Seoul Spending for the Soul

First, I don't think that the puns about SEOUL/SOUL will ever get old and I apologize...not really though.

Second, I returned to Seoul this weekend and spent money like a raging maniac. My total (drum roll please...) 201,400 won. Actually, that's like nothing by most people's standards. But I'm not most people and the last time I went to Seoul I literally only paid for bus fare and ramen, so this is a pretty astronomical figure. It's not terrible thought, (IF I wasn't a penny pincher to the extreme!) 200 bucks isn't all bad for all of the things I enjoyed/experienced/saw. Here is the weekend breakdown:

I met up with Shreya and had a lovely round of catching up (SHE IS GETTING MARRIED) over a round of beers (just for me though) and played around with her fancy new camera and did psychoanalysis. Then more people joined up but I swiftly parted ways to spend time with a little friend. The next morning we had a hearty brunch of Porridge. A "slow cooked" food that the sign assured me was good for my "wellbeing". I had pumpkin and she had seafood and both were delicious!

Then we shopped. For 7 Hours. No Joke. During our extravaganza we encountered two H&Ms, two Zaras and 1 Forever21. When asking for direction to forever21 SHreya's makeup free smoke eyes scared a woman so badly that she went stumbling down some steps. I came out of the shopping bonanza victorious- a pair of jeans that finally fit my curves! A true rarity in Korea. Shreya also killed at H&M, spending 3 hours and hundreds of dollars at the "good" store. There are 2 H&Ms within 10 feet of each other, one is amazing and the other really blows. Same for Zara, one has nothing while another scored me 3 pairs of pants. As always the fitting room mirrors shed an unflattering light and reminded me to pop in the P90X videos as soon as I arrived home.

After a short break at the conveniently located hostel I put on my fly new kicks and a hoodie that would make Olen proud and headed out to Debbie's birthday at an Indian restaurant. I had snacked earlier so I didn't expect to eat too much...that is until I took a look at the spicy garlic naan. That shit is food porn both in the sense that there is a penile shape to it as well as the way it makes you moan when you eat it. It was so good that it was decided that the same restaurant would be our lunch spot the next day. After dinner we joined with many other ETAs to have some drinks. Taking over the bar we had two tables full of people catching up over Budweisers. The most memorable moment of the night was the dart game. Who knew we had so many dart-sharks amongst us? Shreya had an unbelievable couple of rounds and player 3, who was a compilation of about 8 people, won the game with an astonishing 406 points. Just shy of the 444 we needed for a free pitcher of beer. I love throwing a good game of darts. My years of softball have left me with a throwing form that delivers with a lot of power, but not quite as much accuracy. But, if the dart does make it somewhere near the target the sound on impact is quite satisfactory. It's a healthy way to work off some rage. Still worn out from shopping we called it a night and headed back to our hostel where I proceeded to ram my head into the ceiling of the upstairs sleeping quarters.

On Sunday morning I woke up early and made it to the Seoul Art Museum just in time for the opening to catch the Chagall exhibit before it got too crowded. It was interesting and I had a few favorite paintings that really stuck out. A peacock picture was my favorite. Go figure. I got back home in time to change my wet shoes (rain and new cloth shoes don't mix well) and head to lunch with Shreya and Brian. The spicy garlic naan once again managed to rock my world. We had a little time to kill before departing for our respective placements so we did the only sensible thing and binged on Doughnuts. I had three. The first and third were stuffed with creme and powdered in sugar and certainly are not helping me train for the jeju half marathon. But the experience was a perfect way to top off the great weekend in an absolutely indulgent fashion. Soon after, we left Seoul with a full and happy belly. I return to Daegu permless but permeated with a good feeling that comes from spending time with quality friends!

I made it out of clay

So I am taking a pottery class two days a week. Yesterday was my first day and I arrived promptly at 6:50. The room had a damp stench and many ladies were already hard at work at their individual pieces. This seemed like a very self-guided class and so I sat down and waited for instructions.
There was not time machine that I knowlingly stepped into but the next hour and a half is a testament to human evolution from the cro-magnoman onward until modern times. I say this because once the block of clay was gracefully dumped in front of me I was no longer a 24 year old English teacher, I was indeed a cave dweller with no means of communication (with the rest of the class or the teacher) and I relied heavily on body language and facial expressions to follow along with the instructions.I mimicked and she mimed and we got down to business. In about 30 minutes I made the ugliest coffee cup in the history of the world. My next subject was a plate and to my surprise- it turned out to not be terrible. I HAD EVOLVED. The next 20 minutes were even more significant in creating a superior being because I was allowed to use man kind's secret weapon- tools! Oh glory.

It seems however that as I was illustrating Charles Darwin's point about adaptation quite literally and progressing human kind at the speed of light I was digressing chronologically. By the end of the class I acted like nothing more than a rambunctious 4 year old wielding a sharp object, looking for my next....KILn! hah, play on words. I began to act out, not out of spite, and surely not out of boredom or frustration but I did feel rather confined creatively. The teacher would come over, redo all of the hard work and effort I had put into a piece for the last 20 minutes in a single spin of the heavy thingy and then tell me (with her hands, eyes, body- basically everything but her mouth) what to do next. I had no time to practice the skill she had taught and I couldn't even learn from my mistakes because she corrected everything into a flawless artifact. If these soon to be pots were found by archeologists years from now my chiseled emblem would be associated with pottery perfection and not the shoddy unskilled results that were actuall taking place.

By the end of the class I was using my tools to cut her corrections into odd shapes and I succeeded in getting her to put both of her hands on her cheeks in a "Home Alone" like gasp when she saw me destroy (or maybe transform...) a plate into my version of a maple leaf.
I cannot wait to go back next week.

olenka poem

Taking you back to middle school poetry class
Olenka Y Lenets. My middle name is a shining example of my father’s dedication to cheesy humor, even on official documents
Love this quote- “Be intelligently selfish” the Dali Lama said it, to me it means only do the kind of good in the world that you enjoy doing…
Erupting in laughter with a group of fabulously dressed people in a club is equally as enjoyable as reading a book in bed next to my hostsister
Never stop striving for better, once you quit trying, you might as well be dead
Knowing the nutritional content of a Snikers by heart, I still find it to be a worthy and delicious snack
A citizen of the world, I prefer to pledge my loyalties to people and not geographic areas