16 More days!

Thats right! 16 more days until I can sleep in and stay up late every day, unless I want to do something fun early in the morn!! Woo Hoo!!! I am pretty excited about my vacation... talk about a long time coming... in the last year I have only taken 5 vacation days... of course there were several state holidays that everyone got off... but its WAY to difficult to do anything on those days... in such a small country people its really crowed when everyone has the day off. Anyway I have some new interesting pictures (and some old) so I thought I would entertain you with them. I'm actually sitting here waiting for my landlord... she called the housing manager at my job to say she has to come to my apt to check if something is broken. I guess there is some water leaking from our apartment to the room below, but she still isnt here... at least I had time to clean :)

Happy price!! Hehe, everything in Korea is Happy... they always right things like "Happy Sale" "Happy burger" "Happy Test" and so on. So I just had to get a pic of this. It doesn't really make much sense, but I guess it means "be happy the prices are so low" I haven't actually gone into this place yet, its a new store and I don't fit well into Korean clothes!

This is from the first floor of the CGV building. CGV is a really big movie theater chain in Korea. This building as 10 floors and has 6 theaters, two on every other floor... one theater is as high as two floors. You can take an elevator or an escalator all the way up or down... its pretty cool. But anyway as you can see, onthe 4th floor is the ticket box, and... hehe... the sweet bar :) I just thought that was a cute way to call it... It sounds so much better than concessions stand! And I should also point out that there is no Korean translation on this sign... so I often wonder how many people have no idea what it says and just go there cause it says "CGV"


So, a few months ago I started having issues with my hamstring. It was always tense. Everyone told me to get acupuncture, I thought they were insane, but I figured, hey, its covered by health insurance... why not. Well I went there with my Korean friend and she took some pics for me. In this first picture you can see a large red spot on my leg (I'm laying on my stomach). That is from the cupping. Cupping is a procedure where they stab you(Not deeply) several... like maybe 15 times, with a really sharp, thin needle. Then they take a cup and put it over the wounds and such the air out of it. Then a lot of blood is drawn out of your body for only a few min... I guess this changes the circulation or something. Then he takes 3 long thin needles and sticks them in my leg, and leaves them there for like 25 min. In this picture you might be able to see the three needles if you look really close. But they are so small I couldn't even feel them.


In this picture you can see the groovy shorts they give me to wear! Hehe, the Korean word for "one-size-fits-all" is "free-size" ... I know it sounds like and English phrase, but it isn't, we call it Konglish... which is like a hybrid language between Korean and English... Well, these shorts were free-size... hehe... they barely fit around my butt! Anyway... I before I laid down to have this done the nurse asked me where my cell phone was, I assumed she wanted me to turn it off or something so I took it out of my purse and she set it on the bed where my head would be... so I could talk on the phone while I lay there... hehehe, the cell phone culture here is silly, they totally cant live with out them... Is America like that too? I got my first cell phone in Korea, so I don't really know. Anyway, after the three needles were removed he put on needle in my right foot near my achilles tendon, and another in my hand in the meaty part opposite my thumb. The on in my hand really hurt! And when he moved it it made my left thigh hurt too... strange nervous system! Anyway, I sat there for 20 more min with these heating things aimed at me... you can see the two foot ones in the picture above, it was quite toasty.

Well, I don't think acupuncture is bad, but I didn't go back because it was too time consuming. I think exercise works better for my thigh, and yes I still have problems with it... I think I need a good massage and a job where I'm not sitting down the whole day! :)

Happy Birthday Buddha! Since this is traditionally a Buddhist country about 1/3 of the people here are Buddhist... another third is Christian and the rest have no religion... just traditional superstitions and such... Well Buddha's birthday is a national holiday and they celebrate in style! There are parties all weekend. This we a big traditional dance show right outside one of the biggest temples in the city. The whole place was beautifully decorated with paper lanterns and the costumes were awesome. My friend had a really awesome camera so I think I should ask her for some of her pics, cause mine is pretty lame. The thing I really wanted to show this this picture is that those are mostly guys, wearing pink... In Korea men are not afraid to wear pink... or carry a purse for that matter... they have their own purses, and they carry their wives purses ... And no one chides them for acting gay. Well these kids were up their dancing away and having a great time... I wonder how many American men can do that in a pink costume that doesn't obscure their face? I dunno... :)