winter is here!

we spent the weekend in Seoul, visiting some friends, eating yummy food and walking around in extremely cold and windy weather (the news said it was -3 degrees Celsius yesterday which is 26.6 degrees Fahrenheit. woohoo!). the pictures and a fuller description to come, but here are some highlights:

• jim bought a fancy butterfly knife on the street in Itaewon which was available for purchase among a fine assortment of hand-held weapons, most of which definitely gave me the heebie jeebies--catering to the military crowd, i guess?
  
  
• we had actual real grilled hamburgers and bacon and onion rings and french fries at a tiny little place called Smokeys Saloon in Itaewon.
• ate delectable chicken tikka masala and a lamb curry at an indian place in Hyehwa with some really great friends of ours
• spent a long evening at a great hookah bar in hongdae, chillin on sofas and relaxing on pillows. they made a korean style mojito that sort of approximated a real one in the states. there were actual mint leaves in it this time, but still, the use of peppermint schnapps eludes me.
• ate some great feta and gyro sandwiches for lunch and headed home.
  

Seoul is fun. Seoul is crazy. It was definitely overwhelming to be there. The subways are really much more insanely packed than i first thought during our other trips there. Saturday night is a mob scene. And there is a TON of stuff to do and see at every minute. It's a great trip, but at this point, kind of like vegas for me. I can only be there about 48 hours, and then i need to come home. living in Gwangju is really chill and easy. We don't see a lot of foreigners, and we're still the anomaly. In Seoul, there were Westerners everywhere. A Korean woman we hung out with on Saturday night said that just in the past three years, the foreigner population has exploded. We have apparently been flooding the city in droves at a very rapid pace. And until the recent sexual abuse scandal wit the teacher from Canada, there hasn't really been a thought towards a screening process for all these teachers. There are no background checks or any other sort of filter to determine your eligibility as a teacher. But in December, the government will make it much more difficult for Westerners to enter as English teachers.

so, once again, back and ready to head to work for another week of madness. feeling pretty sick again. but this will be a good week:) much love from across the world.

catie