Megan and I are getting really excited, because as the frigid Midwest winter continues, finally a few people are heading to the other side of the world to check out how we really live over here.
March 14 - 22 Megan's parents and brother Tim will come during the UW-Milwaukee spring break. They will have a quick, strenous trip, but we have planned the travel and got a few days off to maximize their experience here. This one has been in the cards for a while, so we almost have the plans to an hour by hour level!
April 17 - May 5 Breaking News! Erin and Brian, the Udells, have BOOKED their trip from April 17th - May 5th. They will take a week or so in there to hit up at least one other Asian country, to complete the experience, but they will have an extended stay in the 'Su.
We are SO excited for both these visits. The timing is perfect and has been driving us through this mid-contract stretch. Not to say time still isn't flying. We have now hit the 7 month point of being in Korea, and are rapidly approaching the 7 month point of our contract. I can almost not believe it, but then I think back about all of my experiences, and realize that, I have grown a lot, we have had a lot of fun, and these next 5 months will FLY by, especially with all these people visiting. It really makes Megan and I feel loved. I know that my family would be here just as fast, but health reasons and TWO new cute nephews have unfortunately prevented that. Instead we will enjoy the FULL Hanrahan clan.. Unbelievable!
I am also a little closer to that announcement, so keep checking the blog for updates.
If you couldn't tell from the widget above and to the right of this blog post, I added the twitter widget. I might relocate it depending upon how much I actually use it, but I think it might be kind of nice...
This week we haven't been up to much. On the bad news side, the car is going to the shop straight away on Monday morning. Following a long line of events that probably should have led to me taking it it, the power steering went out on Saturday afternoon. The car has since been parked at Jeff's, waiting to be taken to a service station. Luckily the availablity of cabs here is great, along with buses, so getting around is not a problem, even if it takes a few days.
Hopefully the car isn't totaled, seeing as almost any repair puts it into that range!!
This month has not been nearly as busy as last month, but instead of battling weariness Megan and I were stuck battling apathy. After our virtual 12 hour shifts of January, we needed to rediscover what to do with our open mornings, and later nights in February. The first week of February resulted in a quite boring, and even slightly depressing result, in which we just wasted away the mornings and evenings, browsing the internet, or something similar. This week we remembered how to make things a bit more enjoyable...
The first thing was, adding a morning hike back into the plans. I think exercising always lifts one spirit, and nothing is more spiritual to Korean people than mountains. For those non wayguks who read this blog, Koreans mostly bury family members with plots on the side of a mountain, "for the view". If you look back at some of our earliest pictures, you can see an example of the mounds. The high temperatures didn't hurt last week, but we even made it up to the top today in 40 degree and rain (I wore shorts and a long sleeve-t to the shock of the locals). Regardless, adding this back to the morning routine definitely was a key to reducing cabin fever.
The other key thing has been socializing. We have both made some good friends here after six months, and we just need to get out of the house once and a while. Megan was lucky enough to have a girls only Valentine's party on Saturday afternoon, and we just had a few nights out with Gwang-he our co-worker, and our good friends Ed and Jen. This has kept us sane...
Other then that, I've been filing my time studying Korea, and doing a bit of side web development, for those who don't know, check out huminsight.com, for a tiny bit more about what I do, but expect a big announcement in a few weeks, I can't say exactly when just yet. I went out to Emart this week and bought a Hanja book (Korean via Chinese characters) made for little kids, to study the Hanja, and just improve my understand of Korean. I think I have become addicted to studying it, but it has slightly improved my quality of life, I must say. It's nice to tell someone something nice, or catch a kid using a swear word, haha!
This weekend, Megan had the valentine's party, like I said. At that time, I went over and toured the Yeosu Industrial Complex, for something to do. It is really INSANE. It is just about 8km straight of refineries, chemical plants, etc. It is really an awe striking place... I think I will go out, and get some pics. I might ask JS or another Yeosu-ite where I can hike to snap some good photos, it is almost unbelievable... And a bit scary, too!
We went out just for something to do each night, but didn't do anything to uniquely interesting. Today, we headed out to Suncheon, the next town over for our Valentine's dinner, Outback Steak House. It was GREAT... BLOOMIN' Onion mmmmmmm! The cost was.... reasonable, W70,000. My steak was quite mediocre, and really fatty, but apparently the Korean's like the fat. Megan has her first salad in ages, a Mango Chicken w/ Honey Mustard to be exact. After that we checked out Suncheon's various shopping outlets for a bit, and headed back.
Well, not too exciting as far as blog posts go. I'd love to get some nice social commentary pieces, or a bit more in depth, but that doesn't happen when you start a post at 2AM...! I hope to update a few more times during the week, I know I left some stuff out, especially objective piece as opposed to a summary...
Wrapping it up, some news, we hit 6 MONTHS at the end of January, and are now officially scrappy Korea vets. My sister Angie had ADORABLE son, named Adrian. He is incredibly cute. My sister Laura's 6+ month old, Noller skates, has been battling a fever, so we all wish him well. Megan's parents are coming in less than 4 weeks!!! We are SOOO excited. No pictures this time around, so I'll just leave you all with a video I enjoyed from Youtube! Bye, don't forget to email!
If you liked it, check out http://www.cloudcult.com . They are a veteran, indy band from MN which I've been listening to a lot lately. Alright, I must SLEEP!
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