JAMERS et JENNICLES

Our dudes, our buds, our Grahamers:
You two guys are some crazy dudes
With your cars and your bars and your generous 'tudes
It's been sweet, it's been great, it's been 90% grand
But now youze be packin' up yo bags and heading back to Van

You both be leavin here your homies who be missin' you lots
Fashiz: it just won't be the same, not even bipimbap dolsot
Now there's a hole way up in Nowon-gu.
Doo-wa, doo-wa.

So long to coffee, to nor-ay, to street meat and hofs
Well I guess we'll still do them, but we'll be missin you lots
You guys are bombs, um, yeah, the kind that blow up and get louda
Jen the Spark, James the Fuse, and your love is the powda

Alright now yo, uh-huh, why don't you play it Mr. DJ
We have to go to work, but guys we'll see you late today
But we love you dudes, we'll miss you too and if you're ever alone
Please don't hesitate to call cuz yo we still got your phone

This rap is dedicated to our almost departed (Korea-wise) friends, Jamie and Jennica: they helped us get used to this country, introduced us to friends and food, and were there for some wonderful memories. You guys are great and we hope you have a wonderful time settling back in Canada. Raise some chocolate milk for us; we'll raise some cream for you.

THE HAN

That's right, nothing but capital letters will suffice to capture the immensity of the HAN. RiVER. It's largish and longish and brown. Bridges and boats cross the waters and we decided it was time, a few weeks back, to finally brave said waters on a sweet little joy ride.














And thankfully, it was on a day that was absolutely beautiful -we could actually see the mountains in the distance. Such rare treats are precious in this city.

June 12th Special (one month late!)

As it is, I was the one (Hil) who was supposed to get this thing together, but as time went by post-appendicitis, I kept leaving it... sorry to those who've been waiting! So finally, here are our 2-year anniversary shots. I took the liberty of planning the evening on the 11th, and Adrian on the morning of the actual day, as we both had to work late on the 12th. So to start things off, I surprised Adge with a trip down to trendy Apgujeong, where I planned to take us to a cool restaurant that I read about in a magazine. The place was called Samwon Garden, and it's one of the finer places to eat in Seoul. The owner of the restaurant has a daughter who is a pro-golfer (Grace Park) and he slashes the prices in half whenever she wins a game. We weren't so fortunate to get such a deal, but we did have a good time. Afterward we hung out on the grounds, ate Haagen Daas, got some free candy, and then went to the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf for some cheesecake and sweet drinks. A little excessive on the diet, yes, but we enjoyed every minute of it! Needless to say our anniversary involved food, food, and oh yes, more food. The next day Adrian took me up the mountain by our place after making an amazing breakfast and we sat up in one of our favorite spots and enjoyed the view.

So what, you may ask, has two years of marriage taught us? Um, I think Love your neighbor as yourself. It's wonderful to be able to plan romantic stuff together, as when you're married, you see each other all the time. Sometimes it takes a little extra effort to make things romantic. But it's so worth it!! I don't want to turn this into a bragfest by any means, but I think that for us, we've been blessed to actually grow together over this time and learn how to live under the same roof, with lots of grace for each other in-between. I can be a basketcase... my fam knows that, and Adrian IS a basketcase (ust-j idding-k). ANyways, that being said, Adrian has taught me lots about what it means to love, like the selfless kind of love. I can only say that I've been blessed more than I've ever been by anyone through the love he shows to me, and I hope to live out the same kind of love for him.

Here's a somewhat blurry picture of the restaurant we went to. It was really cool on the inside though. We were served in a hall-like dining area, with many interesting Korean dishes on the side to go with our galbi, which is barbecued pork that you cook on your own grill at the table. Prime meat it was. And a cultural experience to boot.

Our restaurant that we went to had beautiful rock walls with waterfalls outside and little pools with lots of colorful fish in them.

We majorly enjoyed our evening. We even found free cotton candies outside on the grounds!

Ha, ha. On our walk after our din-din, we came to this sign. And many other random sights, as you shall soon see...

Sebas, this one's for you. Adrian with "Wagener".

In Adrian's words, "Possibly the sweetest bicycle in the world." Seen outside the subway station.

As we were walking back to the subway station, I had to adjust my glasses to see if I was seeing things correctly across the street.

On the morning of the 12th, Adrian had a very romantic idea...

We enjoyed a delicious three-course breakfast, compliments of Adrian, in one of our favourite mountain spots. And Adrian was able to find BACON. How we miss the stuff (which in Canada we ate on a much more regular basis). Couldn't have been a nicer morning!

Oh No! What Happened?

And here's Hil taking care of me. This was after the surgery on the first night and Hil was there, watchin' my back. She's the best!

Here are the two kids who taught me some Korean and played cards with me. Although sometimes I couldn't lose them in the halls, they were quite cute and always a source of entertainment.

How could I not heal well with all these dinosaurs around?

The Attack of Appendicitis!!!!

So here's what Hil and I have learned so far:
1) bellyache + coke = bad
2) appendix + Adrian = bad (it was truly never meant to be)
3) doctors + (scalpel * stiches * gas) = Adrian going unconscious on an operating table with one of the doctors cheering on the Korean soccer team [last words I heard: "Day-haminguk" - "Go Korea!" Hmmm, yes go Korea, but please stay while you're operating on me]
4) Adrian's belly - appendix + pain killers = memorable times on the children's ward

So it's now official: I'm appendix-less. It all happened quite fast: my doctor in Junggye-dong told me to double check with a specialist at the hospital, and then the specialist told me I'd be on the table before 6pm. It was a little bit shocking, but when Hil and I came to grips with the fact that I'm getting surgery and so no Thailand :( we became better adjusted to the idea.
It turns out that Korean hospitals are EXTREMELY efficient!!! They had me hobble-wobbling around the place going from an ultrasound (I felt like a pregnant lady!) to an x-ray to the specialist to the surgery prep in no time! It was a blast (sort of). Thankfully, Hil passed on the news and Jamie, Jennica, Lydia and Nathan came to visit me over my time there, giving me support and many reading options. Our boss Park came and helped translate things (which was good, cuz I only trust hand signals for everything non-surgical.
But the operation went really well with no complications, and before I knew it I could see my heartbeat (on a screen) and I groggily came-to in a children's ward. Behold: me in the garb:

Thankfully I was never left alone too long with the children. Hilary was just awesome and came both before and after work to care for me and play cards. It was hard being away from home, but she made the hospital as good as it could be. She slept over at Jamie and Jennica's place (since they live right by the hospital) and we were very thankful for that. Again, a big kudos to the J's and the Skulls as well for the company, concern and Time magazines! I don't ever remember having such a great hospital stay!

So yes, a big thank you to all who emailed and called during my hopital-time -it was appreciated very much!!! I'm doing much better now -I was kicked out of the hospital on Friday morning and went back to work on Tuesday and although work was quite draining, I'm feeling stronger every day. The stitches are out and it looks like I have a sweet-monkey pirate scar on my belly. So cool.

So things are looking up and on the plus side, I'm never going to have appendicitis again! On that note, check out Sebas' blog at www.sebastianinberlin.blogspot.com and his "Appendichimits" entry -it's got an amazing rendition of my now ex-corpus appendix in a pose that says it all.

Thailand?!?!

Sandy beaches, blue skies, coconuts, mangoes and more coconuts...
THAILAND! It's exotic, spectacular and uber-spledid! That, at least, is what people have told us. We were booked, ready to fly, getting stoked and excessively hyper. But then, when we left Ilsan Lake, I just had to get a coke. It was refreshing, but when it hit my belly, things started going wrong: the pain began. "Argy-argh-ungh... me belly hurt, Hil!" was pretty much all I said that night and the next day and the next morning. Finally resolved to do something about my belly, I went to the doctor who spoke just enough English to let me know it was either an intestinal infection (sweet!) or appendicitis (dang). So acting like I had a choice in the matter, I was determined to let it be a mere intestinal infection. HOWEVER, last Tuesday morning my doc told me to go the hospital "just to make sure" it was simply an intestinal infection. It turns out there are only some things you can truly and voluntarily deceive yourself about -and appendicitis is not one of them. So Thailand, until we meet (for the first time), we hope your coconuts and mangoes will bloom always, and your beaches will remain free of clutter and dangerous objects.

There's a lake somewhere near here!

Who'd-a-thunk?! Of course, it's completely unnatural, but boy oh boy it felt sooooooooo good to have a breeze coming off the water...















The reason for the loverly excursion Northward was because Jennica decided it was time to have a birthday. So the gang was all (mostly) there... Hilary, Jennica, Jamie, Betty, June and I went for a little bike ride around the lake. After we reached this cool waterfall, Jamie and I decided to have ourselves a little race the rest of the way around. This is a picture of Jamie with his game-face on. We were pretty intense -we were very close to taking out MANY people on our tete-a-tete. Thankfully, no one was hurt and we both sorta won.We had a great time, played soccer (the girls kicked our butts), read, ate food, relaxed and saw the coolest mini bikes in the world. It was great.

But then, just as we were leaving, I got a coke and then our next adventure began...

Topia Just Got Older

So, like, on June 5th, the Megacorporation known as Topia got birthified a while back. As such, the hagwon shipped us out East to Gangchon Resort: t'was a lush little spot with fields, trees, a super-cool hotel thing and -oh yeah- free ice creams all day.














We played some b-ball and tried really hard to 'bring it'. Unfortunately, there was no 'bringing' and we lost by one point. This, of course, after they change the rules mid-game and tell us "only 3 foreigners!" like we have much of a choice in our 7-person team anyHOO. Hmm, I taste just a hint of bitter in that story...














We were able to huddle really well though and thankfully we got a picture of that moment.














There was also a soccer match that we green shirts also lost. But then came the tug o' war and we wollopped em goodly. T'was a monumental occasion. THEN we had the relay race: Ah yes, 12 runners on each team passing the baton - Hilary as the first runner for our team and I as the last. As soon as the whistle blew Hilary started makin' some serious tracks and left the other teams in her sprintly dust. It was SO cool to see her running (and also cool to see her kickin' some butt)!!! Me proud of wifey. She had taught us all prior to the race how to pass the baton so we were pretty confidant in our skills. It got pretty close some times and though we lost the lead on one lap, our second last runner made up the space and regained our lead. She passed it to me and I took off with me wee legs churnin' away. I was so thrilled about the possibility that we might actually win and maybe get some prize money that I kinda failed to notice the baton getting stuck in my pocket. Of course, the next second, it was flying through the air. I could just see all my fellow green-shirted tpoia-ites dropping their jaws as their hopes for gold were suddenly dead-ified. But I am not one to just give up -nor am I one who doesn't run away quickly when incredibly embarassed in front of 350 Koreans. So I grabbed the red stick, put the 'Chariots of Fire' theme in my head and ran like only big tall lanky white boys can. I ended getting 2nd instead of last so that was cool, and it was also a good reminder that pride cometh before your baton gets stuck in your pocket. Alas and alack.

The grounds there were pretty nice, but the ladies were FANTASTIC!!!!
















After the games (we got 3rd place; you may not think it much, but let me tell you - no-one else got 3rd place. That's what makes us winners) they gave us free reign at the sauna and we partakedened muchly to our most esteemered joy. Then we had a beautiful dinner over-looking a scrumptious vista.














And then, there was 4 HOURS of strange entertainment, skits, karaoke and sing/dance alongs. Behind us there was a group from Samsung practicing a 80's-ish Star Wars space-dance routine. It was eclectic like only Koreans know how to do it.

A great Sunday though! We didn't win any prizes but we got some tupperware, hand towels and oodles of life experience. We are now better people for the world. Thank you Topia. Thank you for being born in an economical sense.