and the sun breaks through

it's been a not so nice weekend, full of gloomy clouds and gray skies. but suddenly after a huge amount of rain this morning the sun just burst through showering me and my little apartment in golden rays. wonderful. I didn't do much this weekend, I think my lack of drinking is alienating me from my friends because, well, all we do is drink and since, i no longer drink as much, i don't see them as much. I have mixed feelings about this, it's not fun to go out to the bar and not get loaded, i 'm not able to handle that yet, so I just don't go out to the bar or I go for a short time and leave. I hate the fact that I'm really not having as much fun, because come on, getting drunk with your friends having good times, dancing your pants off and ending up at norae bang screaming your lungs out is what i call a good time. But here's what I love: I'm loving the wake up early without a hangover feeling, and I especially love the feeling of what not smoking 2 packs of cigarettes and drinking a bottle of gin does for my body. and this is also all tied to me trying to loose weight - because i can drink my daily allowance of calories in gin, in urm... about an hour. I love the fact that I'm not waking up with some random person beside me in my bed, because let's face it, alcohol and me being crazy has led me to making a few mistakes. I love not spending all my money on booze and instead saving it for gmarket haha. I'm definitely a fan of being able to go to the gym on Saturday morning instead of just lying hung over in my bed all day. so what to do? I'm not able to do things in moderation, which sucks, but it's true. I'm an all or nothing kind of gal. I watched the sun set the other day from the top of the mountain in our park. I haven't seen the sun set in ages, and right now I'm looking out the window for a rainbow, sun bursting through after the rain equals a rainbow right? well too bad for me, there's nothing but clouds in the sky. here are some fall in Korea pictures ^^

fall down

my week off has been spent doing much of nothing, lazing around, cleaning, organizing and antagonizing my crazy street cat. but I did however decide that i would take this week to visit every doctor possible. Korea has a really good cheap medical system that works well, if you have insurance. Most teachers here do have insurance which we usually pay about 40 bucks a month for and your employer pays the other half. and boy let me tell ya, there are a lot of doctors here! Koreans go to the doctor for EVERYTHING, a sniffle, a cold, vagina rejuvenation etc. and paying for prescriptions (as long as it's covered by insurance) is next to nothing (i love my 5 bux bag of xanax.) So Monday was dermatologist day. I'm actually getting laser hair removal done on some special places of my body (ok fine since you asked, my armpits and my vjj) and this costs next to nothing compared to how much it would cost at home. Tuesday i went to see my obgyn to get a pap which is NOT covered by insurance here - ummm retardo!? Wednesday was dentist day, the dentist and I certainly have a killer memorable relationship, my mouth is full of fillings (thank god they are white or i would be embarrassed to open my mouth) and I've had 2 root canals. after the exam the dentist looks at me and asks, "so do you have insurance?" never something you want to hear after your dentist pokes around your mouth with that cold scrapey thingie. gritting my rotting teeth i say "yes" and ask "why?". well low and behold one of my root canals isn't properly done and is causing inflammation (and yes some pain, but they pain isn't always there so really i can deal with it so let's not talk about this horrible idea of REDOING my root canal), well I nearly burst into tears. but then she takes about 5 more xrays and taps my tooth a million times and sticks some ice stick on it and my gums, and then decides that the procedure would be really expensive, has a high failure rate and maybe since my tooth doesn't really hurt right now, we can wait and see. YES, i love this wait and see attitude. don't try to fix it until my name is gummy. I then convinced her that she AND her 4 year old daughter should get some English lessons from me. and i got some gum work done as service! ohh service, it's the Korean word for when you get something for free when you buy something. like sometimes you buy a bag of oranges and the fruit guy will throw in a rotten apple as service. or if you buy something really expensive (like a 300 dollar tent) they will throw in something that cost a dollar (we got a pair of socks i think) for service.

here is a picture of all the meds i was on for my not-swine-flu-flu last week. Oh and my domo-kun slipper.

street invasiveness

how am i just finding out about google street view now! whatever, I've just wasted 2 hours researched google street view for a good 2 hours. and you can find pictures of places you know which feels nice. and sometimes there are people without heads or funny signs

95 Harrison St.

I used to live above this abc variety store (wow my future as an ESL teacher was totally chosen for me when I moved into this place) That's my old bedroom window on the left, good times were had at this place, (wait I don't mean that in the hey there's my bedroom window, good times, nudge nudge way) family dinner was invented here, I finally finished university when I lived here and I only had one bike stolen from this place. I lived with a guy named Adam Pearson here above the abc, he smelled like pencil crayon sharpenings and boy. Adam liked to collect everything under the sun and attach it somehow to his walls. He also always did all my dishes (and well, all the dishes of my extended family who would could over once a week to be fed) and never ate my food. All in all he was probably one of the best room mates I ever had. One of my most remembered memories about Adam is this one time (at abc camp) we got really really high and watched pet cemetery and totally scared the shit out of ourselves. We had to leave all the lights on when we went to bed. Adam dated this crazy girl who woke me up at 4 in the morning one time, she was screaming and pounding on the door. I didn't like her so much AND she borrowed and lost this awesome black 1920's style had of mine that I had found at the value village for like a dollar. hate her.

My market bakery

I worked at this bakery (cleverly named "my market bakery") in Kensington Market for about 2 years. This was the last place I worked before starting my new exciting career as a babysitter in south korea. This bakery is pretty popular in the market, but not nearly as popular as the cheese store next store that my boss also owned. the cheese store being insanely popular for all the hot cheese boys who worked there. glad i never dated any of them. oh wait i did. I gained a few pounds to say the least working at this bread and brownie filled emporium. I really enjoyed working here, my co-workers were also as bitter and hateful of customers (especially those suburban yuppies who lined up for hours on the weekend) as I was, so we always got along famously. Elle magazine also approached my boss to do an interview about me working here, but I was gone to Korea before I even knew about it. too sad, i would have been totally famous.

The Royal

The Royal was most favourite place of employment ever. We totally used to use the fountain machine pop to mix our bevies (when we weren't on duty of course) My boss was this guy named Tim whom I loved and adored, he was this rail thin guy who was kind of sad and broken like the theater, but he always wanted to make things better and could out-eat anyone in an all-you-can-eat sushi competition (thank god there were at least 10 all you can eat sushi places right across the street). The theater is beautiful on the inside (yes this picture does not show it justice!). It is a one screen theater all in art deco style and it has comfy reclining chairs. And it's totally awesome playing playstation on the big screen. Sometime in 2006 the owner (who had bought the theater in the 70's i think when the city was going to turn it into a parking lot) died, his kids took over and decided that this toronto historical landmark didn't deserve a chance and they sold it as soon as they could. leaving us all out of a job as well - thanks guys! But the community came together and got it deemed a historical building so they couldn't sell it to the condo developers and a post production film company bought it and kept it going. See there are happy endings.

the infamous 437 Bathurst

This is the last house I lived at before moving to kimchi land. The house of 437 was an over the top explosion of love and debauchery, a yard full of squash and tomatoes and halls full of cats and craziness. I loved living here with the 5 others who knew how to have a drunk kitchen dance party any time of the day. I could write many stories about us but I'm out of time now so you will just have to wait.

Strathclyde Residence

So i can't exactly find my old place of residence in Glasgow on google street view, but it had to be around here somewhere.

spin your brains out

It's Monday! I'm feeling better (pleaseeeeeee no swiney relapse this week for the love of g-d) and I went back to the gym this morning. The gym has become a more serious obsession as of late . A few reasons for this but the main reason being that I'm single and I have all this time on my hands that I choose to spend sweating my little butt off - and yes, i do have a little butt, (stacey stands behind me in boxing class and that other class were we have to do a million jumping jack thingies off of the step box, and she always tells me what a small butt i have but really now, compared to the pocket-sized butts of the korean ladies I don't feel like I have a small butt at all) urm.. where was I.. oh little butt, gym... YES ok.. Anyway, so I spend a lot of time at the gym, which suits me just fine since I actually love going there and it makes me feel great. So this morning after waking up (before my alarm as usual... why do i even turn that thing on?) I went to my favouritest spinning class and felt a million times better, goodbye feelings of crappyness from lying in bed for an entire week - they should have gym therapy or something. a shrink/trainer combo or something. amazing. my new future job. i will train you and listen to all your crappy life stories and fix your life. Because of swine flu mania I don't have any classes this week. I'm pretty sure most public schools are closing down for 2 weeks or something like that, but our school has decided to stay open and just have shortened days. Yes, sending the children to school for a shorter period of time means that they won't get / give the swine flu because they aren't there as long. hrm... let's see if this works as well as the last plan they had, don't close down at all when 12 kids are infected. But I teach the after school program, the program that has some logic and decides that when the teacher is infected not to have any classes. Except i don't get paid for the week... Ohhhhhhhhhh there is always a catch isn't there. I've decided to bite the bullet and not fight this because 1. i love my job and 2. i love the company i work for (which actually owns wonderland THE worst hogwan franchise in korea) and 3. I want to resign with them and I plan on asking for a lot when I do so. This blog is amazing http://missedconnectionsny.blogspot.com/ . This blogger extraordinaire has created these wonderful pictures representing someones missed connection message. And I'm not going to write about my longing for a missed connection about me (cuz we totally know there have already been DOZENS) I want to make up a milliondy missed connections of amazingness and hopefully one gets turned into a beautiful pastel pictorial of sensational-ness.

i was sleeping on the train and you waved at me when i woke up - m4w - 22 (suwon/osan)

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Date: 2009-10-25, 9:46PM KT

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i was sleeping on the 1 train back from seoul, and as the train pulled into suwon station sometime after 8:00PM i woke up, and you waved at me, and smiled. i waved back, and then you got off the train, and as you were walking away you waved at me through the window. I've never seen anyone do that before today (wave at me, a stranger, in a black tshirt, jeans, and I had a bunch of stuff with me ). you were so pretty. i wish i hadn't slept all that way, and had been able to talk to you or meet you somehow. please, get in touch with me? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- fin.

no no nooooo november

November. what are you? You are like this in between month of no holidays and usually a good intro into winter (blahhhh). Now who doesn't love a good holiday?! I'm a teacher, holidays equal time off AND holidays mean hours and hours of useless worksheets for students based on said holiday. I guess there is American thanksgiving, but hells I'm not American and we don't get the day off for that. remembrance day, but that took that day away from us and gave it to remembering soldiers. So november what are you good for? 4 long weeks before December (which equals CHRISTMAS 10 days off work!) No swine test results yet, for some reason my results are taking 2 days longer, doesn't matter, i'm like 90% better, could even go to the gym tomorrow I think! I'm scared though about having another crazy relapse. Last night I went to S. apartment and drank a few glasses of wine with my friends who didn't object to swine flu face being there, which was nice. I was wondering if someone was going to tell me not to come. I really can't believe I missed halloween gay chrstimas! I guess I haven't written here in ages, I didn't even check when was the last time I made a post, but I'm assuming it must have been last spring!? What happened since then, all the regular stuff, got a new job (LOVE IT), got a new cat (he's the devil), went through a BF or 2. Read the book After Dark by my most favourite Haruki Murakami last night, and it was just ok. which made me sad. and then i woke up and it was november. which made me sad. and then my cat punched me in the face. and i'm laughing at typing this now, so guess it didn't make me so sad. life is good.

new cat new hat (love you gmarket - that's the website, not the cat, the cat is nakji)

swine time

I've been sick now with (enter type of flu here) flu for about a week. But it's officially day three of stay at home and don't leave and spread your nasty germs to the general populace - oh and try to get better while you at it. Day one - was Wednesday, I had gone to bed on Tuesday night feeling like a bag of shit. Basically shaking so hard because i was so cold, and sweating so hard because i had a fever. This is the same crap I had gone through the week before when i came down with the flu, the only difference being that on Tuesday night my body hurt SO MUCH and it hurt to breathe (hey and guess what it still does). So Wednesday morning rolls around and what do i do? well try to shower. i can't stay upright, and then i get a taxi to school (yes my mission IS to infect all the little children!) I get to school, I tell my co-teacher that I'm going to the hospital and then Lauren one of my adorable students gives me a cookie, which I eat for breakfast. I get to Seoul National hospital (and why exactly is it called that when it's located on the tancheon in Jungja-Dong?) and of course being the only foreigner around everyone rushes to help me! actually no that does not happen. i wait for 20 minutes with the stupid number machine paper in my hand at reregistration while everyone and their grandmother ignores the ticket machine and just goes up to the window. Finally my number is called and I give a smug look of "well there we go, see, the good people wait their turn" but there is no one there to see it because they have all been helped already. blah. Anyway, register, get ushered to the side of the hospital where the H1N1 festival is underway! Woo hoo! H1N1 party! If you didn't come here with it you sure as hell are going to leave with it! About 100 people are milling around wearing masks, not wearing masks, coughing up something, sleeping, yelling etc etc it really is a party! I get in a long line and finally my turn (well of course my turn is taken by some business man who clearly looks NOT SICK AT ALL - which is strange because now I notice that many people don't look sick at all, while i'm all feverish and sketchy-mc-flu face, so I'm wondering what are these not sick people doing here?!?!? question totally answered after) I see the doctor, doctor confirms i have the flu (which type?!?!) She tells me i have the new flu, wtf?! The new flu? isn't that just the name which they have now given to the regular flu?! Well who knows, they do the tests for swine flu, and the results for that come back on Saturday. I go home, with my bag of meds, that cost 110,000! yikes! guess tamiflu is NOT covered by insurance. then sleep. sleep and sleep. Day 2 - Thursday - i wake up and my bed is covered in blood! AUGHGHGHGH!!! I check myself and realize no my flu didn't turn into a deadly flesh eating disease or anything like that. my cat, who was neutered last week, has somehow managed to cut open his little ball sack. (sorry boy for the visuals) He now has a bloody raw ball sack. So i take my (wtf type of flu do i have?) butt over to the vet and really i have NO idea how to explain this. the balls were healing just fine, there was just a tiny little incision hole that was doing just fine, i really have no idea what the cat did, but now he has to pay the price and wear the cone around his head, which he still manages to torture me through - did i mention my cat is not very nice. The rest of the day was quite uneventful, I felt less sick and a lot less sore (yaahooo) but the pain when i breathe is still ever present and I watched nearly the entire first season of scrubs. Day 3- Friday - It's still quite early so I'm sure I can write more on today's most exciting stuck in my house events later. I woke up feeling crappy because I had coughed my way through sleep town, waking myself up every 30 minutes. Also I have no appetite at all, but god dang am I a thirsty camel - I drank about 6 - 8 liters of water yesterday which also woke up me every hour during the night. So I'm sure I'll spend most of today sleeping - or cleaning my bathroom and doing laundry while standing on my head making a sock monkey. I'm definitely not the type of person that is able to lie down and get better, that's my problem I guess

the Korean call to prayer....

A few things wake me up early in the morning, my cat using me as a scratching post/spring board/ something to yell at, my insane inability to sleep in or go back to sleep and of course the Korean Loudspeaker.  

The Korean Loudspeaker comes in 2 formats.  The mechanical kind - an actual loudspeaker attached to a truck, wall, parking garage, store - or the human kind - a person chanting/screaming at the top of their lungs.

Today the mechanical kind gently shook me from my drunken slumber (god dang you soju cocktail!).  The parking garage outside my window, for some reasons, has a loudspeaker attached to the front entrance and some dudes voice drones the same sentence over and over.  What is he saying? you ask... What they all say!! ORANGES FOR SALE! GIVE ME YOUR OLD COMPUTERS! PARK HERE! LAUNDRY SERVICE! DESSERT! 

I think I've posted about this before, because, well it's definitely part of life here in Korea.  Living where I do now, we don't have many trucks with loudspeakers patrolling this neighbourhood.  I think the days of the loudspeaker truck/person may actually be coming to a close.  

When I lived in Meigum we had the laundry man.  Every morning at 9 am a man would walk every floor of our building screaming something out, I've forgotten now, maybe it sounded like SEOULTAKKKKKK , i have no idea what laundry is in Korean.   I don't remember how we figured out that this dude was a laundry guy, my first guess was that he was a chanting monk blessing our special building every day.  

Then there was the ddok Seller (yummy Korean rice cakes). Every night at 7pm we heard this guy just screaming the same thing out over and over, and for the life of me it DID NOT sound like DDOK, which is what he was selling.  We could hear him out of our window as he walked around screaming, so we ran outside one night and followed the yelling and found him.  And then we ate some delicious ddok... 

Then there is the computer truck (bring me your old computers), the orange trucks (which I currently frequent), the other random fruit trucks....  these I don't mind, but the parking lot loudspeaker has GOT TO GO!