Vacation of Sorts

This past week, I took 2 days of vacation and combined it with my regular weekend, to enjoy 4 days off work. I did this for no particular reason--I didn't travel anywhere further than Seoul. I just wanted a break. Some people take their vacations (20 days) all at once; and that seems crazy to me. I much prefer spreading my earned vacation days across my entire contract.

That said, I have a small vacation in September, October, and November. For September, I had planned to go to China. I was going to take almost a week off. However, there is a holiday here in Korea called Chusok. It's a very popular holiday, and English Village has decided it will be closed for that holiday--because it is not similar to holidays in America, where people get together and go to theme parks. This is a very family oriented holiday, and thusly, people spend it with their families. So, basically, we are FORCED to take vacation days. So that means I'll have 4 days off work (2 vacation days and 2 regular days off). I'm planning a trip to Jeju Island, off the south coast of Seoul.

As I wrote at the start of this paragraph, I was originally planning to go to China. But I have heard that it may be very difficult to get a Visa for China at this point. I haven't checked into it in detail, but it's almost not worth it anyway--because I'd have to go alone. Jeju Island is much closer, and thus cheaper, and so more people are able to go there. There should be a good group of us that will head to the island for this holiday.

I'd still like to go to China...but I just don't want to go alone. I think it'll be easier to convince people to go to Thailand or the Philippines. And truthfully, there is much more to explore within Korea itself--I shouldn't forget that.

Anyway, this past weekend, I lounged around, did a bunch of nothing. One day, however, I did head south of the Han River in Seoul to the COEX Mall. I've been there before, even my parents have been there. But there is an aquarium at the Mall, and I went with a Korean friend.

On the subway on the way to the Aquarium--
Outside the aquarium's entrance, "Oh, boy, if it's this exciting outside, what's in store inside?!"--
I don't know what it is, but it's cool looking--
This hilarious section of the aquarium had fish in various household places--
Washing machine--
I thought it would be just like any other aquarium; but I was wrong. It wasn't as huge or fantastic as the aquarium in Sydney; but it did have some animals I'd never seen before, and some I didn't even know existed. They even had fruit bats and a squirrel monkey...which left me a bit confused...because it's an aquarium...oh well.

A two headed turtle? Really? Really--
A piranha--
This tank only had 3 fish in it. Another attempt to recreate something Disney-like, here is a clown fish looking for his son, along with a blue and yellow fish (below)--just like "Finding Nemo"--
Ellen DeGeneres' character--
I've never seen a fish like this before--so beautiful--reminded me of a ribbon dancer--
Another tank, this clown fish kept hiding from my camera--
This is when things quickly turned ugly--
A back-lit jellyfish--scary and frightening and cool and creepy and all that--
Another kind of jellyfish-- And another kind--
There was only ONE penguin swimming in the penguin place--which seemed really odd. All the others were literally standing on the edge of the pool, looking as though they really wanted to go in, but were afraid to. Once a penguin went in, the ONE penguin that was in there chased him all over the place; making me think I was watching some twisted version of the childhood game, "King of the Hill".
On another of my days off this past week, I headed across the street to the Heyri Art Village. It's literally across the street from English Village, but I've never walked through it. It was such a nice day that I thought I'd wander around in there. Basically, it's a village of art galleries, museums, eateries, and interesting architecture. I have been told that the only people who live in the Art Village are artists who build a home that can serve as their studio and gallery as well. It's a very strange place--but very interesting to walk through.

For example, they have a Teddy Bear Museum. I do not know what is inside, and after seeing what was outside, I had no intention of paying to see what was contained therein.

Why on earth would you decimate the Venus de Milo statue by putting a teddy bear head on top????--
They also have a Politics and Stamp Museum. It cost 2,000Won to enter, and I thought I better see what this place could possibly have.

As I said, a Politics and Stamp museum...hmm--
A sticker on the entrance to the museum--
I knew Grandma would want to see this--
Various buttons from different political races--
These are strange and a little creepy, and I don't particularly like them--
I'm not sure if this is an ACTUAL ballot from Hitler's election--but it's interesting nonetheless--
The President of Korea, Lee Myung-Bak--
Upstairs were the stamps--
How exciting and random--a Jim Carrey "Ace Ventura" stamp from the Congo--

See, it IS possible to have adventures without leaving Korea. I'll keep you updated with further adventures.

Until later!

A Poll

Because I will not be starting my job until January 5, I am thinking I'll need to have some sort of income between returning to California and starting my job. I don't know what I'll be doing for work during that time (because I'll be traveling for the holidays, I'm not sure that I'll get an actual job), so I was wondering if any of you would be interested in supporting me by buying something.

I have created a simple poll to find out if it would even be worth trying to put something together for sale. For instance, if I made a simple book that included pictures and blogs from my time in Korea, would that be something you'd be interested in having? Or would you rather hang up a picture on your wall? Would a 2009 Korea calendar of my pictures of Korea interest you? Etc.

I am not pressuring or guilting anyone into buying anything, please know that.

Thank You

Thank you God for such a beautiful sunset. For a moment, it actually made me not miss California so much.

It rained again today, and this was the calm AFTER the storm. Very beautiful.

100 Days

Literally, 100 days remain before the end of my contract. While I don't have a celebration each morning when the calendar clicks down; I do make a conscious decision to affect some positive change with my remaining "x" amount of days.

Early on in these blogs, I made sure to point out all my observations, revelations, and condescension's (I don't know--I just needed a third big word). I guess I've basically run out of things to share, at least at length. Sure, I've seen some new things, which I will point out, but most of what I see is more of the same. I'm not bored by it, but of course I'm not going to share it over and over and over with you.

I will say, though I have ridden the subway many, many times now; it has not gotten any less strange. Being the only non-Korean in an entire subway station is still just as unnerving and weird. I certainly don't feel in danger or anything of the sort, but I definitely feel strange. Nothing in America can compare with that feeling (well...perhaps outside of taking the bus in Orange County, which is mostly full of Hispanic people). Each time I get on the subway, I am consistently taken aback by the reality of where I am and what I am doing. It's a sobering, and really cool feeling. Again, it's not bad--it's just very stark.

Yesterday, on my day off, I went into Seoul, as I am wont to do. I met a Korean friend in Insadong, which is a place I've been to before; even my folks have been there. (The convenience store there sells Dr. Pepper for 900Won, which is a smoking deal compared to the 3,000Won it costs at the coffee shop here at English Village, or the 1,300Won it costs at our little convenience store here.) Insadong is a place many foreigners visit. There are many cool souvenir shops, and other fair-like booths out on the street. It's just a neat artsy atmosphere, and though it was exceedingly warm yesterday, I enjoyed being out and about.

They had odd mirrors in the ground--Made me think of Mary Poppins--
What are these?--
My first, and probably last, magazine cover--
After visiting Insadong, and eating at KFC (why not?), my Korean friend took me to a place called "Seoul Forest", which is just a huge park on the southeastside of Seoul. He said it's the largest park in Seoul.
As we were nearing the park, the sun was setting, and it made a beautiful sunset; the nicest I've seen since coming here.

The park was about a 10 minute walk from the nearest subway station, and as this was a part of Seoul I'd never been to, it was interesting to get yet another view the city. It was getting dark, but I was still able to get some cool shots before the sun finally went down.

A very strange playground addition--you can actually climb through this persons body; that's the moon in the armpit--

And it does exactly what it says--
Narnia + Harry Potter--
There was an outdoor concert going on, with what looked like a relatively young group of orchestra members playing some tunes. As we were leaving, I distinctly heard music from Disney's "Beauty and the Beast".

As I said, it was exceedingly warm outside; heat plus humidity. It's been like this for the last 2 weeks; July was warm, but not agonizing.

Well, today, Monday, was another warm day...though the weather forecast predicted evening thunderstorms. Well, they were RIGHT. The storm came and hit with a bang at around 8 p.m., and lasted for only 20 minutes or so. There was some INCREDIBLE lightning, and I was fortunate to be able to snap some great shots of it.

So this is what it looks like without the lightning--it was DARK--
Yikes--

Until I blog again, goodbye.