Happy of the New Year...Yerrr.

Woahhhh Nelly. We have not blogged for a while. Meeneoawwww. How intimidating to start writing about what we've done in the past who knows. But how absolutely thrilling for all our excited readers to enthrall themselves with our adventures once more....right? Neeeehhhhhhhh. ^____^ v

Welp, gee golly! Exciting and busy times! Okay, I'm going to start from the past couple of days. Just because okay right, and shut up it's Christmas. Sooooo...forthe last couple of days we've been in a completely different state of Corée du Sud. The first day in the city of Daegu we were whisked from the KTX (high-speed-I'm-travelling-at-300km/h-biatches-for-the-win-train) by yet another Komo (aunt) and cousin met. It then felt like a rather dazzling couple of hours after that, for as the afternoon sun set we sat in a hairdresser's having my hair "manicured" of all things, and Mintie's cut. Apparently it needed a little 'taming'. I didn't know whether the usual $150 treatment in Australia was because I was being pampered or was because I looked like some sort of electrocuted mammal to these Korean folk. I soon learnt, to my relief, that it was out of the niceness of the aunt forcing her hairdresser of a son to coat my hair in glue-like substance and then stick me under a rotating heater that spoke to me and played me Enya-esque musics. Apparently the treatment will last six months. I doubt that any of you will notice the difference. It went from blow-dried frighteningly straight to afro the next morning. It simply shines slightly. Oh also, everyone is bemused by the fact that my hair is naturally like this. They assume that I get perms all the time to look like this. I just laugh. Nervously.

More star-like treatment was felt that night as I was bought two-pairs of earrings by this unknown woman and Totoro (eeeeee!) thingies for our phones back home. Woo! When Mintie started complaining about where his showering of presents were, she bought socks. Lots of them. Hehe. >< href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludo_%28board_game%29">Ludo-esque pieces first home. We ate a lot (as it seems always these days) and it was fun. I imagine winning gloriously may have been part of that feeling.

The next day this pimp of an aunt (seriously, why is everyone in this family of pimp-esque character?! it's confusing, to say the least...) totally made a friend of hers drive us around for the whole day. First. We got to ride on a duck paddle-boat. It was Totally Rad. We were the only lunatics out on this freezing-cold lake yelling at the boat to quit taking us in the opposite direction whilst trying to creep up on real ducks sitting undisturbed on the shore. Or coast. Or bank...whatever. After being complete idiots in a mini-bamboo forest, we re-found the ajummas who were taking tea in a tacky-ass hotel, and drove on. It took us an hour to drive to probably the most gorgeous Buddhist temple I've ever seen. By now I think we've probably seen more Buddhist temples than most Buddhists. It's awesome. I totally love them. Almost on par with Gothic churches. But this temple was spectacular. Being the No. 1 Historic and Scenic Site, it's got to be pretty special. Unfortunately the look we had was rushed in at the end of the day, and although the temple's magnificant stairways and strikingly beautiful gilt-bronze Buddha statues were briefly appreciated, it was the sun setting on the incredibly stunning gardens and trees. I really hope to go back soon (hopefully in the next couple of days), especially to the reported grotto to be near-by. Oh man. I love grottos!

Enough of the now. Bleh, I'm sick of talking of it. Sorry, maybe it's just the uber-amounts of driving around and incessant eating of too much food that's getting me down. Let's go back to post-Christmas day!!

TIME WARP. PWWOOOSHHH.

26th. After last blag post. We saw the Gut! All I can say is: wow. It was pretty intense! The awesome old shaman woman who everyone loves and hopes to see when they go to one of these, was there, nevertheless also celebrating her 60th birthday! That was kind of strange, though, for at the start there came upon the stage, amongst the traditional Korean decorations and traditional paper etc., a man appearing to be from a game show or something. He was cheesy, and made us all sing Happy Birthday, of which he appeared to not even know the words to himself. And then something exploded and streamers draped themselves everywhere inconvenient at the front of the stage. It was the most un-Korean thing ever. Or maybe it was just so Korean I didn't even notice. And so thereafter were various old women in gorgeous traditional Hanbok (those awesome Korean dresses) of all colours, wielding knives and big-ass swords, slashing at invisible village spirits, and getting themselves into states whilst balancing atop very round pots and stabbing a gutted but quite intact pig with a huge pitchfork...yeeehhhh. That last one kind of freaked me out. I guess the message was: don't try this at home. It is unwieldy and scary.

After a lazy morning at Imo's (the one we love and adore), we travelled for about three hours to make it finally to our new home for the next week, and then some after our arrival back in Seoul following the next couple of days. They're extremely nice, if not unintentionally funny at times. Plus, they're amused that I put away tubs of ice-cream like a mofo. Plus, they can speak Engrish. It's a nice change to get people not to seemingly completely ignore me in their house. It's great, the luxury of somewhere to stay and left to our own devices without being obligated is fantastic. I forget how my freedom at home means so much. Bless.

We then slept. Heaps. And got blearily up to see an awesome museum. If I were to create a museum, it would be something in the vein of this one. Then again, I'm sure that if I was the Samsung CEO with an opportunity to not only do so, but also to name it after myself, it would look exactly like this one. Technology is rad. PDAs that automatically start telling you about an item upon approach make me squee. Probably one of the more decent collections in Seoul, we had the chance to see. I am now a Korean Celadon expert. And, more importantly, we are now the foremost Paik Nam June expert. We've seen his pieces almost everywhere we've been, including a random but extremely upper-class mall we stumbled upon (it was completely wtf!?), and he never fails to be completely inspiring and awesome. I heart Paik Nam June.

Next day was sleep, then basketball at three. A match!!! I need a team and a sport to follow in Sydney. I have discovered my talent at being a complete and utter fangrrl, and will soon take on this new-found passion. Anyone willing to suggest a sport and a team that will most likely win (winning more often than not is nicer, I find), feel free to let me know. 'Cause I will be there. So we cheered and shouted and chanted in tune with a smoking-hawt dude in a suit and white gloves in front of our stand. Oh. Man. Give me a moment to recover from his image. Okay, so we was great, really damn active at getting cheers started, and held the most anime poses I have ever seen in real life... Sorry. The match was great, though. The couple of African-Americans were clearly the best on the team sadly, but it made it great to translate the confusingly "Leddor Leddor" that was being chanted to 'Leather Leather' (a dude's name) written in English on a card held up by the hawt dude. Yells of "DEFENSE" came out Korean-stylez like 'T-Pain' so I just shouted that for the whole time. No worries, I sounded like everyone else there. NO-ONE WILL EVER KNOW. After that we went to Live Jazz! Alright!! The joint was Basement-esque, and in the student area of Daehagno which we like, so it was pretty smooth. The musix was not too shabby either! The first act was considerably better than the second, but we totally enjoyed ourselves, if not get over-charged for drinks while there. It was nice to chillax and listen to some live music, and admire the huge afro of a large Korean dude pumping Stevie Wonder tunes through his sax.

Grah, and then stuff. Sorry, writing is getting difficult. In amongst the next couple of days that came, we shopped for rad presents, failed to go to one of the best palaces in Seoul (we'll go again upon our return) due to someone else's lack of listening to someone else (me), saw a Van Gogh exhibition (which was eye-opening, and in which I have new-found respect for the dude), watched Dreamgirls and Ocean's Twelve at DVD rooms, and wandered Namdaemun Markets. The markets are great, even if it was SO GODDAMN COLD (-8 + WIND-CHILL FACTOR) that we had to drink Soju in a tent to keep warm.

And then came New Year's Eve!!! Woo! I can't remember what we did exactly during the day, but get a combination of any of the above things and I'm sure you'll get it roughly right. The night, however, was très awesome. Probably the best one in memory. It went approximately liek this: eat some delicious cook-ourselves meat and down two bottles of Soju at about 11.20 'til about 11.55. Walk about 30 metres up the road to behind the giant bell they ring 33 times. It was beautifully soft and deep, and the ancient metal seemed to shiver and threaten to crack. Yell, shout, and dance with randoms. Watch with glee at people letting off street-bought (for $1.30!) fire crackers. Whoop! Then head off down the street where a party of traditional drummers were stirring up the dancing crowd. It was so much fun. This was the one time when I have seen for myself Koreans actually letting go of their usual reserved selves during celebration (I think I've been too used to loud Wogs around me all my life), and dancing and singing for their lives. Awesome!!! ^__________^ And then we decided another bottle of Soju was fit to bring in the New Year before we were to take the last train home. Or not quite home, because the train cut out in two stops, and we were left to find an empty cab among the thousands full of other revelers. We finally convinced a dude who already had someone in the passengers seat to take us in. It was just TOO cold. Good times.

We then slept and lazed in front of ridiculous Korean TV + Star Wars for the next day following, happy but extraordinarily tired.

That is all.

I hope for our sake we get a chance to blag more often from now on. I'm sure we'll have much to say on the next week of teaching yet more children English, Lotte World (LOL AT EXCITEMENT OF MY FACE AT THIS), our skiing trip (whheeee!), and our frantic last days in Seoul. This trip = coming to a fast end it seems. But, it seems like we still have, like, four more holidays to fit in! What?!

I'm not dead!

:o



Neither is Mia, if anyone was wondering.



It's been a really hectic time over here. Not only is it the crazily merry period between Christmas and that point where you realise that you need to let go that it's not holiday time anymore, we've been to-ing and fro-ing at a manic pace as I begin to realise that we don't have that much time left in Seoul. I know that I still have almost three weeks left in Korea, but when I subtract the time I'm spending here in Daegu, and then the week I'm spending in Pohang, and then subtract the skiing (!), then it leaves very little time to go shopping for all you lovely people reading this blog.



-_- It's probably nobody by now. (Shameless appeal for comments!)



So what have we been upto? PLENTY OF THINGS. After watching the performance of the Gut, which was at times mesmerising and at times sleep inducing, we left Gangwha for the cold cold coldness of Seoul. We stayed with, and are to continue staying with, a young couple that know my dad. They went to the same University as my dad, but about 20 years afterward. When they embarked on a two year long working holiday to Australia, picking fruit as they took time to see a country that wasn't Korea, they decided to find people who went to their university who had moved to Australia. Strange move I know, but not as strange in Korea. University links are very strong here.



So they met, had drinks, and realised that they were the only people in the meeting who had given up the Church, a strange coincidence considering that they went to a University specialising in Theology. So they became strange friends, considering the age gap, and now they've invited us to stay in a spare room that they have. Good times, considering that they're nice, young, funny and have given us a TV in our room so I can sit and watch freakin Star Wars in our off time.



Yoda = Awesome. Man I love that little green dude.



After watching The Golden Compass on the night we arrived (Maybe a 7/10? The books are classic, but the movie for me fell a little short), we went and visited Leeum the day after. The Museum is named that because the guy who funded it has the last name Lee, and he combined it with Museum. I shit you not. What a freak. I'm told his house sits behind these two awesomely majestic buildings.


It was the best designed gallery I've ever seen. Not only is everything looking shiny and flash, each piece lit perfectly for optimal viewing, but for a sum of 3 dollars or so you get a PDA with earphone that explains the piece you're looking at automatically. Huzzah for Samsung creating an Art Gallery! It's damned pimping. You get this bored sounding woman casually explaining how rare and awesome each piece of ancient korean Celadon is, while the explanation of the Modern art pieces ranged from helpful and informative to completely useless. Thanks for explaining that this piece is "beautiful" assholes. Did they teach you that in PDA Art Class?



Also, I saw a couple of paintings by Mark Rothko and I genuinely liked them alot. Jared, please explain why.



Really though, we saw far too much ancient korean pottery. Too much already! Even the old style paintings that I normally love was too much for me after a while. I must be a modern kid at heart. There was one painting of hills shrouded in mist that looked awesome, but became even more awesome when I was informed that he had painted it with his fingertips. Damien Hirst's "Dancing with Death" was better though.



The next day, we went to Jamsil gymnasium to cheer on my team, the Samsung Thunders! Ok, so I had no idea who was playing before we got there, it's true. But it didn't stop us from cheering on some guy named Leather as well as some other Korean basketball players who were genuinely "scoring deuces" and "making plays". It was superb. The cheerleaders were skanky but entertaining, the Mascots were genuinely hilarious and the dude in front of us who literally lead our cheerleading was energetic, anime-esque and I hate to admit it but pretty hot. He got us chanting DEFENCE when we didn't have the ball, chanting the teams name when we did, jeering at opposition free throws and consoling players who got whacked by the oppositions big black dude. We even won the game! The game itself was fun to watch, but the spectacle of the thing was much much more amusing.



The next day was finally New Years Eve! I completely forgot to make resolutions or anything of that sort. I think I need to listen to people more? Perhaps do better at Uni or something? I guess that's something I can ponder when I get back home, or even on my second holiday in Feb! Life is good. We had a really freakin great New Years Eve. We watched Oceans 13 (7/10) rocked a PC cafe for some internet goodness, and then out on to the main street of Seoul! They ring an old old old bell 33 times to bring in the New Year for reasons unknown to me, and then there are traditional Korean drums in the streets, fireworks being let off by people in the street that cost about a dollar, and huge amounts of Soju being drunk that contribute to the party atmosphere. It was probably very very cold. Luckily, I was very very drunk. We sat inside a tent on the street and shared a bottle of Soju, and then tried to get home with partial to high success. I mean, we did get there in the end, so that gets us some points right? I chatted with a fellow drunk dude who was getting home at the crossways, and I had to stop the cab at one point for some unexpected food recycling. Aint nobody can't don't say that I aint not caring for the environment. (I spewed! Thats like a seventuple negative! Take that Oxford!) (Dictionary folks!) Mia didn't partake in the environmental campaign because she is stone cold heartless. You could ask her yourself, but she's probably off somewhere murdering a couple of endangered bird species with one stone.

We spent a day at home, just resting from the night before, and then we headed to Daegu, Korea's fourth biggest city. It's an immediate change from the hyper-manic pace of Seoul but on the flipside it's kind of dull. There's still more shops downtown than in Sydney mind you, but that's because Korea is king of the massive and unnecessary. We went all the way out to an Area called Gyungju, which is home to the best temple in Korea known as Bulguksa. It was unbelievably beautiful, hard to believe it was built so long ago. Apparently it's much better in spring, but the starkness of winter has it's own charm I think. We walked around taking stupid photos, but I really hope to go back and have a more thorough look around. I have aunties who have turned out to be cousins who have promised to take me back. This time, I will wake up before 11. This, I anticipate, will help severely with the "sun setting". You'd think with all this technology, they would have invented a time machine or something.

Things that seem futuristic to Australians that Koreans already have.

1. Tons of TV channels on mobile phones to watch. Seriously, everybody seems to be watching TV on the subway.
2. Thin glasses that you wear that serve as a screen for a portable movie player. So damned cool.
3. Navigators on dashboards that can do anything from tell you what lanes can turn which way, where the speed cameras are, plot the fastest route to a destination on the fly and play DVDs.

We had this 8 dollar meal, and it was astoundingly good. Korea sets records for value for money meals. It had prawns and soft tofu made with rocks. Don't even deny. or try. to. deny.

We've done alot more than this. We went shopping, we failed at seeing things and I think there was an awesome Jazz club in there that I completely forgot to post about. That place was awesome though, I learnt that I liked fruity beers. Not gays. But beers with fruit flavours.

Also: For some reason I've decided I'm serious about moving to Melbourne. Why not right? I mean it seems to just be better. What's not to like? Is it weird to think that when we finish our Uni degrees we could seriously coordinate ourselves and get the best sharehouse ever? Is this sounding plausible to anybody but me? (and Mia?)

I started writing this post 2 days ago, and I've already done things in between. Luckily, they were kind of boring. Still, we're a bit more stable for a week so I'll probably have time to blog a lot more. I hope everybody's post-NYE hangover wasn't too bad.

Also Also: There's a CUTE ASS PUPPY WHERE WE'RE STAYING. It's like a white ball of cute.