The David Blaine of Avocados

* I signed up for an on-line Korean class. The class consists of 12 videos for the price or 27,000 won / $25 and half of the tuition money goes to Haiti earthquake relief. Since the money is going towards a good cause I thought I would try it out. So far so good, I completed the first class, and will probably do another class tonight. The teacher is Canadian and has been living in Korea for 6 years. He learned the language and knows exactly what challenges an English only speaker faces. Its pretty good. The videos are of him teaching westerners in a classroom. I can e-mail him questions but basically I am free to go at my own pace, there are no assignments or grades.
* Speaking of grades, on Friday at work everyone was gathered around the bulletin boards looking at lists of peoples names. I visited the floors 8-6 and it was the same scene on each floor. Apparently, these were the lists of everyone in the company who received a promotion. It reminded me of going to school back before teachers began posting grades on-line..... One-pon time, when the man in the moon was just a little boy, and ducks walked with webbed feet, much as they do today, teachers use to post your grade publicly. They would use the last four digits of your social security number and then put your grades up out side of the classroom. Well seeing everyone crowded around the lists at work gossiping about who got promoted and who didn't reminded me of this. But in this situation, your full name is posted, along with your new title; no attempt at privacy at all!
* Today I went to Costco with Chin. (Coincidentally, Chin's name is on the promotion list.) I bought all the western treats I have been missing. I got a huge box of Ritz crackers, a thing of frozen hash browns, Parmesan shake cheese, spinach and cheese raviolis, feta cheese, and a big bag of avocados! Total comfort foods that remind me of home! I also bought a box of those tinny paper towels that you just add water and they grow like a marshmallow in a camp fire (Shereen and Henry know what I mean, P.S. congrats again on the baby!)Way better than carrying a big pack of baby wipes, I always have water with me anyways so its perfect!
* On Thursday I came in to work and there was a ripe avocado on my desk! It was the first avocado I've had since I moved out here! And no Allie, it was not the avocado fairy, though I do believe they exist, it was actually Chin. She had gotten them at Costco last week. Since it was ripe I had to take it home to eat, I couldn't leave it another day; it would have gone bad. But, after work I was meeting Hui Kung and Sayheung to see the movie Abata - Avatar so I put the avocado in my coat pocket; I didn't want it getting all smashed up in my purse. Sayheung pre-ordered us sandwiches from Cafe Comeon(Melissa's favorite place for pumpkin lattes)and Hui Kung and I went to pick them up. I realized that if I cut up the avocado we could all put pieces of it on our sandwiches. So I showed the avocado to Hui Kung and told her my idea and she was really excited, she had never even seen one before! In fact, ah-ba-ka-doe was her new English word for the day.
I asked the girls working at the cafe if they could cut the avocado for me. They took it to the sink and washed it first, not a good sign, and then tried to cut it in the middle. I thought oh crap, they don't know how to cut the avocado. They too had never seen an avocado before. So I motioned to them to cut the avocado around the side but they were trying to cut through the seed. I asked them to hand it over to me so I could show them how a girl from California would cut an avocado.
I twisted the top half of it reveling the seed inside. All three girls made a gasp, they were surprised by the size of the seed. Then I held the half with the seed in it in the palm of my hand and hit the seed with the knife. Next, I gave a little twist and the seed popped out still attached to the knife. You would have thought I was David Blaine performing street magic! The girls were amazed by my avocado cutting skills! Next, I showed them how to hit the knife on the trashcan so the seed would pop off, another round of gasps. Lastly, I cut the avocado around the shell, made long vertical cuts, and then squeezed the shell so that the piece I cut fanned out, cheers and clapping ensued. I am officially the David Blaine of avocados!
* So I was warned early on not to ever sit in the front seat of a cab. Driving a cab is one of the few jobs available to people with criminal records, so I figured this was a precautionary measure. I have heard stories about women who sit in the front of cabs are just asking a driver to make sexual advances. So, I never sit up front. Well when Hui Kung and I came out of the cafe with our sandwiches Sayheung was waiting in his car. I told Hui Kung that she could ride shot gun. She said "No, I will sit in the back with you." I thought this was really strange, I mean, Sayheung is driving us to the movies but he is not a cab driver! It seemed rude to me. But then Hui Kung said that she didn't want to sit up front because then she would be his girlfriend. I was so surprised! I guess the passenger seat is reserved for the significant other and even if that person is not there, you don't take their seat. No wonder you don't ever sit up front with a cab driver!
* Tokey Pokey is no longer a free-range rabbit. He got in trouble when I came home one day to find shreds of wall paper on the floor. That's right, he decided to start ripping off the wall paper. I was so freaked out! I thought I was going to get in trouble because of what he did! But then I looked at the pieces of wall paper and found that there was mold all over the wall behind the wall paper!!! It was in the kitchen, not near a wet area so I am really worried that there is mold behind the wall paper everywhere in my house! No wonder there is even wall paper on the ceiling!
So I told some people at work, and brought in a sample that Tokey Pokey had taken down, so there would be no misunderstanding what I was talking about. (I put the sample in one of the princess baggys you gave me Sophia.) Hopefully they will be able to find me a new place to live. So maybe Tokey Pokey was helping me after all; but he certainly wasn't helping when he jumped up on the shelf and ate 3 library books!!!! Like I said, no more free-range rabbit! He now lives in a large gated community out in the laundry room.

Melissa is gone, booooooo!

* They have these hand towels that are perfect for traveling! Just add water and they unravel from dinner mint size to a washcloth. I love them, I grabbed a whole handful before I left the restaurant.
* Melissa got the best hat ever! It came free with a purchase of 20,000won at the bakery. Anyone who knows Melissa knows that she can spend 20,000 won at a bakery no problem! It was amazing, we ate nothing but donuts, cupcakes, and muffins and we both managed to lose weight over the 3 weeks she was here! Anyways, the hat was a wolf in sheep's clothing! Its reversible, but makes the most sense to have the sheep on the outside and the wolf underneath. I hope it is large enough for her to wear over her snowboarding helmet.
* Speaking of snowboarding helmets, Melissa, Hye Jung, Hye Jung's husband, and I all went snowboarding together. Hye Jung won a weekend at the company's resort condo. It was beautiful! The view looked out directly over the ski slopes. It also had a jacuzzi tub and full kitchen. Melissa and I got to sleep in the traditional Korean bed rolls on the floor. It was so much more comfortable then I thought it would be. I sleep on my sides so I thought it might pose a problem but I slept soundly through the night.
Staying at the condo also allowed us discounted prices on lift tickets and gear. The lift tickets are really neat, they don't attach to the outside of your jacket like the ones back home. They are basically like plastic hotel keys and you step though an automated turn style which opens for you if the key is in your pocket. Anyways, we were able to get the lift tickets and rent all the gear for a really great price, although they did not rent helmets. Which really isn't a problem for me as long as I do the falling leaf thing all the way down the mountain. Which I did for a while but then realized that since I hadn't fallen once I was ready for the next step which is making 's' lines down the mountain. And since I had my original snowboarding instructor with me, Melissa, I though this would be a good opportunity for me to take the next step. Big mistake. I fell a bunch, but one fall in particular took me out of commission. I fell backwards and hit my head really hard. I should have known better than to try something new without a helmet. Sure taught me as I completed the walk of shame down the mountain.
* Melissa was not the only person Chin brought over to work for three weeks. She also brought two other guys, Shannon and Reed. Although Reed only stayed for one week, Shannon was living with Melissa at the abandoned apartment where I threw the Thanksgiving party. Shannon worked in the office with us doing the same writing projects that I have been working on for the past 4 months. Although Shannon was trying hard, his computer was really old and slow. So we would joke that he e-mailed files by carrier pigeon because it would take so long to get. So one day I printed out a life size photo of a pigeon and gave it to Melissa to cut out and attach a scroll to its leg. Melissa snuck into the office when he went to the bathroom and attached the pigeon to his window. Shannon didn't notice the pigeon was there for 3 hours! And then when he did notice it he though it was real and questioned why it wasn't moving. Melissa and I were dieing!!! I hope Shannon took his pigeon home with him as a reminder of how much fun it is to work with Melissa and me.
* I bought the best humidifier ever! Its a large frog and steam comes out of its eyes!!! Winters are very dry here so having a humidifier for the house is essential, but having it be a hypno-toad is a bonus! It was on sale for 12,000 won so I just couldn't say no!
* Before Melissa left we went with Bonyun to a place where you can dress up in traditional Korean clothes and take pictures. We had to pay 10,000 won to do it but that's ok, we had fun wearing the headdresses and outfits. The photographer allowed Bonyun to take pictures of us with her own camera and her pictures turned out way better than the photographers! I was really surprised but Bonyun was not. She said that "only someone who loves you can take a good picture of you." That seems so very true! Tempest you must love me a lot! Anyways, as soon as Bonyun sends those pictures to me I will share them. Hey Melissa, did you take both copies of the photo? If you did then just give it to Lucas or my folks with the rest of the x-mass gifts. Thanks lady!

The Island

* Hye Jung, Melissa, and I went to the island of magic and fairy tales! This is the island where they film a lot of Korean dramas. It was beautiful; we had to take a boat through icy filled waters while it was snowing big fluffy chunks! There were fire rings all around the island where we could stop and warm up our hands. There were also ostriches all around the island! They were just roaming free, pecking at people as they pleased. This was such a beautiful place that is wasn't hard to understand why we saw two different couples taking their wedding photos these. Although it was extremely hard to understand how the woman were surviving the photo shoots wearing strapless wedding gowns, berrrrrrrr!
* We took such great photos on the island that I wanted to email them to everyone! I sent them to Lucas, Angela, and my parents. Although when I sent them to my parents something went horribly wrong. I asked my parents what they thought of the photos and they said some of them were nice but others were riskee. I was totally perplexed! Their was one photo where I was sticking my tongue out trying to get it stuck to the ice but that's as riskee as it gets! So I called them on skype for further explanation. Turns out a virus attached itself to my photos so every time they tried to scroll back and forth between my photos it would show them porn. I was absolutely mortified!
* Melissa got to go with me to belly dance class! Hooray! Someone to share in the shame and embarrassment! I even let her wear my pink genie pants, and my teacher provided her with a beaded bra so she would fit in just fine. After class the teacher invited us out for drinks, food, and further uncomfortable moments. She took us to a restaurant down the street from class that serves mokoli, a tasty Korean rice wine. We were the only woman in the place; it was full of men smoking and drinking soju (Korean vodka). I ruined Melissa's reputation by taking her to this place, and also ruined her chances of marrying an upstanding Korean man (never mind that she is already married to Ray). At this seedy place the teacher ordered food for us. She knew that I didn't eat meat, but she wanted to know if sea food was ok to put in our pancake. I told her I was allergic to shrimp so I needed to be careful what they put in my food. Since she didn't know the English name for the sea creature in question she asked our server to bring a bowl of them to our table. It was some kind or bivalve, maybe a sea squirt or something so I said yes, if those creatures were cooked in the pancake then I could still eat the pancake safely without dieing. She said good, ordered the pancake, and then proceeded to make me eat the sea creature raw from the bowl. She ate if first, showing me that it wasn't a trick she was playing on me. I was so grossed out!!! I was trying so hard not to vomit while I ate it. Remember, it had been 7 years that I went without eating seafood. I only started eating it again because I was afraid I would starve to death in Korea if I didn't. Imagine how difficult it is for me to eat these creatures after so long, and then having to eat them raw! Also imagine how pissed I was when Melissa pointed out that there were two left in the bowl and that we should each eat one!

Melissa is here!

* Melissa flew in on the stormiest day of the year. It was the blizzard of the century, literally! It actually was Korea's heaviest snowfall in 70 years!!! It snowed 11 inches that day! It was amazing, I have never seen it snow like that before! But then again, I was born and raised in Los Angeles.
* Melissa is staying here for three weeks. The first week she got to stay at the Lotte hotel (which meant I did too) and then the next two weeks will be spent at that abandoned apartment we held the Thanksgiving dinner at. At lease we had one week of luxury. Every night I took a bubble bath and read my novel, and every day we tried to order different kinds of pillows to test while we were there. We found a brochure in the dresser drawer that showed like 10 different types of pillows available at the hotel so we called housekeeping and ordered two new ones each day. The orders weren't always right because of the language barrier, but despite that we had quite the pillow collection by the end of the week. In fact, we had so many pillows we decided to make a pillow snowman. His arms are made from an umbrella, his buttons are cookies, and his eyes are the caps off the complementary shampoo and conditioner bottles.
* At Lotte I found a new food that I am too scared to try. Its "peanut buttered squid" mmmm. They sell it from a cart that I will feature a picture of on my facebook eventually. I'm sure if someone bets me enough money I will try eating it. Any bets?
* Melissa and I started a new game. Its kinda like punch buggy but instead of hurting you physically this game hurts you emotionally. There is a common convenient store called "buy the way," and when you see this store you say "by the way ." Its a great game! "By the way, you smell like a horse's ass" "By the way, your face makes me want to vomit" So much fun!
* Another fun game we like to play is dub-ing Korean dramas. We find dramas and make up our own interesting storyline. Its just like that game that the comedians would play on 'who's line is it anyways.' We have so much fun doing it, and my Korean girlfriends are so impressed that we are familiar with the different shows. Although they do not know we are making fun of the shows, its ok!
* Speaking of convenient stores, at some of the stores here they have special fridges for hot beverages. They stick cans of tea, coffee, hot coco etc. in there and they are perfect to buy for warming up your hands (today was -11C / 9F). Also perfect for keeping my hands warm are the convertible mittens. I got myself a pair of fingerless gloves that have a flip top to turn into mittens. Its perfect for Iphone users who need access to the touch screen, but don't want to remove their gloves!
* Maybe I can make a pair of these convertible gloves myself. The other day Melissa and I met up with Vicki and she taught us how to knit. We got some special knitting needles, I don't know if we have them back home, but they have a plastic tube that connects both needles so your stitches don't fall off the back ends. So far so good, I am even attempting to knit a pattern. I have a feeling I will be calling Vicki in the middle of the night, "help, undo, undo, fix it, fix it, fix it, control z!!!! Melissa is making a scarf and I am attempting fingerless gloves, it will be a race to see who can finish first. Now I can officially attend the next 'stitch and bitch' meeting!
* What I need to do though is find a way to knit earmuffs for Melissa. She has the nasty habit of referring to Tokey Pokey as "earmuffs." She is trying to fatten him up so she can make a pair of earmuffs to match the gray hat Vicki is making for her. Whenever Melissa comes over she feed him all kinds of people food that he is not suppose to eat, like peanut butter, and rice wine! So bad!!!!

New Years Weekend

* I came into work Wednesday and Chin told me, "Oh by the way, you don't need to come in to work tomorrow." Apparently, they decided that everyone who is on a one year contract could have New Years eve off. I only wish they would have told me a little sooner that I had a 4 day weekend, I would have scheduled a trip somewhere. Maybe spent new years in Taiwan or Tokyo. Oh well, I was just glad to have an extra day to sleep in.
* On new years eve I slept till noon and then once again attempted to meet Vicki to see the Sherlock Holmes movie. We messaged back and forth on the "Words with Friends" app and I left one final message on the game saying I would be at the Gangnam theater before 1:50. I left my house, which is the only place I can access wifi and the "Words with Friends" app, with an hour to get to the theater. Once again I took the bus, and then the sub way train to make it to the theater at exactly 1:50 when the movie was suppose to be starting. I got into the lobby and all of the elevators where arriving full. They were picking up people in the basement parking levels and when they got to the lobby they were at their weight limit. So, knowing that the movie was already starting I jogged 11 flights of stairs to get to the floor showing the movie. Only problem was that Sherlock Holmes was not playing at that theater at 1:50, I was in the wrong theater. And even worse, Vicki didn't check the game one more time before leaving her house so she didn't even know I was at the wrong theater. So once again I stood her up, and wasted her time and money. I was so over the whole situation! I was like Peter in Family Guy, I raised up both hands, announced 'done!' and walked away. I came back home, got Vicki's message on Skype asking where the hell I was and I messaged her back saying that I won't attempt to hang out with her again until I get myself a cell phone. She offered to help me get a phone, lord only knows why she was still willing to be my friend, if I met her the next day in Itaewon. I told her that if I can't find her there that I was going home, and not my apartment home, but California home!
* Well, since moping about my uncanny ability to miss the movie Sherlock Holmes wouldn't help me any, I decided to get a hair cut. I have passed this hair salon everyday on my way to and from work and decided that I would give it a go. So far, he is the only male hair dresser I've seen in my neighborhood, and since my hairdresser back home was a Vietnamese guy I thought I would give him a try. I brought him a picture of Victoria Beckham and said "Ee got" which means this. He bowed his head and said 'nee' which is yes and pointed to the couch for me to sit and wait my turn. The lady ahead of me was getting a simple trim so I didn't have to wait too long. I watched him sprits her hair with a water bottle and then comb it and trim it. Then he blow dried it and sent her on her way. When it was my turn however he wanted to wash my hair because I already had product in it. I though, oh here we go with the add on's, he is trying to do everything extra to charge me more because I'm a foreigner. Then he cut my hair and spent like 20 mins with the flat iron so it was just perfect for my big new years eve night out. When he was done he asked for "10,000 Korean." I didn't think I understood him correctly. I thought maybe he meant 100,000 won but didn't know how to say it in English correctly. So I asked him to show me on a calculator how much he wanted. Sure enough, once again it was 10,000. I opened my wallet and pulled out a 10,000 bill and asked him if it was correct, he said 'nee' and thanked me. I was floored! Getting my hair washed, cut, and styled cost only 10 U.S. dollar! Plus, they don't tip here, its rude, or charge tax if you pay in cash, so I felt like I was totally ripping him off! Ten dollars!!!! Unbelievable!
* So my new years eve consisted of going to Chin's house for a luxurious quesadillas and champagne dinner. Cheese is rarely served here so having a cheese tortilla was an extra special treat for me. Another lady came by from work and she brought Korean pancakes. I really love Korean pancakes, they have squash and green onions inside and you dip them in soy sauce.... mmmmmm! It was a simple dinner but the rarity of the cheese and tortillas made it really special. I was home before midnight so that I could get my New Years kiss from Tokey Pokey and watch them hit the Korean Bell. Here they don't do a ball drop at midnight, they shoot off fireworks and hit a giant sized bell to ring in the new year.
* On New Years day I met up with Vicki in Itaewon. She helped me get a cell phone, finally! It cost 40$ and its pay as you go. Now I can call for help if I am lost. She also took me to the English book store called "What the book?" I got 4 new books to read. We also went to the black market grocery store. This store sells smuggled goods off the U.S. army base. They had soooo much great stuff that I cant find anywhere else in Korea. The store is unfortunately really small, and really cramped with foreigners. Its run by an Indian family so they also have a lot of great Indian foods. I got some chick peas to try to make my own hummus (although I realize too late that I don't own a food processor so who knows how I will grind the beans up). Anyways, the other great treat when in Itaewon was the bar Geckos. Its really popular with foreigners, in fact, this is the bar Melissa and I visited when we were in Korea last January. They have added a new dish to their menu much to my joy! Veggie burgers!!!!! I was soooooo happy to have a veggie burger and fries for the first time in 3 months! Vicki is a vegetarian too so I treated her to dinner and drinks to make up for all of the Sherlock Holmes shenanigans (we tried to see Shelock Holmes again on Saturday but it was sold out, Im destined not to see this film!).
* When we were at 'What the Book?' I saw a flyer for a girls running group. Actually, they call themselves a drinking club with a running problem. They all go running/jogging/walking together and then go for drinks afterwards. My kind of girls! I emailed them to get more info about their next meeting, I can't wait! I am also thinking about joining a knitting club. Its called 'Stitch and Bitch.' Bella taught me how to knit a few years ago so I hope I can remember how to do it. Seems like a good way for me to make friends.