Tall Tales From A Short Canadian

Anyong!

Long time I no speekee the engerishee to you.  Here it is… Since last chatting with you, Nicole and I have gone through a few changes, mostly positive ones. We moved into a swell new apartment in the same building we have been living in. It’s at least twice the size of our last one, but newer, cleaner, with nary a cockroach (so far), a better smell, and an incredible view. See below:

We are both happier, and seem to be getting along even better than before. Honestly, for the amount of time we spend together, we get along amazingly well most of the time. We quarrel from time to time, but she’s always in the wrong of course! Below are some pictures of a balmy Saturday on Songjeong beach, my favorite beach in Busan. It’s a mere 4 dollar taxi ride from our apartment. Here it is seen without the blanket of summer tourists that will soon cover it. Summertime offically hits the beach in four days. I tremble.

Below, from right to left, is Sujeong, Tim, Joe, and, uh, what’s her face…

Seksheehan! That’s konglish for sexy… SEE BELOW!

And after Songjoeng, we headed to a place called Bexco where they had a little international festival going on. Here are a couple random photographs taken at Bexco…

Below: Equadorian Natives taking a set break while we ate BBQ’d pig.

It is worldcup soccer time, and Korea has just lost its fever and some of its daily redness. Switzerland beat them out. I was there to watch the game in Seoul Plaza with about 800,000 Korean soccer fans. See, I had an appointment to see a specialist in Seoul on Saturday regarding a long-term and enigmatic condition I have suffered for many years. We had a few road-pops on the train-ride up (3 hours to traverse the country, the long way!) thinking when we arrived in Seoul we would casually roam around, find an inexpensive hotel room, and get a decent night sleep before my AM appointment. Silly boys! We underestimated Korean patriotism, and found when we arrived that all the hotels were either full or the prices were jacked to accommodate all the fans who would stay downtown to watch the game at one of the many venues. Somehow, we found ourselves in Itaewon (international shopping/partying district), and then Seoul Plaza. The game started at 4 AM. It was pretty incredible to see that many people, all dressed in red with glowing devil horns (strange that they’ve made a national mascot of Satan) yelling “Dae Han Min Gook!” in unison. It ended up being incredibly depressing when the Swiss scored their second goal. It was kind of like being at a funeral with nearly a million mourners. To further the depression, we found ourselves at 7 AM sobering up all too quickly and wandering the sunny, somber streets of Seoul without a place to sleep. After much brainstorming (okay… I slept on the curb while Joe poured over his Lonely Planet), we found a little unpopular motel where I squeezed out two hours of desperately needed zeez before hopping on the subway for my appointment.

This photo, taken at roughly 3:33 AM is all I managed to score at Seoul Plaza that night/morning, my low-light photography incompetence all too obvious.

Leading up to the game earlier that day, kindergarten was ALL about the worldcup. Here’s a shot of my kidlets and I.

It was upsetting to see Korea lose, but on  the other hand, I’ll sleep better at night… for four more nights, that is. Go Germany! Tootaloo.

Suteebun