A Seoul Christmas

Friends. The girls who work with Woogi.

Food! Work Christmas dinner was 2 of these boxes which we ordered from a hotel in Gangnam and got delivered to our place.

The crew. Teachers from work and their others.

Pressies!!

The turkey wishbone. Much bigger than a chicken's!

The aftermath. No vomit so it was an easy clean up.


Christmas cookies. I made about 500 to give to friends. Whew!


And Christmas lights - COEX, Seoul

Soju santa's

Chongaechon, Jogno.

Outside of YBM, Jogno.

Autumn leaves and Dobong san

Autumn is here though the rustling dry leaves are about to all blow away and the chilly temps set in.

Korea University - some pretty trees at work.

Woogi and I went for a stroll and found a temple for Bhuddist nuns very close to our house. There is often a surprise around a Korean corner.


Pretty stone pictures.

Our minister got married. Here he is promising to make lots of children as he bride watches on.

We went to Dobong san before all the leaves blew away. It seemed like most of Seoul came along too. This is the way out of Dobong san subway station.

Views on the way.

We got to this point when we decided we had, had enough of following the slow snaking line to the top. Dobong san will be there another day for us to climb, minus half the population of Seoul.

Trying to hoola hoop (unsucessful). We did see a lady very successful and talking on the the phone as she hoolaed.

Red and gold skies.

September

For part of Chuseok (Korean thanksgiving) we speant a couple of really laid back days in Ganghwado

This weekend friends and I went to Jarasom Jazz festival. It was a lot of fun. The traffic was bad getting there - a four hour trip that usually takes around 1 hour. At the festival venue there wasn't food stands like at most Korean festivals so we watched one act before eating lunch/dinner at 10pm. We were all really hungry!

The crowd at one venue. Koreans don't seem to dance wildly ^^

Some of the 'jazz' was far outside my impression of jazz but there was definitly some talent there and it was good to hear some really interesting sounds.

An African jazz group. The piano player was great and even played with his toes!

We met Song ha and Hyo jae (front, left) by accident and ate with them. Yeon su, Sueng mi, myself and Ksan ate then went and watched two more acts before going to sleep around 3am.

Yeon su and Seung mi with a famous rock singer, Kang Sang ae.

View from our accomadation.

On a good impulse we went and bought a couple of turtles and named them 'Slow' and 'Coach' . Slow has a shorter tail so we know which is which. They are very cute.

On arrival in Japan, fingerprints and a photo are taken at customs. This time around the customs officer must have thought I was dodgy as he didn't pass me through and made me wait in another area where another officer questioned me about where I would be staying. I had to start thinking in Japanese again pretty quick and after he got in contact with Sachiko (above)who I was staying with he let me on my way. I watch an Aussie program called Border Security and it felt just like that!

The next day after a fine luch, A-chan and I visited a Japanese garden in Hakata that I never knew was there.

Taiko at Solara Plaza after.

After a sushi lunch. Hitomi (right) and her mum. I used to work with Hitomi at Nijo Junior High.

Then it was then off to Nagasaki to see Shannon. She kindly picked me up in Hakata and then we zoomed down to Nagasaki in time to see a festival with fireworks - intermittant fireworks. Shannon's theory was that a eye patched, peg legged pirate must have been hired to lightn the fireworks and that was why we got to see just three at a time. Hmmm...

Shannon and I with lovely, clean, fresh aired Nagasaki coastline.

After the fresh air it was time for Bio Park which is one of the best zoos I have seen this side of Asia and you could pat and feed (special park food) a lot of the animals. We spent 5 hours walking around.

What do we have here? The meercat playcat centre page spread?

A one fanged bat.

And a shy armadillo.

But my heart was captured by the capybara who are so friendly (or like food) and have delightful characters.

Then the monkey part - feed, pat cuddle and in my case get peed on.

Shannon with some mischief.

The next day we enjoyed some more nice coastline and a scone cafe.

The cafe had lots of antiques like this toilet!

After my scones I left with a tear in my eye and a hug from Shannon back to Fukuoka. I was spoilt again here with the above view from my friends apartment in Shimayamoto.

I am very thankful to friends who are very close to my heart and their awesome hospitatilty. There is a place for you here anytime where I would love to treat you like you did me.

Afternote: In Seoul I was passed through immigration in less than 7 mins. Unbelievable. A can of beer I brought back for Woogi leaked (how I don't know as I can find a hole in the can but it is definitely empty) into my bag making for a nice beer smell through nearly everything.