Hi folks!

I hope you are all doing well. I certainly am.

It's been quite some time since my last post and I'm sure that you are all simply dying to read something, anything about my goings on in Soko.

So let's get started. But please bear with me, as I am about to try to recall some stuff from several weeks ago. Luckily, there are a lot of photos that can do most of the talking.

I went to Seoul a while back (some of you may remember my Facebook status, "Going on the Seoul Train") with a few co-workers and friends. In all, the official group ended up being Jaime (one of my better friends here in Soko; we work together; live in the same building), Sarah (a teacher at Avalon, the main branch of my school and fellow Washingtonian!), Lucy (a teacher at Avalon as well), and Jasper (a native Korean, co-worker, and an overall fun guy).

We left fairly early, riding on the KTX - Korea's equivalent to Europe's high speed ICE trains. Thirty minutes later, we were there. Not bad. We dropped Lucy off at her hotel so she could get some shut-eye. Lucy is a self-proclaimed insomniac and hadn't slept much the night before. Meanwhile, the other two girls and I went and did some exploring of the Itaewan district in Seoul.

A few initial observations of Seoul: 1. Humongous. There are 24.5 million people in Seoul and is the 8th largest city in the entire world. Hot damn. I think it goes without saying that I'll be making many a trip up to Seoul just so I can properly experience everything it has to offer. 2. Fun. There are tons of things to do, rangning from touring and checking out historical sites to the great night life. 3. Kind of expensive. Korea, more or less, is a damn cheap place. You can make a little go a long way. But Seoul is a little more expensive than what I've grown accustomed to here. Even so, it's not that bad when comparing it to Berlin, Amsterdam, Seattle, NYC, or any other place like that.

The bulk of our day was spent at the Gyeongbokgung Palace (which means "Palace Greatly Blessed by the Heavens"). It is a royal palace and was first constructed in 1394. It is the main (and largest) of the Five Grand Palaces built by the Joseon Dynasty. If you don't know about the Joseon Dynasty, look it up. Pretty impressive. Anyways, the Palace was destroyed by the Japanese early on in the 19th Century and is still being rebuilt. Amazingly, only 40% of it has been rebuilt! Nonetheless, this place was awe-inspriring. I can't even begin to imagine what it'll look like when fully restored.

The highlight of the Palace tour was definitely the traditional Korean tea ceremony at the end. Our guide brought us to the last building on the tour, where we got to sit down and listen to traditional Korean music played on some radical traditional Korean instruments. After the music, we were taught the official "tea bow" (I don't know what one calls it, so we'll just call it that. What you basically need to know is that it's a lot more intricate than your simple everyday bow). The host then had all the men in the room stand up and, after watching all of us bow, chose the 4 best dudes to come to the front and have a "bow-off." I was one of the guys. So we all did the bow and were rated based upon how loud the cheer from the crowd was. I, being the attention to detail guy that I am (joking), was rewarded with the loudest cheer and was sent to the back room for further "preparation." One thing must be noted - the two girls I was with, Jaime and Sarah, are most likely the reason for my winning. They were loud.

So, I am in the back room and, right when I appear, a few Korean ladys start dressing me in some real old school, traditional Korean clothing for the ceremony that was about to take place. After a couple of minutes, once I and the winner of the female's division were dressed, we were presented to the (rather large) group. Amidst loud cheering and jeering, my Russian companion performed our bows (men and women have different bows in these ceremony) flawlessly - and then the ceremony began. My friend and I got to sit in the front of the room while the rest of the show played out. We also were presented with the tea first, me being the only sucker in the entire room drinking my tea out of a bowl. I would later conclude (most likely erroneously) that it was because I was the king. That's right, me, Russell, a king for a day. Ha!

Afterward, we slowly made our way back to meet up with a well-rested Lucy. On the way, we cam across a wicked fountain that seemed to be quite the central hub for people to hang out. It was also a hot day, so there was a plethora of wild children running around and having the time of their lives.

The evening was fairly typical for a night of partying in Korea - hopping to one place to another, staying out until the sun comes up, and lots of fun being had. Jaime and I opted out of paying for a hotel, hostel, or anything else. Instead, we thought it would be better (and much cheaper) to simply party through the night with Jasper and a few friends of his that we met up with and then take the train home in the morning, once they started running again. Long story short, Jaime and I walked into the door of our building at around 7 in the morning - completely dead and partied out. But we had a great time with our friends in Seoul.


Now you're probably thinking to yourself, "Where are these bloody photos that he was talking about??!" It's a completely rational thought, and I understand.

I decided against uploading photos onto my blog this time around. It took too long and I couldn't share the whol collection with you. Instead, I thought it would be way cooler (and easier for moi) to quickly upload all the photos on Flickr and give you the link. So here you go:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/30716372@N05/

You can go ahead and bookmark this page. Hell, make it your homepage. I'm going to be putting all of the photos that I deem appropriate here, so check back regularly. You'll also notice I have some photos of my wonderful school there as well. A post on that place will come eventually. Enjoy!!

Damn, long post. I'll spare you. Hope you liked the reading. To everyone back home - I miss you! I think about you all a lot and often wonder how you are doing. Expect random Skype calls here and there. Much love to you all!

Cheers.

-r