So long, farewell.

This weekend was my last weekend in Korea and the last time I saw most of the foreign friends that I've made here.  Believe it or not, no tears were shed by this girl!  I'm just really blessed to have met great people and to have formed deep and meaningful relationships with them, so while we may never be in the same physical place again, we'll be in touch.  So, in my eyes, it was a bit of a celebration before moving on to all of our own separate adventures.  

On Saturday, we met Adam, Ashley, Jeff, Priscilla, Stella and Chris at Ashley's Buffet in Nampodong.  They have unlimited wine at the buffet, so it always seems to be a top contender when dinner parties are being planned with this group!  Hey, at least we're keeping it classy with wine, right? 

Or maybe we're not so classy, actually.








One of the things that's making this move so much easier is that so many of our friends are leaving Korea at the same time as us! Adam and Ashley are leaving Korea the Wednesday after Aaron and I and are traveling through Japan, China, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Cambodia for 6 weeks before moving back to Southern California!

Chris is moving to California to go back to school and Stella is planning to stay in Korea a little longer...

Jeff is staying in Korea 1 MORE YEAR without all of us. He's a brave man!  Priscilla is heading back to her home country of New Zealand after she spends a month traveling!

After closing down the restaurant, the 8 of us walked over to the batting cages in Gukje and spent the next couple hours hitting balls and playing doubles on the basketball machine game.  Aaron and I dominated, of course... We play that game every time we pass an arcade!

 I love this group of friends, but I'll especially miss this gem and our Monday night Revenge nights when we watch the newest episode of Revenge and catch up on EVERYTHING from work, celebrity gossip, love, life, travel, etc... all while downing popcorn like it's our job!

 It's by chance that we all met, but by choice that we became friends!  I'd say it's one of the best choices I made while living here! I'll miss you guys!  

The Senior Citizens Club's drummers!

"Clang, Bang, Clang, Bang, Clang, Bang!" It's that time of year again (right after Seoullal) when the Korean Senior Citizens Club marches around my neighborhood, clanging and banging their instruments in stores and restaurants to "remove the evil spirits" and collect compensation in return for their 'good deed'!

I stayed home from work today to pack boxes because I have soooo much packing to do, and when I saw the group, scratch that... when I HEARD the group coming, I grabbed my camera and ran downstairs in my PJ's to watch the festivities and snap a few photos. They were all piled into the lobby of the love motel across from my apartment, which Lord knows NEEDED some evil spirits removed! lol

 I was asked by the leader if I was Russian (which I get ALL THE TIME!). When I responded that I was in fact an American English Teacher, he quickly told the group that I was from America and told them to huddle together so the "waygookin" (foreigner) could take their picture! :)

Korea is filled with really cool little traditions like this one. I was glad I stayed home to witness it one last time before I head back to the states!

The longest to do list... ever!

I was an absolute tornado today, with my incredibly long to do list in hand, whipping through the city, getting stuff done and hanging with friends along the way!  I started the morning with a knock at my door from a guy who wanted to buy my iphone (and a fishing pole! lol), then I made brownies for friends and co-workers, packed a box full of souveniers, baking stuff, spices and a football LOL to ship home, listed stuff for sale on www.KoreaBridge.net, got pictures developed for Emo so she doesn't forget us, walked to the dry cleaner, stopped by the bank to deposit $$ and transfer some, bought some oranges from a little old lady on the sidewalk for my snack at work, had a Korean name stamp hand carved for $15 by a random old man who was sitting outside my bank, walked to work, drank some coffee and checked ny e-mail, then left work and took a bus to the subway, recharged my subway card, took the subway to Seomyeon, met Crystal and Anne for dinner, met Juhye to give her her shoes that she had left at our apartment back in December, spontaneously got my hair cut (trimmed) with Crystal and Anne (The first time in almost 6 years!), went to the cupcake shop to decorate cupcakes with the girls but the clerks wouldn't let us buy 2 cupcakes because they only have boxes that fit 4 cupcakes and couldn't understand how we could possibly carry two cupcakes in a box for four (I swear they CAN NOT think outside of the box sometimes... no pun intended) so we left and went to H&M instead (I know, surprise, surprise right?!), bought 3 things, took the bus home, watched The Bachelor with Aaron (sorry for telling everyone A), returned e-mails from people interested in buying our stuff, YAY!, posted a blog for Aaron Nicholas Photography about these two darling girls: Caroline and Joyce

and now I'm in bed exhausted and ready to start a new day tomorrow!  Exactly 1 week left!

What do you desire?

This video was just posted on a blog of a fellow English teacher in Korea and I think its message is incredibly powerful. 

Are you asking yourself these questions, everyday, in order to live the life YOU desire?

1. If money didn't matter, what would I spend my life doing?
2. How do I really enjoy spending my time?
3. How can I be a master at "the thing" I like to do?
4. What do I desire? period!

"If you say that getting money is the most important thing, you'll spend your life completely wasting your time.  You'll be doing things you don't like doing in order to go on living... which is stupid!"  - Alan Watts

Our Korean themed Valentines Day!

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!  Since this is my and Aaron's last Valentine's Day in Korea, we decided I decided (let's be honest!) to make it a Korean themed V-day, which basically meant we'd probably wear matching clothes, spend a little time at a coffee shop, hang padlock's together on a love wall, have dinner out, decorate cupcakes together at a cake cafe and then eat said cupcakes while watching a romantic movie together!  Yep, that was the plan!  Fun, right?!  When I got home from work, Aaron handed me this beautiful bouquet of pink roses that he had picked up from his favorite florist on the island on his walk home from work!  Is there anything hotter than a grown man carrying flowers, ladies?! 

He said the red roses were $2 per rose and he knew I'd rather he spend less $$, so he chose the pink, which were significantly cheaper!  He knows me well!  For me, it's not the type, or color, of flowers that he gives me, it's just the fact that he thought enough to bring me some that I love!

So, at 5:00pm, we left the apartment in route to our first stop on our Korean themed Valentine's day date... Angel-in-us Coffee on the 10th floor of Lotte in Nampodong, where we shared a vanilla latte and wrote on our padlocks for the wall!  It's actually pretty hard to come up with a meaningful thing to write when you have 1 square inch to write it in!

But I love what Aaron came up with.  On the other side he wrote, 

"Our Korean bred love is ready to fly away. Buckle up!  I love you."

When our latte was finished and the writing on our padlocks had dried, we took the escalator up to the rooftoop to hang our locks along with hundreds (maybe even thousands) of other Korean lovebirds!  For the record, this is our quasi matching outfit: black shoes, jeans, black sweatshirts, green jackets and light grey beanies... It was the best we could do without looking completely cheesy in perfectly matchy-matchy outfits, which if we were Korean, we probably would have tried a lot harder!

 I've always loved this symbol of commitment, ever since the first time I saw it done on Seoul Tower!  The idea is for two 'lovebirds' to each write on a padlock, then connect them together, link them to the fence and throw the keys to ensure that our vows to never separate are kept!  (Aaron and I decided to actually keep the keys instead, and connected them with a simple red ribbon, which we'll hang on our future Christmas trees in America, to remind us of our padlocks hanging in the city where we fell in love!)

  

Next stop on our Korean themed Valentine's date was dinner!  We skipped out on a fancy dinner and opted for a healthy one... but we figured that that was okay because what's more romantic than eating at a restaurant called The Loving Hut? ...right?!

After dinner, we walked around the corner to Dan Hana Cake, where we were planning to decorate cupcakes together (which is very Korean!), but sadly they were only selling entire cakes to decorate, and we definitely don't need to be eating an entire cake just 12 days before we start living in our bathing suits.  So, we said goodbye and walked in search of a darling cupcake shop that we had heard great reviews for!  But, just like clockwork, it had been turned into something else and was closed when we got there!  I swear no small store, cafe, or restaurant lasts more than 6 months in Korea!  It's terrible... devastating really... because I was really craving those cupcakes!!!

Have no fear though, that frown was turned right upside down when we realized we were standing feet away from a TGIFriday, which I knew would have the perfect desert!  mmmm brownies!

We ate it so fast that I think the hostess thought we decided not to order anything when we walked out of the restaurant no more than 10 minutes after she sat us!  lol  We took a nice little stroll through the busy streets of Seomyeon, hopped on our bus and headed home to watch the latest episode of The Bachelor!  I love it for the romance aspect and Aaron loves it for the train wreck factor! 

Happy Valentine's Day from The Osteens!

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