I've seen at least 3 different people wearing plaid pants in the past 2 days..they were not school uniforms.  really hope this isn't where spring fashion is headed.

DMZ

after 2.5 years here, I finally made the trip to the DMZ.  the most interesting part of the trip was def the JSA or joint security area.  we got to go into the meeting room where north and south Korea meet and even got a look at a few north Korean soldiers.  although, at one point there was only one left standing in clear view and hid behind a pole for a little while. 

we also got to see the north Korean propaganda village from a distance.  apparently nobody actually lives there (except recently maybe a few factory workers) and it was built just to show the south how luxuriously they are living.

the south's "freedom village" is basically also propaganda except with actual residents.  they said a little over 200 people live there.  they make an average family income of over 80,000 us dollars by farming the surrounding rice fields, untaxed.  the men are also exempt from the army so women are allowed to marry in, but men aren't.  they spend all their money on nice things and cars and I assume on multiple lavish trips into Seoul throughout the year.  they just have to stay in the village for 240 nights per year to stay a resident.

kimchi pancakes

saw no less than 3 piles of vomit..what we kindly refer to as kimchi pancakes..on the way to the bus stop today.

cultural Friday

last Friday after camp, instead of going home to nap the day away, I met a couple of friends in insadong.  we had a traditional Korean lunch and then wandered down to samcheongdong to check out some museums in the area.

first, we ran into the art sonje center and decided to go in to see the collection by the Japanese artist, Shinro ohtake.  some of his stuff was really good and interesting, and others were just collages of old boxes a scraps of paper.  anyway, it was worth the 5,000 won to get out of the cold.

the next place we went was the gallery Hyundai to see the collection of "erotic" paintings from the joseon dynasty.  there were no English captions for the pictures so that was disappointing, making up our own stories was just as fun.  plus, we brought along a friend who can speak Korean so he helped translate when we needed it.  my favorite story of the day was about a picture of a woman squatting over a pot trying to preserve her "woman juices."  God knows what they needed to do that for.

Seoul grand sale!

almost every store in the city is having a huge sale right now.  last week at h&m, I got 4 shirts, 1 pair of pants, and a dress (that's way too small) all for 34,000 won ($35!).  one of the shirts was literally 1,000 won.  how is that even possible?!

also, I guess normally I only buy things in sm/m/l because the two things I bought in my "normal" size fit at least 2 sizes smaller than they should.  what's up with that, h&m?  way to make people feel large.

back in the frozen land

I've been back in Seoul for about a week and a half now.  I have to teach 3 weeks of winter camp and then go back to school for 3 weeks before "spring vacation."  I'm already halfway finished with camp which is sad because I actually like camp days..I finish at 12:10 everyday and go home to nap or meet friends!  it's pretty awesome.

currently I'm sitting in the subway station waiting for my friend to arrive to go shopping and eat delicious food!  I haven't gone anywhere more than 20ish minutes away from my house since I've been back so this is quite the adventure today^^