Happy Lunar New Years!!!

Oh gosh, so much has been going on!! I have so many things to update about!!


The Good - It's vacation!!! I have managed to make it out to see the War Memorial. It was a great thing to see, I took tons of pictures!! (They will be up soon as possible). It is sad to think about the 4million people who lost their lives. It is also beyond amazing to see how far the country has come in only about 50 years! This whole place has been built up SO MUCH and the technology is grand!! Yesterday was the Lunar New Years! Thousands of people out in traditional dress, exchanging gifts, sight seeing, and spending time with family. The holiday is a 3 day event: the eve, the day of, and the day after. It is traditional to give gifts of food or money, that tradition was started in the 50's when certain food items were hard to come by. So as a parent, you should give gifts to your parents and to your children. As a grandparent, you do not have to give gifts, but can and usually do to the grandchild. As a child, you do not have to give gifts either but can to both your parents and grandparents. So if you are the parent, you have to give gifts to your parents and children but often do not receive any gifts. It is not customary to exchange gifts with friends or co-workers but sometimes happens. Not quite like Christmas. For the past few weeks the stores have been filled with gift sets - a box of apples for $40! I saw a set of different meats/beefs all boxed up for a gift for $200!! Beef here is pricey, its mostly all imported, for a pound you should expect to pay circa $17.


The Bad - I ran into a small streak of bad luck - eek! But nothing to get me down, bank fraud in USA bank acct and my laptop crashed! Slowly working on getting both taken care of... but the bad news with the laptop is that even though I have a netbook to keep me online till the laptop is fixed, I can't get the pictures off my camera and on line! My netbook doesn't have any SD card slots and I didn't bring the camera cord. Boo!! I'll have to see about using someone else's! 


The Ugly ;) I finished work on Friday with a big smile on my face knowing that I don't have to work again for 10 days!!! Last weekend was spent up in Seoul! Went up on Friday night with the girls from Anseong, and had some of my friends in Seoul come meet us out. We went to this place called Monkey Beach for a fun night of dancing!! Saturday was spent relaxing and bumming around and Saturday night was filled with dancing and signing!! It was my friends last weekend in town before she set off back to the states. The norabang is such a fun place, it completely puts Karaoke to shame! Sunday, I made my way back to Anseong for some relaxing! I re-arranged a few things at my apartment too, making my living room a bit more functional! Monday evening, I enjoyed some coffee and honey bread downtown with a friend. Tuesday morning I caught a bus to Bundang!! I had to do a quick exchange on some jean, had a fabulous lunch at an Indian restaurant! Yum curry!! Coffee, and then a subway trip up to Gayang for the rest of the evening! We went out for a night in Hongdae, which is a university area, so there are many young people, a good mix of Koreans and foreigners! We went out with a group of teachers. Wednesday was the war memorial followed by some delicious Korean BBQ and a night in Itaewon! We went to a few different bars and a club for some dancing. Two of the bars we went to were foreigner bars, its odd to walk in a see nothing buy foreigners. Thursday was spent relaxing and cooking! We made a delicious pasta - home made sauce, garlic bread, and salad! Yum!! 


Last night I made it back to Anseong. I think I'll be here the rest of the weekend. The weather is beginning to warm up, so I think i'm going to do a bit of hiking! There are some beautiful mountains surrounding Anseong!!!  :)