Last night walking home we bought all of these flowers for under $10. At home, Whole Foods would have charged me at least $40. Alas, I still miss that store terribly. 
Anyway, whatever the cost, I would have totally paid it as I woke up this morning, saw the flowers on our bedroom windowsill, and genuinely smiled. Good way to start the day.
Watch out evil-doers. He now can and will politely kick your ass if necessary, and look fabulous doing it in his new YELLOW belt. Hiiiii-yaaa!
I’ve been sick for the last few days, and now need to look up how to say “I think I’ve got strep” and “please help me” and possibly “put me out of my misery” in Korean. So I’m swamped this weekend!
Halloween is coming and we’re all abuzz at the school and otherwise. Some of us are really looking forward to dressing up and having some fun, and others of us are looking forward to scaring the poop out of the kids in the haunted house we will have at school. The fact that they believe (as they are told) that they will turn into pigs and go to Pig School if they misbehave makes me a touch concerned that this haunted house thing will end badly. Thankfully I am in charge of debriefing, PTSD counseling and hypnotherapy. And games.
I LOVE YOU VERY MUCH AND MISS YOU TERRIBLY!! Click on the thing below and watch the video!
We had a superfine weekend, complete with new glasses and a new leather coat for my husband, Slash Wellington:
A short trip to Jamsil for Cirque du Soleil, and a trip to Dos Tacos, a pretty damn near authentic Mexican restaurant complete with limes, pico de gallo, salsa music, and Coronas made for a great evening. And then this guy:
who gave us this:
and then we went Salsa dancing. And by salsa dancing I mean watching other people salsa dance while we held some barstools down. Good times, people.
We’re spending the evening in. Going to see Cirque du Soleil somewhere in Seoul tomorrow. It’s going to be difficult to be satisfied after the feast of entertainment we’ve had tonight, though. We had the fortune of witnessing:
1. Snail vs. Turtle: Burnout. Slow and steady really does work, especially if the other contestant never moves. The snail won.
2. Frat Boy Olympics. A one-handed bra unfastening competition. One guy did sixteen in a row in under 20 seconds. And it was a bunch of guys wearing the bras.
3. Korean Idol. Middle aged Koreans singing karaoke. Pompadours, flowered shirts, and heaps of vibrato.
Bulguksa Deer, originally uploaded by Jake & Kristin.
This is one little bit of all of the marvelous decoration around Bulguksa Temple. It is a Buddhist shrine and a World Heritage Site located near Gyeongju, a smallish city in the southeast of Korea. Gorgeous.
Anyhow, it’s been another week with very few posts. I’m sure plenty of things happened, and we probably came across some odd little bits of Korean culture that we could poke fun at, but as it turned out, we mostly didn’t notice. You see, one big event occurred over the last week–we matured. That’s right, from here on out, we’re going to balance our checkbooks, stick to budgets, drive with our hands at 10 and 2, save for retirement, make a plan before we act, read the comics section last, put an end to being silly and joking around, and, most certainly of all, our days of horse play are over.
We also hit the four-months-in-Korea mark. One third of the way through our contracts. Nice. It seems we’ve hit upon a routine here and made enough trips to, through, and around Seoul that we’re more or less used to the sights. I guess since I’m too mature for silly stories, instead of doing the usual post, I’ll just do a little roundup of the main events of the last week or so:
1. Kristin turned 29 last Monday.
2. I’ve been bribing my students to color pumpkins for Halloween. I now have a stack of papers an inch tall to cut out and laminate. I used to work with a guy that could tell you how many sheets of printer paper, on average, there are in an inch. I didn’t pay attention. Now I’ll never know how many pumpkins I have.
3. We bought glasses. Two pairs with lenses for 150,000 Korean Won.
4. We reserved plane tickets to Thailand.
5. We went to Itaewon and it was actually kind of pleasant.
6. Since our absentee ballots that we requested almost two months ago have still not arrived, we sent off our Federal Emergency Write-In Ballots this weekend. We feel good that we’ve done all that we can to help Colorado’s electoral votes go to the most worthy candidate, something they haven’t done since 1992.
7. We finally started mailing some postcards to you folks. Sorry for the delay. I promise to catch up on e-mails and such next.
8. Although tortillas can be purchased only a few subway stops away, we decided to try making some on our own. The things we produced were tasty, but bore only passing resemblance to tortillas.
9. We purchased a set of ankle weights.
10. We also reserved accommodations in Thailand. For once, we will not fail to plan for a vacation.
11. I taught some of my students these words: pee/ing and fart/ing. They asked about them and I’m not going to pretend these body functions don’t exist. These words added to such vocabulary gems as “booger” and “zombie.” Side note: On each weekly spelling test my students are supposed to write five sentences using vocabulary words from the test. One of the spelling lists for one of my classes included the word “brain.” One student wrote the sentence, “Zombies eat brains.” I couldn’t have been more pleased.
12. Being in Korea isn’t bad, but we realized that sometimes it is a little bit like doing time. Some days we just can’t seem to get how long we’ve got left to serve out of our minds.
Chances are a few more noteworthy things happened, but who’s counting? We’ve got a rhythm, we’ve got a routine, and we only have 8 months or 36 weeks or 240 days left to go.
Well, well, Azerbaijan. May I just say you have done outdone yourself here.
Nice Haircut, originally uploaded by Jake & Kristin.
It’s been a while since we posted, I know, but sometimes that happens. I wish I could say that we were up to something more exciting, but last week we were just too busy with our friends Cass, Caffri, Hite, Max, Jinro, and the hangovers they usually bring with them.
This weekend we did manage to take a trip to Gyeongju, home of a bunch of Korean cultural stuff, and, more importantly, a Dance Dance Revolution game. We also visited Bulguksa Temple, which is an ancient Buddhist shrine, ate some world famous Gyeongju barley pancakes (with bean paste filling!!!1!), and climbed around on some Shilla dynasty (older than John McCain, but not older than the Pyramids) burial mounds. Pictures to follow when our heads stop hurting.
Today’s Semi-daily photo has been up on Flickr for a while already, but we thought it was worth pointing out. Yes, we have seen people with that haircut, and yes, it still looks like what you think it looks like even on real people. That’s right, it’s–Dyn-o-mite!
K
J
