Hey guys. First of all, I know there's tons of scary stuff on the news about North Korea but South Korea is not necessarily in huge danger right now. After all, North Korea is feeling threatened by the West more than the East. South Koreans are not overly concerned about security here, they are much more worried about the economic repercussions. Unfortunately, if the dollar drops here that will be crappy for everyone, myself included. You would never know anything was going on if you didn't watch the news, everything out on the streets is the same as usual. Plus, I'm on the Embassy's mailing list and they told us all that there is no immediate threat to foreigners' security here. So, relax!

Anyway, Chusok, the Korean Thanksgiving, just ended and we had a nice little four day weekend. I went to a Chinese movie with Korean subtitles! It was a little stressful but I followed along ok, yay! It was The Banquet, with Zhang Ziyi, and if you liked Hero, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, etc. you'll probably like this one too-- although this had much more blood and gore. (you can watch a trailer here) The Korean girl, Kay, that I went with covered her eyes through half the movie! Kay's really cool, she's one of my coworkers and has been really helpful. She studied English in Newcastle, England and will be going back next year for her Masters in English Education. Her boyfriend of nine years waits for her everytime she goes, jeeze, maybe I would like a Korean boyfriend (all of the girls here keep telling me so anyway).

I spent one day on Yeuido Island, in the middle of the Hangang River (actually I suspect gang means river, but anyway...). The Hangang runs through roughly the middle of Seoul. A lot of times people will ask if the location of something is North or South of the river. The coolest touristy spots are north central, I'm southeastern. Yeuido has two subway stops, a couple of famous parks and some neat amusement-type stuff. I went on a river boat cruise which was fun. The guy sitting next to me turned out to be a Korean Opera singer who has toured all over the place and speaks fluent German as well as English! He was cool. Since that day was the official Chusok holiday people were out with their families and a lot of children were dressed in traditional clothing --adorable! Sorry, I didn't take pics. I walked around this one park where they had a special thing set up for people to try traditional games and methods of food preparation. It reminded me of going to Cowtown in Kansas and playing shuttlecock (if I remember right).

Then I went to the 63 Building. It's the tallest skyscraper here and it is gold tinted. The gold didn't show well in my pic but sometimes the building looks pretty fantastic in the right light. It's got tons of stuff to do including an aquarium with dolphins and sealions, Imax theatre, shows, restaurants, etc. I just went to the skydeck and took pictures of Seoul. Seoul is so huge, I love it! There's a part of the deck where the floor is see through --ew, no, not interested. It was a fun day. Of course, I get home that night and Heidi and Johnny call to see if I want to go on the river cruise the next day with them!

Other than that I spent the weekend reading, studying, and relaxing a bit. Sunday night we celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving at Heidi's mmmmmmm...... stuffing!

This week is stressful because the bosses are sitting in on my classes and telling me what I'm doing wrong, but it'll be over soon and then we won't have to do it again. At least I finally get paid, yay!!!

I miss you guys!