Over the weekend, Aska and Zach and Heather and I went into Seoul. I would tell you where if I could remember the names of the places. (Insadong was one of the places). We went to Kyobo books where I bought a beggining Korean book so that Aska and I can start our lessons. She's getting all excited about putting me to the test and assigning me to real-life scenarios. I think it's gonna be awesome and I can't wait to speak Korean!!

I moved into my new officetel last night and it is much cleaner and nicer. Plus, my window looks out onto the street and the bright lights of the bordellos. (I'm not kidding). There's also a large red-orange neon cross on the building directly across from me, so it's a nice combination. Oh, about the "bordellos." Apparently prostitution is pretty common here and if you see several barber poles on a building that are spinning and lit up at all hours of the night, you can be sure that there is some shady business going on inside. In fact, I'm positive that we have this going on in my building. Right next door to the PC bang on the 2nd floor is this nice restaurant-looking type place. (How do you like that English?) However, I only see women in really short and slutty dresses greeting the men in business suits who seem to frequent this "restaurant." There also seems to be a lot of drama going on in there as I often hear yelling at the back door before I see one or more of the scantily clad women abruptly leaving. (Ok, so this has actually only happened twice. But c'mon. I've only been here 3 weeks and I don't even live on the 2nd floor). So....I can only assume.

In other news, it snowed the other night and it was so pretty. But it only lasted a few hours before it all melted. I was sad to see it go. Since then, it hasn't even been that cold outside.

I wanted to talk about Linda, my boss. I absolutely love her. She gets in these hyper moods every once in awhile where she sits in people's laps or spanks people. She is constantly telling me I need to drink beer and that if I need a drinking partner, she's here for me. She also refers to Zach as her boyfriend. She is hilarous. I feel really blessed to have her as a boss. It's about time I have a boss who isn't underhanded or conniving.

Well, that's the update. I had to force myself to write this so I hope you enjoy it!

KIDNEY STONES

Ok, because I am so frustrated at the moment with my inability to even manage this blog (I somehow deleted the title bar AND obviously I don't know how to put pictures with text), I will make this short. On Tuesday, my kidney started hurting like crazy and my co-worker Aska was nice enough to take me to the hospital and sit with me while I was hooked up to the saline drip and receiving painkillers to the buttocks. I am now on 5 different meds, recovering nicely, and tomorrow will be my first full day back at work.

The hospital did not seem sanitary but it WAS cheap. And my doctor was really cute and talked to me in Korean in this nice, soothing voice as if I had a clue what he was saying. The doctor that accompanied him who was supposed to be his interpreter told me I had a tumor, at which point Aska and the doctor waved him off and shushed him and the main doctor looked at me and said, "Joke. Joke!"

So that's all I got for now.

THANKSGIVING

My Thanksgiving was celebrated on 2 days. The first was on Thursday night when I went to Incheon to meet up with my GEC friends, Jenna and Ashley. Their co-worker (and now my friend), Sarah, came to dinner as well. Sidenote about Sarah: she used to be best friends with one of the main actors from Degrassi so you know I was immediately fond of her.

We went to a restaurant called "Can More" where you sit in hanging porch swings at your table. We ate spaghetti and fondue and it was DELICIOUS. Not to mention, I love these girls so spending time with them was well worth the outrageous cab fare I was cheated out of on the way back home. NEVER, NEVER let a cabbie NOT run the meter!

The funny thing is, Jenna is from New Zealand and Sarah is from Canada so I'm glad they were willing to celebrate our American holiday.

I experienced more foreigners (foreigners as in anyone other than Americans) willing to celebrate Thanksgiving on Saturday night at my co-workers' house in Paju. This time we had real Thanksgiving food. Oh, and thanks to two of the other Texans there, we watched the Cowboy game as well. Didn't even feel like I was in Korea!

After the food, a group of us went out to a foreigner bar and then the die-hards (5 of us) ended up at the norae bang til 6 a.m. I loved it. I didn't love sleeping all day Sunday, though, so I don't think I'll be doing that again anytime soon.

BILL PASSING OUT AT THE NORAE BANG WHILE STILL SINGING:

This leads me to my next issue: kidneys and what alcohol will do to them. Despite the fact that Koreans believe beer to be good for the kidneys, I can assure you that this is not true. In my next blog entry, I will tell you about my kidney stone, UTI, and my experience at the hospital :). Don't worry, I'll live to tell the story!