Heart & Seoul: Erin's Adventures in Korea

Here are the long-awaited photos of my Christmas adventure in Malaysia! Enjoy!

God, I want to go to back. Five days was not enough. I was just looking at my friend Jay's pictures and while we were there at the same time, we didn't actually see each other. He's got pictures of a super rad-looking Hindu temple with monkeys all over the place. JEALOUS!! So yeah....something tells me I'll be going back to Malaysia sooner rather than later, hopefully with more time to enjoy it!

( Beautiful, colourful Malaysia )

OH WHAT THE HELL. Okay, I have no idea why the pics are so small or why only like, a quarter of them posted, but I dunno. Eff this, I'm going to bed. I'll try again tomorrow. RAGE.

Let me begin this post by saying that Malaysia is awesome. It is a seriously fascinating country, and probably the most multicultural place I've ever been. There were people there from everywhere -- every race, colour, creed imaginable, all living peacefully side by side. Our hostel was in Chinatown, but within a few minutes' walk were Indian shops, a Muslim mosque, a Hindu temple, a Confucian academy, a Buddhist temple, and a Christian church. There were people walking around in all manner of dress, from fully-covered Muslim women in burkas to girls in miniskirts and ladies in saris. It was really, really cool to see so many cultures and religions all in once place. It's such a colourful, vibrant country and I really, really enjoyed being there. It was definitely a refreshing change from Korea, which is still one of the most racially-homogenous countries in the world. Oh, and everyone speaks English, which was AWESOME.

So! We begin our journey, as always, on the bus to Incheon Airport. ( Malaysia: Truly Asia )

Whoa. Okay...so I totally didn't realize that it had been like, almost two months since I updated things here. That's kind of sad. I dunno why this time around the whole blogging thing has sort of lost its lustre. Maybe it's because it just seems like things aren't as exciting this time around? I dunno. Lots has happened since I updated last. I went to the epic YG Family concert with Kristin, Andrew, Leslie, Kaila, Yonghwan, and Kelly, and of course it was gorgeous, sweet, amazing, baby~! I also managed to make it into the concert footage, which I just realized the other day! My students wanted to watch something during the break time, and I opened YouTube and it was the first video that popped up, so I was like, "sweet, we're watching this!" I hadn't seen the footage yet, and 'lo and behold, there were Kaila and I busting a move to "Bbeokigayo." How do I know that those two random dancing fools are Kaila and I? Because we were the only people in the stands that weren't sitting down being lame, that's why! Feel free to check it out, and look for me at around the 1:00 mark, up in the stands a zillion miles from the stage but loving life anyway.



So yeah, that brief flash of me in an official Big Bang video makes me happy, considering the UTTER AND COMPLETE RAGE I STILL FEEL knowing that I was in Itaewon at the Rocky Mountain Tavern chilling and drinking a beer while G-Dragon and TOP were literally like 100m down the road at a club called Rococo filming their new music video. Okay, yeah, so you needed invites, and they weren't letting girls who don't look like models in, but still. Hey, do you remember my friend Angela? She managed to get invites and looks like a model, so she actually made it into the music video! Check her out at around 1:56!



Aaaanyway, not all that much is new around here these days. I joined a group called the Seoul Giving Club, and basically what we do is just give stuff away. One weekend it was money (one of the guys, Matt, took 100,000 won -- around $100 -- out in singles and just gave them away on the street, telling people to using it for something good or donate it or something), one weekend it was flowers, one weekend it was tea, and coming up next it's soju haha. That one should be fun! The people in the group are all really cool and fun, and it's nice to hang out with people who aren't co-workers that I see every day.

Speaking of co-workers and other work-related sundries, things at KNP are going well. Actually, yesterday they decided to combine my grade 5 class with Kristin's, so now I'm down a class, which is nice because now I actually have some prep time. I haven't really developed the connection with these kids here that I did with my kids at EDLS, aside from my GTKC class. They're pretty amazing...a group of 7 year old boys (and one poor little girl who has to put up with them and their insanity), and they just crack me up. My grade 4 class is pretty awesome too. I'm interested to see what the new semester (which begins in March) will bring...it's been kind of difficult because I came in mid-semester to a bunch of classes who had been with Sarah, the girl I replaced, for a long time. I'm looking forward to starting fresh with a brand new group of kids, but for the meantime the ones I've got are pretty cool. I should bring my camera and get some pics, at least of the GTKs. They're pretty adorable.

Other than that, I've come back from holidays with a cold somehow...I was fine the whole time I was in Malaysia, but it was like the second I got off the plane my lungs and sinuses were just like, "screw this!" and promptly filled up with unholy evil. But honestly, every single one of my co-workers came back from holiday either sick or injured. One girl broke a tooth in Thailand, another bashed her leg up cliff diving in the Philippines, several are suffering from serious sunburns, and most of us have colds/strep throat/bronchitis/etc. Luckily I managed to survive Malaysia with nothing more severe than a few bruises on my arms from parasailing! And considering I spent a day chilling with elephants and fed a bear, things could have gone much worse lol.

We made it back to Korea in time to spend New Years Eve here, which was nice. Kristin and I went to Itaewon with my friends Joshua, Dohyun, and Jeffrey, and we met Terry there later. It was pretty low-key...we rang in 2011 at Gecko's, went to homo hill for a bit with the boys (since it's kind of inevitable when you go to Itaewon with Dohyun, Jeffrey and Terry), and then headed home. The next night we went up to Suyu (near Nowon) to see Yumin, Laura, Chulho, and three of Chulho's friends (Jaesun, Insoo and Taewoong), which was great, since I haven't see Yumin, Laura or Chulho since my birthday! It was Jaesun's birthday, but they were already hammed by the time we got there, so it ended up sort of being a girls' night as all four men passed out at the table as soon as we got to the bar haha. Oh well, it was good to catch up with the ladies.

Coming up next we have Kristin's 25th birthday this weekend, and...well, that's it, I guess! I think we're going to go to the casino for a little bit first (but not for long because our Korean friends can't come -- it's illegal for them to gamble here and casinos mainly just exist for Japanese businessmen and other rando foreigners), then go for dinner, then out for drinks and dancing. Not entirely sure where yet, but I'm sure it'll be a blast!

I'm going to wrap up this entry and start a new one for Malaysia because this one is getting out of hand, so stay tuned!

Mom, you'll be happy to note that I didn't spend this weekend out at the bars "as usual" (as you like to say)! Well, Friday night I did, but not really. It was my co-worker Whitney's birthday on Saturday, so Friday after work we all went to "Red Chair" (actual name unknown) for some galbi, which was delicious as usual. Then we went to JJ's (also, as usual) for a few drinks, but I'd had a brutal headache for the last few hours of work and it wasn't getting any better, so Kristin and I left for home around 11pm.

The next day we had planned to go to Suwon, a city south of Seoul, but Kristin's former student, who we were planning to meet there, had to work, so we decided to go to Insadong instead so that Kristin could do some shopping. She bought an eel skin wallet for her mom (I don't even...it's really soft?) and a few scarves, but it was so crowded and crowds make me cranky, so we went home. That night my headache was back with a vengeance, so I just stayed in. I watched the last couple episodes of Sungkyunkwan Scandal, an awesome drama set in the Joseon Dynasty, and went to bed early.

This morning Kristin and I got up early so we could make the 2-hour trek to Suwon to visit her former student Yongjin. He met us at Suwon Station and we hopped on a bus that took us to Suwon Hwaseong Fortress. I've been to Suwon before, way back in the day shortly after I arrived in Korea, and I wasn't all that impressed, but today was an awesome day. So awesome, in fact, that if I were to ever consider moving out of Seoul, I might relocate to Suwon. It's a lovely little city...quiet, clean, friendly...I really liked it. The fortress is pretty impressive -- it was built by King Jeongjo in 1794, and in the drama that I was watching (Sungkyunkwan Scandal), King Jeongjo is the ruler during that time period. So it was kind of interesting to go to a historical/cultural site with some background knowledge for a while. We hiked the fortress walls starting from the West Gate all the way to somewhere between the East and South gates, where we hopped off the wall and went to the Hwaseong museum, where we learned all about how the fortress was built. Then we headed for Hwaseong Haenggung, the small palace where King Jeongjo and his family lived after he tried to relocate the capital of Korea from Seoul to Suwon in the late 1700s. After checking out the palace, we grabbed some lunch at Mr. Pizza (tag line: "Love for Women"...who knows?) and then walked around for a bit and checked out some shops. I bought some socks...good times. Then Kristin and I said goodbye to Yongjin and hopped back on a bus back to Seoul! It wasn't a very long trip to Suwon, but a very fun one.

I'm exhausted now, but every time I say I'm going to put up pictures "tomorrow" it never happens, so here are some pictures of my trip to Suwon. Enjoy~!

( Suwon Fortress )

Time for bed! Tomorrow I start back on the PM shift (yay, no more waking up at 7am!!) and shadowing the classes I'll be taking over starting Wednesday! That's right, people...after a little over two months of being back in Korea, I'm finally getting my own classes! YAY!!!!! I'm so pumped.

I got an e-mail from my mom this afternoon telling me that my cat died. Poor Alley...I'll miss her a lot. Maybe not her drooling and her obnoxious old lady smoker meow or her penchant for clawing the shit out of people while they're trying to cuddle her, but I will miss her. I'm sorry I didn't get to say goodbye, but I'm glad she didn't suffer too much. Poor old girl. :(

Okay! Now that I've had a chance to sleep and get through a day of work (I ended up subbing for two co-workers today: one was out sick in the morning so I taught her pre-school classes, and another had the day off so I subbed her grade 1, 2, and 4 classes), here is the epic post about my birthday weekend!

My birthday started out on Friday. I arrived at my desk in the R&D department to find that Casey and Carleigh, two of the AM teachers, had come in early to decorate my work station with balloons and flowers. Casey gave me a $20 gift card to the coffee shop in our building, which was much appreciated! Then later that afternoon my other co-workers in R&D threw me a little party with a cake and some snacks. I haven't been working down there long so that was really sweet of them. I certainly wasn't expecting it, but I was really touched. After work, I met Carleigh and Casey, and we went out for dinner (Carleigh's treat). We were going to join the rest of our co-workers at JJ's, the local watering hole, but Kristin, Carleigh and I went to Carleigh's place for a bit to wait for her boyfriend to get there from Bundang. Once Paul arrived, we went to meet the others at JJ's. We hung out there for a bit, and then went home.

The next day was my epic birthday reunion in Nowon!! Kristin and I met Laura, her new husband Chulho, Yumin, Terry, and Julie at Nowon Station, and we went to NoBlock to wait for some others to show up. Yonghwan came shortly after, folllowed by Jay and Auburn (who I had actually never met before but who I'd heard lots about -- she arrived after I left, but she was really nice!). They didn't stay long, but it was still great to see Jay! Yonghwan didn't stay long either...he'd had a basketball performance all day in Myeongdong and then had an elementary school reunion thing, so he was pretty exhausted by the time he showed up. Laura and Chulho brought a cake, so we had that at the bar...it's a pretty common thing in Korea to bring a birthday cake to the bar (or hell, even the local convenience store patio) for someone's birthday, but it's still pretty amusing to me! Julie and Terry got me a lovely bath set from The Body Shop, and Yumin got me a really cute hat. Laura also got me some really cute fuzzy socks, which I am wearing right now because it's freezing out!!! They've come in quite handy haha. After we finished our cake, we headed off to Volume to dance the rest of the night away. Nana didn't get off work until midnight, but she came after and brought another cake with her, so we did the whole candles and birthday song thing all over again haha. We had an awesome night and it was so, so great to see them all again. I knew I had missed them, but I didn't realise how much until they were actually right there in front of me. We all vowed to be better at hanging out, even though I'm far from "home" now. Hopefully I'll get to see them next weekend. A few people were supposed to come but ended up not being able to make it, but instead of being really bummed about the people that weren't there, I just had the best time ever with those who were there. It was really one of the best birthdays ever.

The next day brought with it Kristin's birthday presents -- tickets for she and I to see FT Island in concert! The concert was held at a really small venue called AX-KOREA, which is conveniently only one subway stop away from where we live! We had standing room tickets, and even though we got there at like 4:45 (the concert started at 5:00 -- weird, I know, but most of their fans are like...teenaged girls who had to go to school the next morning lol. Lucky for us, we have the same schedule!) we still managed to get about three rows of people from the stage. The concert itself was incredible. Lee Hongki, the main singer, is really one of the best vocalists that Korea has to offer, and he was in top form Sunday night. He sounded incredible...their albums really don't even do his voice justice, it's just so strong. He's a great performer too, and the other guys in the band (Seunghyun, Jaejin, Jonghun, and Minhwan) were awesome. During their encore they were joined on stage by surprise guests Supreme Team (a hip-hop duo, E-Sens and Simon D), for a really awesome performance. Kim Heechul (from Super Junior) and Kim Hyunjoong (from SS501) were there as well, but they were up in the sound room so we didn't actually see them...but everyone still freaked out when Hongki gave a shout-out to them! haha. Probably the craziest part of the concert experience were the number of fans there who had traveled from other countries to see the show. And I don't just mean like foreigners like us who were already living in Korea (btw, we were the ONLY non-Asians there), but I mean like, flew in from other countries just to see the show. We met three girls who had flown in from Malaysia (7 hrs, between $500-800), Hong Kong (4 hours, around $400), Taiwan (4 hours, around $400), and insanely enough, VANCOUVER (15 hours, somewhere around $2000!!!!). We couldn't believe it. The girls from Vancouver were Chinese, and the one girl was such a huge fan of the bassist Jaejin that she bought him a bass guitar!!! Apparently he is playing it in their new music video, but maaaaannnnn, that's dedication. I love kpop a lot, more than most people I know, but I would never even consider flying across the world for a concert, no matter who it was who was playing! Her parents must be loaded and very, very indulgent. They were sweet, but whoa. Nuts.

After the concert ended, Kristin treated me to dinner at Outback Steakhouse, and then we went home and finally, finally just relaxed. My parents called while we were watching a drama, and then we finished up the episode we were watching and I went to bed! And that, my friends and family, is my epic birthday weekend. Seriously, one of the best birthdays I've ever had. I love this country....it's just so awesome. ♥

And honestly, now I feel like I have nothing to look forward to for a while! haha....actually, that might be kind of nice. On Friday I start transitioning to take over Susan's classes, and by next Wednesday I'll actually have my own students! So yeah...it's probably a good thing that we're keeping things a bit low-key for a while. I think next weekend Kristin and I might go to Suwon (a city just south of Seoul...like, you can still get there on the train), because one of Kristin's old students from back in the States has moved back to Korea and invited her down (and I've got nothing better to do so I've invited myself along haha). Terry wants to hang out sometime this weekend, I think, but we don't really have any concrete plans. Really the only things that are planned for the coming weeks are the YG Family Concert and our trip to Malaysia and Singapore, but both of those don't happen until December! So things might be a bit dull around here, story-wise, but at least I'll have students to talk about soon!

And now, finally, some pictures!!!

( Happy birthday to me~~!! )

If anyone is at all interested in what this band's music sounds like (I know you are...don't lie!), here are a few of their music videos.

Love Love Love -- their latest hit. Crazy infectious, can't stop singing it in my head.


Bad Woman


And my favourite, I Hope. This was incredible live.
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Holy crap, that took forever. I think I remember why I rarely do big picture posts anymore.

Oh, and by the way, apparently it snowed here tonight. I was watching for it and I didn't see any, but I guess some other parts of the city got a few flakes. Gross.

Okay, so I promised that I'd update about my amazing birthday weekend on the phone with my parents tonight, but then it suddenly got really late and I have to supply teach in the morning. But seriously, this was one of the best birthdays I've ever had. I'll tell you all about it (complete with pictures!) tomorrow.

Halloween in Korea is kind of a bizarre holiday. They don't really celebrate it, so basically it's up to the foreigners who live here to put on any kind of events. At the schools where foreign teachers work it's always a big deal, but this year since I'm still not teaching, I wasn't really involved. My job on Friday was basically self-appointed. There was a haunted house set up by the pre-kinder and kinder teachers and it was pretty scary for some of the kids, so I just kind of hung out outside it to comfort the criers and look after the ones who refused to go in while their teachers and classmates were inside. One little guy, Jake (who was adorable dressed as Peter Pan) started crying the second the door to the gym (where the haunted house was being held) opened, so I just kind of stood there while he clung to me for dear life and bawled...poor little thing. There weren't many dramatic tears aside from that, so mostly I just hung out with the kids in their cute costumes haha. The AM teachers looked great and went all out with their costumes. A few of the PM teachers dressed up, but for the most part the Halloween festivities were relegated to the fifth floor. Friday after work, Kristin, Charla and I went to Cheonho for one drink just to celebrate the end of a difficult week for the two of them, but we were home by like 11:30.

Saturday was Carleigh's 23rd birthday, and her boyfriend had planned a night out at the COEX Intercontinental Hotel's wine buffet. It was 30,000 won for 3 hours of all you can drink wine, champagne and Sangria. It was pretty fancy, so we got all dressed up for it. Kristin, Yonghwan and I went shopping in Itaewon beforehand because my winter clothes still haven't arrived and I've been pretty cold. I ended up getting a cute purple dress for $20 and a coat for $39. Not a bad deal, and the coat will tide me over until my real winter and fall coats arrive. Then we came home to change and went to the wine buffet to meet Carleigh, Paul (her BF), Chera, Elyse, and Alex. We had a great time at the bar, and were joined by Susan, Kaila and Therese about half way through. At one point during the night these Japanese guys sat down at a table behind us. We all agreed they kind of looked like rock stars, and wondered what they might be doing here in Seoul. I got up to go to the bathroom at one point, and happened to sneak a peak at the papers they were looking at. To my surprise, I saw the words "Daishi Dance" on one, and a picture and information in Japanese about my favourite k-pop group, Big Bang. I told Yonghwan, who is a massive fan of Daishi Dance, a famous Japanese electronic music DJ. He has worked with Big Bang before on some of their songs, and has a huge following in Japan, Korea, and the rest of Asia. I was too scared to ask if they worked with Daishi Dance or Big Bang, and so was Yonghwan, but when they got up to leave we both worked up the courage to say something. Turns out, one of the men was the real live Daishi Dance!! We talked to him for a while in a mix of Korean, English and Japanese, and we're still not really sure if he's working with Big Bang, but they've got a new album coming out soon, so it's entirely possible! We got our pictures taken with him and shook his hand, and Yonghwan was SO excited haha. We all were, really...even those among us who had no idea who the man was. It's not every day we meet real celebrities while chilling at a wine bar in Seoul!

After that, we were all pumped up and ready for a night on the town. Carleigh got a little overzealous with the unlimited wine and ended up going home at around 9:20, but the rest of us continued on to Hongdae to partake in the Halloween festivities. We went directly to the park in Hongdae, where we met Liz and Tricia. There was a Silent Disco event going on, where you basically get headphones and listen to music on your own and dance...it's a bizarre experience, but really fun! There were so many people there, and a lot of great costumes! Liz, Tricia, Alex and Chera had made domino costumes out of felt, and we all took turns wearing them (and subsequently getting our pictures taken by a zillion random Koreans who thought we looked awesome haha). At one point a guy with a rainbow mohawk was going around spraying people with a huge water gun, and Liz asked if she could have a try. The guy handed the gun over to her and she immediately turned it on him and soaked him completely haha. I guess that's karma for you! However, the gunman became completely enamoured with Liz and spent the next 20 minutes or so trying to dance with her and kiss her...so hilarious! After the Silent Disco ended, Liz, Tricia, Yonghwan and I went to a bar that was in an old garage. We played shuffleboard (seriously!) and hung out until the bathroom started to seriously stink up the place and I thought I was going to puke. After that, the four of us were planning to go to another bar, but by that point Tricia and I decided that we'd had enough, and left together. Yonghwan and Liz stayed out...I have no idea what they did or how late they stayed, but they were definitely troopers!

Today I've just spent the day chilling at home by myself. I needed a quiet day with no big plans to just sort of recuperate. I'm still feeling a bit under the weather, so this day has helped a lot. I cleaned my apartment and did some laundry, and caught up on some sleep and TV. Kristin has strep throat so she's been barricaded in her apartment all day, which made me feel less guilty about cutting myself off from the world. She went to the doctor and got some antibiotics, so hopefully she'll be feeling better soon.

Oh!! I just remembered something awesome! While we were in Itaewon on Saturday, we were just walking along and suddenly I heard someone call my name. Turns out it was Len, who was there with Haewon and baby Jade!! I've been running into EDLS folks all over the place and I love it! They both looked great and Jade is so cute (but was sleeping so I couldn't really meet her properly). Len is going to try to make it out for my birthday next weekend, so that's exciting!

I have no idea what I'm going to do at work this week. My boss Ben will be back from his honeymoon, so I won't be teaching his classes. I'm finished with the curriculum stuff I've been creating for the kindergarten program, and I'm not really sure there's even all that much R&D work for me to do. I think I'll probably just use the time to plan for the classes I'll be taking over from Susan in a few weeks. I'm looking SO forward to getting my own classes and out of R&D. It's been nice to have some time to just chill, but I'm getting pretty bored and the novelty of subbing wears off pretty quickly. Just two more weeks, now!

I got some exciting news from home the other day -- my cousin Angela and her husband Ugo have welcomed a new addition to their family! Baby Aria was born on the 27th, which means her birthday falls just four days before her older brother Gianluca's birthday! I'm sure she's absolutely beautiful...her big brother is probably the cutest child in the world, so I can't imagine that Aria will be anything but adorable. I love her name, too...the best cat we ever had was named Aria, so I'll always have good feelings associated with that name haha. I can't wait to see pictures of her!!

I'll try to post some pictures of the weekend when I get them from various friends. I really must start remembering my camera. This is getting pretty pathetic.

Hope you all had a happy Halloween! Next up: My 27th birthday party in Nowon and an FT Island concert! Woo~!

WE'RE OFFICIALLY GOING TO THE

YG FAMILY CONCERT IN DECEMBER OMG I CAN'T WAIT~~~!!!!!!!!!!!!!





Yep, that's pretty much it. It's Friday, ya'll!! Time to have FUN!

Hello everyone! Long time no blog! I guess I haven't really done anything all that interesting lately, until this weekend. Last weekend was a total snorefest, blog-wise -- we went to the KOTESOL conference and learned all about how to be better EFL teachers, which was interesting but made the weekend seem like kind of a waste. I did randomly run into two of my old friends from English Doctor, my old supervisor Cleo and my old boss Harry! That was pretty awesome By Tuesday we were all wishing we could have a weekend to make up for our utter lack of weekend! But, I made it through the week....well, mostly.

All week I've been subbing for teachers who are off sick...seemed kind of inevitable that I, too, would get sick. Thursday night I met Yonghwan to do some studying, and then a whole bunch of teachers from the 5th floor showed up, so we hung out with them for a bit. I got home around 11pm and went straight to bed...but woke up at around 1am shivering violently and feeling like death. Fearing the worst (not H1N1 AGAIN!!!), I tried to get some sleep, but could only manage twenty minutes here and there. Finally around 4am the vomiting began...I took my temperature then as well, and was a little concerned when it came up at 102.2! So I called in sick to work as soon as it was a reasonable hour to call and wake up my boss. Turns out KNP is pretty awesome when you call in sick -- David was really understanding, said he didn't feel too hot himself (he ended up taking the day off too), and someone else subbed all the classes I was supposed to be subbing. So I went back to bed and slept through most of Friday. By Friday night I was feeling a bit better, and so I went over to Kristin's place (aka next door), where she and Charla were waiting with chicken soup and saltines for me, which was sweet. We just hung out and talked and I went to bed fairly early.

The next morning I was feeling a lot better...still not 100%, but my temperature was back to normal. My throat was killing me, but I wasn't about to let that stop me. I had things to do! First up on the agenda, my boss Ben's wedding. The wedding was up at a wedding hall thing on Namsan mountain, and was gorgeous. The ceremony was outside and completely bilingual, and then we had lunch inside the reception hall. Ben and his new wife, Hyojung, looked beautiful and so happy, and everyone from work was there so it was a very nice morning. After the wedding, Kristin and I took the subway to Sports Complex to pick up our ASIA SONG FESTIVAL tickets! We were planning on going home to change, and I was planning on picking up my camera, which I'd forgotten to bring to Ben's wedding (Elyse will probably have pictures up later, which is great because she's a much better photographer than I am anyway, so I'll steal hers), but by the time we got there Kristin decided she didn't really want to go all the way back. So! I have no pics of the Asia Song Festival. But Andrew was taking pictures all night, so I'll get his this week and post them.

So the Asia Song Festival! We got to Olympic Stadium and there were zillions of people roaming around waiting for the concert to start. Our tickets were in section 59 -- not great, but hey, they were free. We waited for our co-workers Andrew, David, and Lucy, and Andrew's wife Leslie, to show up, and for them to get their tickets. Unfortunately when David picked up Lucy's ticket, it was in section 15, away from the rest of us. So we went up to the ticket booth to see if we could swap Lucy's 15 for a 59, and the girl was like, "why would you do that? These are terrible seats! Here, I'll just exchange your 59s for 15s! But don't tell anyone!!" SCORE! So we got into the stadium, which was massive, and got to our seats, which were awesome. The concert was amazing. Jackie Chan, who was supposed to be the main MC, wasn't actually there (wtf, we still don't know why), but Rain was awesome, BOA was awesome...seriously, everyone was awesome. Well...some of the non-Korean acts weren't great (like AKB48 from Japan -- there were literally about 25 girls on stage wtf), but we had an awesome time. It was really, really cool to be sitting in a former Olympic venue watching acts from Taiwan, Malaysia, China, Thailand, Japan, and of course our Korea, surrounded by Chinese people (yay foreigner section!), on a beautiful warm October night here in Seoul. After the concert I was feeling pretty crappy, so Kristin and I went home and I just went to bed.

Today I slept in, then just sort of bummed around. Later this afternoon, Kristin and I went on a big adventure -- we walked to the Han River from our apartment (sounds far, but it's really only about a 20 minute walk), then walked all along the Han River to Amsa, which took about 2 hours, and then back through the city home (which took about an hour). It was such a beautiful night, and the Han River is so pretty. It was a pretty chill Sunday, but I needed it since I'm still really not feeling great. The fever is gone and so has the vomiting, but in its wake it has left a pretty substantial cold, so hopefully I can recover from that soon.

Tomorrow is Monday already and even though we didn't do much today I'm still not ready to go back to work. The fact that I'm not feeling 100% doesn't help that at all, and I've got a full day of subbing for one of my co-workers who has the day off (a friend of hers has come to visit) ahead of me. I'm looking very forward to November when I'll have my own classes and won't have to worry about this subbing thing. It's wearing me out (not to mention making me sick)!

Since I don't have any pictures for you yet of the Asia Song Festival, here is a video from the good people at Eat Your Kimchi, a Canadian couple who run a video blog here and have sweet hook-ups when it comes to kpop events! They had press passes and were closer than we were! Warning: If you watch the video, turn the volume down a bit...they were right beside the speakers and the bass was pumped way up, so the audio on the video isn't great. But the video quality is awesome! :D



They're going to have videos of individual performances up on their website tomorrow, so I'll try to add those as they come, along with pictures from Andrew's camera.

I think that's all that's new with me...coming up on Erin In Korea, we have Hallowe'en hijinks, Carleigh's birthday party, MY birthday, FT Island concert, YG FAMILY CONCERT (WHICH WE ARE GETTING TICKETS FOR THIS WEEK OMG OMG I CAN'T EVEN OMG), and then, 2 months from today, MALAYSIA AND SINGAPORE WOOOOO~~~!!!!!

So yeah! Look forward to that, people! :D Bye~