at this point. The man was nice, he spoke almost all Korean and basically he told me that he lived in the apartment below us and his wife is angry cause the ashes from our cigarettes were landing on her banister railing... I brought him in, showed him our ash tray and said we won't ash out the window anymore.

Then the security rings us a few minutes later and insists that I come with him. I go into the ladies apartment only to be met with a psychotic, eye twitching, Korean screaming bitch. At this point Dan woke up and came to our door to hear what was going on. She was up in my face, yelling so loud that Dan could clearly hear her from our place upstairs... I tried to explain the game plan for future smokes and apologize, but she didn't relent. So I got bitchy and stormed outta there.

Minutes later she rang our bell. We opened the door, upon seeing Dan she calmed down a bit, but still continued spazzing out on us. We eventually felt it necessary to show her our balcony and how we would smoke from then on. She wasn't satisfied. All of a sudden, low and behold! she spoke English!! Granted it was broken, but we could understand her. She asked us what country we were from, where we worked, threatened to call the police, several times... threatened to call our boss (we lied about where we work). She told us she and her husband are high class and that "Everday! EVERDAY! I clean up the ashes!! I can't sleep at night!! I can't sleep!" Well, my question is why did it take her 2 months to talk to us and how is it that she is so high class and yet has zero people and communication skills?? And, what? You can't sleep? Really? Come on, psycho! How obsessed are you!!?

We're pissed! We're thinking about putting a flaming bag of a hot steamer on her door step... maybe that will bring us some peace of mind...

Dan's big golden birthday!

It was Dan's birthday last week. The director bought all of us pizza and cake and gave Dan a present. We had the house and office decorated for him. He opened some presents here, at the apartment, and then we (Leah, Dan and I) went to Seoul and found a little Indian restaurant and went for dinner, which was delicious! These are some pics from the big day!!

My ear drums

Hey guys! I went to the doctor again, the Hefner lounge one. Anyways, this time they took pics of my ear drums. The one on the left is actually my right ear, the one that was infected. And though this pic doesn't show it as well as his screens did, you can kind of make out some little bubbles on my infected ear drum. Those were filled with fluid and the other drum was smooth smooth smooth... it was neat, so I took a pic!