Soju Bottles of Fun!

Here's a new one: black bean tea. Let me tell you, it tastes exactly like how it sounds. Mrs. Hwang gave me this drink to try last time I was at her house and I politely tried it, said it tasted okay and took it with me to "finish" when I got home. The drain in my sink appeared to enjoy it a lot. They have a thing here with black beans, like it's a dessert or treat or something. Black beans have just a tad of sweetness to their flavor (like me), but that doesn't automatically make it a good choice for a treat. It's still a freaking bean. Anyway, making it a tea isn't a good idea, along with so many other things they try to pass off as food or drink here. The variety of teas here actually rival the variety of seafood they eat. The tea aisle at the grocery store is chock full of all kinds of different flavors of tea, with one exception ... regular. I just want to buy some good ole regular iced tea and they don't have it. Sure, let's make a tea out of black beans, but why give the people regular tea?

This past week has been pretty uneventful. Brent and I have hung out with our new Korean friends a couple more times, including one night when we all went to Mr. Pizza for dinner and Cold Stone after. Mr. Pizza is a pretty good little pizza chain they have here. The pizza has been good every time I've eaten there and it's not as greasy as Pizza Hut. That night when Brent and I were waiting for Soo and Ji Won outside the Lotte Department Store, there were a bunch of big soju bottle characters running around handing out stuff and playing with passers-by. It was really funny, because they would playfully scare people sometimes. We even got one to scare Ji Won when she showed up. I've included some video and photos below.

On Thursday night we bid farewell to Gina, who leaves for Australia on Wednesday. We went to a nice little Italian restaurant that she picked out, and hung out there until we were pretty much last people to leave. We bought a little cake for her also and really had a good time. It's amazing to think that we only hung out with her a grand total of four times, because it feels like we became such good friends. As has been explained to us, in Korea, close friendship can develop very quickly. I mean, people call each other best friends after just a couple hangouts. I think this was kind of our first taste of this kind of friendship development. It's hard to explain, but I can already tell that Gina is one of those people that I'm always going to keep in touch with and care about, as is Soo and Ji Won. There are already very preliminary plans for them all to come visit us in California when we're all back from our respective journeys. Anyway, it was sad to see her go, but in the end I'm so glad I had the opportunity to meet such a cool and fun person.

One thing that has changed here recently is how fast time is going. I've now been here for a little over two months and it feels like just yesterday I was writing my "I've been here for one month" blog. It definitely feels like weeks are going by instead of days. This is obviously a sign that life here is becoming pretty routine, which isn't a bad thing. It's a good mix these days of routine and new, because we're still going places we haven't been before and finding new ways to spend our free time. At the same time, things aren't as confusing and difficult as they once were. We've kind of found our stride and that's nice. Next weekend we're going to head up to Seoul, because we have Monday and Tuesday off for Children's Day and Buddha's Birthday. I'm really excited to go to Seoul, because I always hear people say how cool it is up there. Hopefully I'll come back with plenty of stories and pictures from that excursion. I think the bullet train ride up there should be pretty cool in itself.

I've also finally figured out all my vacation days for the next year, so it's nice to have that checked off the list. My dad and Mariana are already planning their trips to come visit and I can't wait. My mom needs to get on the ball though! It's going to be so much fun being like a tour guide for them and taking them to the places that they've read about here or heard me talk about on the phone. Hopefully by that point my Korean will be a lot better too. Speaking of which, for those of you wondering about my Korean lessons, I have to say that I haven't been a very good student. Actually, the real reason I haven't been able to do my lessons as often is because we're going out so much now, that I have trouble finding the time. I did a couple lessons last week, but I really need to get on a better schedule. Speaking Korean I find quite difficult. Reading Korean is actually pretty simple, because the "alphabet" is very simple. I'm at a point where I can pretty much read anything I come across, with a few exceptions. The problem is that I don't know what the words I'm reading mean, save for a few. Anyway, long story short, I need to do my lessons more often if I'm going to get to any sort of low-level comprehension of the language. I've also found out recently that the Korean words and such that I'm learning from friends and fellow teachers here is Korean with a Busan accent, which I'm told is akin to having a southern accent in America. Not cool. I would much rather speak a nicer version of this language than a sped-up lazy version. The whole concept of accents here was actually shocking to me for some reason. I mean, it makes sense, I just didn't even think about it. I'm sure in every country, that country's language is spoken in a variety of ways throughout the country. Oh well, I just hope that Rosetta Stone is teaching me the nice-sounding Korean.

I have to use this next bit of space to thank Roy Choi immensely for introducing me to justin.tv. This website has been a life saver over the last few weeks. I've been able to watch every sporting event I've wanted to ... LIVE! This includes every Galaxy game and every Lakers playoff game. It's so awesome. I'm even able to catch replays of Raw, SmackDown and ECW, and also watch other T.V. shows that I've missed out on while here. It was even showing a replay of WrestleMania 25 for a few days a couple weeks ago! Lucky for me, everything I've wanted to watch has worked out okay as far as timing is concerned. I don't know how this website works, but it's awesome. I would encourage all of you to check it out, because there is so much good stuff to watch on there. Anyway, thank you Roy Choi. You're a pal and a confidant.