I know, I know...long time, no write, but consider that a good thing because I've been busy and I also figured that waiting until after Halloween to write the next post was a good idea because I would have more material to write about and lo and behold, I do. Now let's get down to it. On your left is Changdeokgung (창덕궁), one of the palaces in Seoul, and famous for its garden, which Mom, Dad, Robyn and I saw this past January. It served as a backup palace to the main palace at Gyeongbokgung. It was stop #2 on our Seoul trip a.k.a. another awesome day off from school on October 20th. The first stop was the Jongmyo Shrine, where all the former royalty are currently preserved. After Changdeokgung, we went to Itaewon for lunch and onto Mt. Namsan and up to the top to check out the Seoul Tower (which, in my opinion, is nothing compared to CN Tower or Sears Tower). Not the best day to look out onto Seoul as you'll see in the pictures below.
Looking out at Itaewon from the top of Mt. Namsan and not too much to see, hooray smog!
One cool thing about the top of Seoul Tower is the list of locations from all around the world and each place's distance from Seoul. Notice the city and distance, if you're able to see either or both.
At the bottom of Seoul Tower there is also a Teddy Bear Museum amongst other touristy things. On a hopefully brief sidenote, Korea has a fascination with things that are very cute. Many couples wear matching outfits and one company that caters to these specific needs has a teddy bear as its emblem. I can't believe there's more than one Teddy Bear Museum in Korea, but go figure. Anyways, as the Teddy Bear Museum is clear to point out, Korea was built on the backs of these teddy bears, who suffered through many unbearable centuries as slave laborers in the Joseon dynasty. Take a look:
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| Teddy Bear Slave Laborers enduring another arduous day of back-breaking tasks at the construction of a palace. |
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| After emancipation, teddy bears quickly picked up a new hobby: polo. |
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| Today, you can see many Teddy Bears fully integrated into Korean culture and society. Here they are cheering on the Red Devils during the World Cup. |
Last week there was a sudden drop in the temperature, which followed a similar pattern to the weather back home. Most nights last week the weather was hovering around 0 Celsius and during the day it was only in the high single digits. But, miraculously, last weekend it warmed back up with highs in the mid to upper teens and lows in the upper single digits. In the frisbee community, this is known as perfect weather (you know, if wind didn't factor in). Regardless, last weekend's weather was great and a lot of the Seoul frisbee community, as well as the hosting Daejeoners and fellow disc enthusiasts from Daegu, Ulsan, and Busan arrived in Daejeon for the annual Halloween Hat tournament. This was the first tournament I've been at where so many games were decided on universe point (for those who don't know, universe point is equivalent to sudden death overtime in hockey or football). Many exciting games and yours truly even won a spirit award for being the most enthusiastic on his team. And of course, who could forget the Halloween party on Saturday night, here's a look at my costume, simple yet effective. I tweaked it a little bit, but it still worked out.
And of course, how could I forget Halloween at school on Friday. None of the students dressed up in costume, I didn't give them enough forewarning and their school festival was on Saturday, so many of them were busy preparing dance routines and songs for that all week, no need to burden them with costume designing. Instead, we had a little Halloween face and hand painting time and trick or treating Friday afternoon in the English room. The 6th grade girls from my advanced class were especially great and helped paint the younger students' faces and hands, leaving me some time to snap some photos. Check out some pics.
Well, that's pretty much all from here. Big celebration week for both sides of the family, Wolfish and Winston alike. It's that time of the year. Of course today is Bubba's and Auntie Sherri's birthdays, Happy Birthday to both of you from Korea! Wednesday is cousin Karen's birthday as well as someone else I know and an anniversary as well. For those of you wondering how I could possibly celebrate my birthday in Korea, here's your answer. Another friend of mine from frisbee, Gina, has a birthday on November 5th so we decided to combine our creative and planning forces and hold a joint birthday party on Saturday evening. You can be certain a blog post will be forthcoming, although I can't promise how much detail I'll go into. It should be quite the extravaganza however. What else can I say? I hope this great fall weather continues for a few more weeks, that would be amazing! Oh, I also finished The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo last week and did so just in time because my local Books Libro just started carrying the 2nd and 3rd books in English of the trilogy, so I've now started on The Girl Who Played With Fire and I'm about 200 pages in after 3 days of reading. If you haven't read them yet, I highly recommend them, very hard to put down and very enjoyable to read. Now seriously, that's all from here.
What I'm listening to: "Spanish Key" by Miles Davis from Bitches Brew
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fytOvlJ0MrY
Other things I've been listening to (maybe posting a few months late, but whatever):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Sj5_WITMpA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1YNsXjFU4U
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