Its the hottest thing in Korea right now. Seriously. You hear it in stores, on the streets, when you’re watching tv, and from my six year old students as they do the dance in the hall during break time. What is it you ask? Its the Asian-riffic girl band Wondergirls with their number one hit ‘Tell Me.’
Enjoy!
One of my favorite parts of Dan’s visit was that we watched two whole seasons of Project Runway. The weather was nice for the first half, but got bitter cold towards the end. By that time we had seen a lot and spent a lot of money, so we got in the habit of sleeping in late an staying around the house cuddling on the couch and watching episode after episode of this show and a couple of other shows. If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it, but be careful…its addictive! The show is an Emmy-nominated ‘competition reality series’ that asks fashion designers to ‘make it work’ as they compete each week on a new challenge.
On the subject of addictions, he also turned me onto Scrabulous, a facebook application where you can play scrabble online with your friends. I used to hate Scrabble, probably something to do with me being the world’s worst speller. There is, however, something different about this game that I can’t get enough of. I suspect its because you can take as long as you want to make a move and the game tells you if its a word or not. Handy.
It reminds me of a great documentary that Dan and I watched on one of our first dates. Its called Word Wars and it is a look at the obsessive world of competitive scrabble. I recomend netflixing it if you haven’t seen it yet.
The three weeks of Dan’s visit were just as glorious as anticipated! It was so wonderful to have him here and to share my Seoul with him. We did a lot in the three weeks. I took him to all of my favorite places in the city, introduced him to all of my friends, ate a lot of amazing food( we really indulged), and relaxed, which I really needed. Now the city will be haunted by his ghost and all of my favorite places will have Dan memories associated with them.
We have both put a lot of energy into our relationship the three months that I have been here (thank goodness for webcams!) Regardless, I think that we were both a tad bit unsure of what to expect when he came to visit since so much time had passed. All the heartache of being so faraway has really paid off. I fell even deeper in love with Dan while he was here. I didn’t really realize how much I’ve changed until he came. To have him as the context for this realization was remarkable and a big part of my new found confidence in our relationship.
With my job being so challenging and unsatisfying, I was having a really hard time with the idea of letting him go home and being separated for 9 more months. The goodbye was painful and my heart ached like it never has before. None of the tests that I am going through here seemed worth it. I wanted to leave and be with Dan. Luckily my mom, who is ever full of wisdom, reminded me that life has its tests wherever one is. It gave me a new perspective, and I remembered all of the things that led me to make the decision to come here in the first place (more about that in another post).
Now I am at a place where I am trying to find strength and happiness in the mere fact that Dan got to come and visit. Who knows how hard it would have been to endure the long distance thing for a whole year given the place I was at when I left. At least now I know I have enough love to last me.
To see some of the photos that I took while he was visiting click HERE for a link to my facebook album.
And to see some of the amazing shots that Dan took click HERE for a link to his flickr page.
I tried to tie him up so that he couldn’t leave, but somehow he got away.
