Merry Christmas From Me to You!

This year has definitely been one of the most interesting ones of my life for many, many reasons; all of them being good. I'm having an absolutely great time in Korea, but I now find myself separated from all of the people I love back in the U.S.A. and Mexico, so my friend Amy and I decided that we would make a video greeting for all the people that we miss, and here it is.

Merry Christmas from South Korea!!

Special Air Raid Drill

So, there was a special air raid drill here in Korea yesterday December 15th. I thought it was gonna be a big deal, but it really wasn't a big deal at all in the city where I live because we are pretty far from the border between North and South. Actually, I haven't heard anyone say that the drills were in any way a big deal where they live, and I know people even in the northern sections of Seoul. However, according to the NY Times, this was a huge deal with fake smoke bombs, people wearing gas masks, everyone rushing down into basements and taking cover, etc... (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/16/world/asia/16korea.html). I didn't see any of that. I did see people standing on the street corners with flags and whistles and attempting to stop traffic, but that's about it.

I don't know, but it seems to me like the media is dramatizing something that's already not pleasant to begin with in order to sell their stupid newspapers. It's only annoying because I keep getting emails and Skype calls from friends and family who read those newspapers or see all of it on TV and then, of course, become concerned. Technically, it does fall within the realm of possibility that this whole Korean drama turns into another war. But the chances of that happening are very slim. So everybody chill. Everything's fine. :)

"It's Cold Outside!" "How Cold Is It?" "It's So Cold That..."

Dude...

I had to mini blog about this because this is the kind of crazy ridiculousness that I'm dealing with over here.

So I walk out of my apartment to go buy something quickly at the market. I had just taken a shower, so my hair was still wet. It was cold outside but it's no big deal. I do it all the time. So I bump into my friend Kim right outside the market and she says, "Hi! Is your hair actually wet?" I said, "Yeah, why?" I run my fingers through it and I notice that my hair was suddenly stiff and has this white flaky stuff on it. Thoroughly embarrassed and thinking that I must've not washed the conditioner off well enough, I said, "Gotta go!" as I rushed to pull my hair back so no one else would notice it. As I was walking through the nice warm store, I went to touch my hair again to try to figure out what was wrong with it and it was completely fine again. Why?

BECAUSE MY HAIR HAD STARTED TO FREEZE SOLID WHEN I WAS OUTSIDE!!

Can you believe this craziness??? I've NEVER had to deal with this kind of thing. I was like, "Hmmm... What's this cold white stuff that's taking over my head?" Good Lord!!

Ok. I'm done ranting. :)

First Trek Out of Daejeon: SEOUL(ish)

It's been a couple of weeks again since the last time I wrote in here and I thought this weekend truly merited a blog post.

I have a couple of friends here in SoKo who I knew before I came here. I met Jessie in college in a class that will forever go in the books as THE most awesome class I've ever had. It was a small group communications class and our term project was to go camping together with a small group of six people. It was crazy fun and we all got along so well that at the end of the semester we all took off to Las Vegas together and had some more crazy fun there... But I digress. Jessie convinced her friend Megan (who I met in that Vegas trip) to come along with us to SoKo, and so I now have two friends who live on the outskirts of Seoul. Well, it was Jessie's birthday this weekend and she invited me to go to the festivities. Now, like I said, Jessie lives on the outer edge of Seoul, so that meant that I had a long trip ahead of me. Normally, traveling this distance would've probably taken me about an hour in my car, but since I didn't exactly bring my car with me to Korea, I had to take a bus and then the subway. That was supposed to have taken me a little less that 2 hours, but because I'm still not familiar with the public transportation systems here, I totally got onto the wrong subway train and ended up in the wrong place. It was an express subway and it completely skipped my stop so I got off when I realized what had happened and Jessie had to come and get me. Never a dull moment in the book of Marisol.

Now, not all of the trip going towards Seoul was bad. The bus ride was nice because somehow I ended up being the only person in the bus who had an empty seat next to her, so I was able to make myself comfortable and stretch my legs out a little bit. Also, I was able to track my entire trip with the navigator app in my phone, so I was able to make sure that I didn't miss my city because of the fact that all of the announcements are made in Korean, which I still don't understand.

Anyway, once I actually got to Jessie's neighborhood, everything was good. We had some time to linger, so I was able to meet a couple of her friends, we had pizza, we randomly had some Champagne, and then we went off to party the night away. We met up with more of her friends for dinner at a Mexican/Italian restaurant close to her apartment. I was super jealous that she has a Mexican restaurant, but I was also really glad to see a burrito and Margarita for the first time since I left L.A. When dinner was done,

(Birthday Girl Jessie)

(Me and Jessie's friend Liz)

(Jessie and Megan)

(Mexican/Italian restaurant?? *shrug*)

we went to a bar down the street and continued the drinking. Anyone who's ever been out with me knows that my signature drink is an Amaretto Sour, so I had myself a couple and I was good to go. But see, that's not where it ended. That's not where it ever ends in Korea

and especially not in Seoul. We then hopped over to some club in the next town over and danced for a couple of hours and had more drinks. That was really fun, and super funny, because Korean people are really funny people to party with. They were all over the "foreigners" until we left. I thought we might finally be going home to sleep, seeing as it was already around 3am, but we ended up at another club which was coincidentally across the street and down the block a little from the subway station where I had accidentally ended up earlier that day. We got there and continued the dancing and drinking. Apparently Jessie and Megan are on a first-name basis with the owners of the club, so they gave all of the girls in our group free shots of tequila... This was a turning point in our night and Jessie's boyfriend decided that we'd had enough (good thinking) and needed to get out of there. He made sure we got to Jessie's place alright, said goodnight, and he left. We woke up the next day with some MEAN hangovers.

I, of course, don't have any pictures of anything after the first bar (or do I?), so you're just gonna have to take my word for most of this. ^_^

Anywho, I finally gathered myself, and my stuff, and made the trip back to Daejeon and Songchon-dong. That went a lot smoother because Jessie was with me when I bought my subway ticket and train ticket. (Thanks, Jessie a.k.a. "Jesshikah!") I was so glad to get back to my little apartment. I didn't realize how much I've made myself at home here in Songchon-dong. I like my neighborhood, the smells of it, the people, the little hole-in-the-wall kimbap shop downstairs and the bar on the corner. I like my hood. Plus, I don't think I'd make it out alive, or at least my liver would have to repair itself BIG TIME on a daily basis, if I lived closer to Seoul. :D