Meine broder ist komink fur Korea!

For the past few weeks, we've been recieving various 'constructive criticisms' concerning our lack of recent bloggish updates:

"I thought you guys did stuff, but according to your blog, that's just a lie"
"I'm seriously going to sabotage your blog soon"
"You better update or heads will roll!"
"Post or somebody DIES!!!"

Things like that. So before our blood is shed, we thought we should just make the time and do it, if for no other reason than our life insurance policy doesn't cover us here in Korea. And so we give you:
THE UPDATES!!!!

Firstly, or lastly depending on how you think about it, my brother Sebastian meandered out our Asian way and found himself in Seoul for a week! We had SUCH a blast hanging out and seeing each other again -t'was marvellous. He arrived, um, a while back and after seeing our work and our apartment, promptly crashed on our floor and had a merry time in unconsciousness. The next day we decided to go hiking. We had originally intended on going to Soraksan National Park, but rain had also intended on making an appearance and so we decided on Dobongsan instead. It's a hop, skip and a jump away from our place on line 1, so after getting a little lost, we finally trekked our way up the hill.
It was a beautiful hike and the view was spectacular and boy I wish our internet was working a bit better because it's impossible to LOAD PICTURES and the views are stunning. I'll do my best later though. We were pooped at the top and you actually had to scale the rocks to get to the peak but it was amazing up there and you could actually see the Yellow Sea from the peak..... SO COOL!
[insert visual imagery of mountainous beauty here]
Next we felt it was necessary to let Sebastian taste a little palacial (is that a word?) magic, so we brought him to an expansive coolio place called "Changdeokgung" [say that 3 times fast] that supposedly had a secret garden but we either didn't recognize it when we saw it, or it was actually just too secret for us.
Regardless, t'was very enjoyable. We had to join the Japanese tour group, and that was completely useless so Sebas tried his hand at it instead.
You go boy!
We followed everyone around for a bit, and then thought it was pretty lame cuz they're all like "Ichiban watashiwa hentai, arigatougozaimas!" and we weren't quite picking all that up, if you know what I mean.

So when they weren't looking, we booked it up a side trail and walked through the beautiful grounds. We weren't supposed to do that, but we stuck to the trails and saw some quaint little tucked-away pavillions and ponds. A very nice forest trip indeed! Then, we headed back in time to tag on to the Korean group ["Yogiyo, kamsahamnida!"] and found our way back out. We highly recommend the place to any still in Korea... especially if you sneak out past the prince's place.
And so, Sebas continued in Seoul, shopping at Dongdaemun, getting creeped out by various Korean men, relaxing in the sauna and eating with us at various Korean places. [imagine, if you will, interesting pictures of such events. Yes, it was as good as it looks.]

And then, on the last night of Sebastianism, we decided to send him out the traditional way: with a Noraybong. So we sang and danced away to our hearts' content.Very lastly, Sebastian took off for Germany to visit 6 countries in two weeks. He's a trooper that one. But it was so great to see him again and spend time with family!! With 9 months behind us now, it's always great to be reminded of home.

That evening, Hilary and I took a nice walk up our mountain and when we came down we were greeted by a gorgeous sunset.