Sorry I haven't written in awhile...things have been very busy here in Korea.

Well, I only have a week left in Seoul...seems like I've been here for a long time already, and yet I feel the time flew by at the same time...sorta like how college felt. Anyway, I'll try to recap the highlights.

As soon as I got to Seoul, I noticed there were a lot of posters and flyers with blown-up pictures of middle-aged and elderly ppl...I asked Gyju what was going on and she told me about the elections coming up for the equivalent of representatvies or senators. It was funny at first seeing these small trucks with billboards in the back parked all over the city with the candidates or supporters yelling through loudspeakers asking, "How's your life been lately? If you vote for us, we'll make your lives better!" The humor soon gaveway to bitterness and anger the next morning when I was rudely awakened at 6 am by some candidate shouting and then blasting the soundtrack to a popular drama (the Great Jang-geum) through the loudspeaker. This happened repeatedly for about a week. I'm usually a pretty laid back guy, but there are two things that can really piss me off....1) messing with my sleep; 2) messing with my food.

It was cherry blossom season a couple weeks ago and Gyju and I walked along this famous street lined with cherry blossoms. It was very beautiful. I remember cherry blossoms in D.C. being somewhat pink. The cherry blossoms here are very white...when the blossoms began to fall, it looked like it was snowing.


I went on a three day trip with Gyju's family this past week. First, we went to Muju resort, made famous through a drama called ?yeuleum han ggi. As soon as we got there, we decided take the gondola to the top of a mountain adjacent to the resort. I noticed as we were going up that the clouds were hanging low so that it covered the peak. Once we got to the top, we couldn't see anything because of the clouds. I liked it though...it was the 2nd time I had experienced being in a cloud when not on a plane. The first time was back in Alaska when my family was headed towards Valdez and we got caught in a cloud while driving through the mountains...it was so thick that we could barely see the car in front of us (pretty scary thought if you're driving on a mountain and you can't see where you're going).
The next day, we drove down to Gwang-ju to visit Gyju's relatives. I was dreading this visit, not because of Gyju's relatives, but because of the hotel we were going to. Don't get me wrong, the hotel was sweet! Brand new, wood floor, nice furniture, a computer with internet access for free! The thing I was dreading was the nice building next door to the hotel. Gyju's brother kept saying that while I'm in Korea, we had to go to a bathhouse together. This hotel just happened to have a bathhouse next door. So I went with my brother-in-law and my father-in-law! When I first got into the lockerroom, I was actually impressed by the cleanliness and quality of the place. I took off my shoes and placed them In a small locker. Then I got the key to a larger locker for my clothes. Before we came, Gyju said that I could just get a towel and wrap it around my waist. But as we approached our lockers, there were no towels in sight! My father/brother-in-law began to disrobe and I just looked at my locker..."just suck it up and get naked!" I thought to myself. So with a deep breath and a sigh, I took off my clothes, locked em away, and followed my in-laws to the bathing area. I was almost paralyzed with embarrassment at first, but I slowly got used to it, and then I sorta liked it. The sauna and spa was so relaxing. It got sorta weird when my father-in-law began to ddae mi duh my back, but it was altogether relaxing. I dunno if I'd do it again though...seeing so many naked ah juh shi's walking around sends shivers up my spine...dunno if I could get used to it.