Thursday, December 23, 2010

Weekend 42 of 52.


Kindergarten Christmas Program, Insadong Musical Instrument Market, Christmas Show at Cafe Ben James

I have deceptively few pictures from last weekend, but it's probably because everything we did was deceptively low-key. We went to see the Kindergarten Christmas Program at Dan's school on Saturday afternoon, after which we went to check out fortifications for our respective instruments (strings for Dan, reeds for me) at the Musical Instrument Market in Insadong. And then we played a Sunday Christmas show at Cafe Ben James right in Hongdae, and that was a lot of fun. I think Dan is working on a Merry Christmas Carol video from that.

My friend Bonnie is set to arrive in Korea tomorrow night, and then she will spend Christmas and New Year's with us. If it is not too cold, that could result in many interesting things.

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Weekend 41 of 52.


Water Heater Repair, Hongdae

When we woke up Saturday morning, we found that our apartment was without power. We promptly ate up the perishables in our fridge (leftover chicken soup and taco meat), then Dan went to Dunkin Donuts to charge his phone and call someone at the school. When he got home, we found the breaker box right in the middle of our kitchen in front of our faces, flipped the switch, and had power again for about ten minutes. So Dan re-called someone from his school, and then his boss came out with an electrician and replaced the fuse. We had power again for about ten minutes. So Dan re-called his boss, who came back later in the evening with a different electrician who discovered that our water heater was overloading the circuit. He fixed the water heater, and all was well, and the day was over. But, it was kind of nice to be stuck inside for a day of lounging around, and now we can take consistently hot showers again.

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Weekend 40 of 52.


Haneul Park, Nanjido, Christmas Decorating

Last week we conquered a mountain. This week, we conquered a trash heap. Haneul Park (also Sky Park) is part of the World Cup Park complex and is built on what was once a landfill. Dan's students promised that he would find trash if he dug in the ground. We didn't dig, though, and I think the only trash we did see was relatively new. We climbed a zigzagging staircase and further up an incline to get to a sea of tall waves of grass and one of my favorite views yet of the city. We had a really pleasant walk around the park, and we even got to see some fireworks at the end of a game played in World Cup Stadium.