Buddha's Birthday, Our Picnic.

Korea celebrated Buddha's Birthday on Tuesday. He was kind enough to provide a day off for Dan, and we'd planned a picnic at Seonyudo Park. It's an island. It's a park. It's great. But rain was forecast for the whole of the day, so we had to brainstorm other picnic venues. We decided to take advantage of our Lotte World year passes and lunch in luxury. I made some snacks, and we packed up some portable games and spent the afternoon walking around Lotte World and hanging out in Jamsil.

Weekend 49 of 52.

Lotte World Talent Show with Foreign Friends

This pretty much concludes our first installment of weekends in Korea. The upcoming weekend we'll spend flying to America, defying gravity and time zones, and then we'll spend what would have been our final two weekends doing American weekend things (like eating BBQ made with pulled pork instead of grilled and hanging out with our parents). Luckily, we did something hilarious like entering ourselves into a talent contest... and winning!

It was probably the strangest thing we've experienced in Korea so far. We signed up to sing Kelly Clarkson's "Because of You" with Dan playing guitar. For some reason, the Korean host thought we wrote the song. I hope that's not why we won. We got to the park at 2. We were ushered into a picnicking section to the right of the main stage, where we sat practicing (we played Scrabble Slam) and primping (I brushed my hair) until 5:20 or so. Then we single-filed it to the backstage area and took our turns. There were 7 or 8 acts and 2 non-competing Russian dance performances. Only two of us sang songs. Everything else involved cultural dance. Not at all what we were expecting, but it was fun to watch, fun to hang out, and everyone was super, super nice.

We were sat next to the young group of kids who'll you'll see next to us in the photos. We took turns watching each other as Dan strummed his guitar and the girls and boys got various makeup applications, including glittery eyelashes. The boys, as is seemingly a common theme in Korean entertainment wore dresses and wigs. We tried to get their youngest sister to speak to us, using our limited Korean children's vocabulary. She preferred to keep staring, though she did eventually high-five us after we won. Victory in so many ways!

Weekends 43 and 44 of 52.

Lotte World, Lotte World Folk Museum

Bonnie is here! We've tried to brave the ridiculous cold and go show her things. So far we've had most of the good foods: Korean Pizza with sweet potato ring around the crust, Dalk Galbi, Bibimbap, Jjim Dalk, Korean fried chicken, Donkatsu, Paris Baguette, Pho, and right now she is off having an authentic Korean dining experience at the home of one of her Korean friends.

On Sunday we took her to Lotte World, the world's largest indoor amusement park. It was still decked out for Christmas, complete with constant Christmas caroling, live and canned. We couldn't believe how much they were able to pack into an indoor stadium type space: some quality coasters, a parade, fireworks, so many snack booths, food courts, even video game arcades and traditional arcades. Our favorite ride was the boating adventure through jungle rapids. We sort of bookended our day with it, staying completely dry the first time despite warnings that we'd get wet and then with Dan and me getting soaked right before heading back home in the 10 degrees. That part was not awesome.

By now, our 2010 is over, and we rounded it out in concert at a local coffee shop, playing the show pretty much especially for Bonnie. Our first activity of 2011 was eating Korean Bugles and finishing up an episode of Real Housewives of New Jersey. So much scandal! Right now I am ringing in America's New Year by watching some sort of unidentifiable livestream of Times Square. I have never heard of any of the people they have performing, but I appreciate the festive background noise, so Happy New Year!

Weekend 10 of 52.

Rugby League Game at Tony's Aussie Bar, Hiking in Gupabal, Namdaemun Market, Lotte World Shopping Center

Fridays, for us, are for foreign foods. Korrine found out that Tony's Aussie Bar in Itaewon was showing the Australia vs. New Zealand Rugby League game, so Dan and I had our first taste of Australian food and football. If America would have rugby, I would watch it. We also ate some pavlova, which is like a meringuey marshmallowy fruit pie thing. It was good.

Marius invited us to go hiking with him on Saturday morning, so we met at the subway at 8 and followed the hiking gear costumed Koreans all the way to Gupabal to find a mountain to climb. Of the two paths, we chose the steeper one that peaked instead of the longer, easier trail. Of our group of six, Dan and I were the only two who didn't go all the way up. We made it to a decent cliff and we sat and enjoyed the quiet view. Also, an especially concerned Korean man told Dan that his shoes were really inappropriate for mountain climbing, that he didn't think it was safe to continue. We didn't put much stock in that admonition, as we'd made it halfway there with no hiking gear at all, but Korrine said that getting to the peak involved rock and rope climbing, so I think that fellow was probably right.

After lunch on the Shinsegae Department Store food floor, Chinese dim sum and various desserts, we walked through Namdaemun Market. I think it is my favorite of the markets so far. It was mostly clothing and street food, and it was really fun for browsing. We found the only jar of dill pickles in all of Seoul, but we had to pass it up for lack of cash.

On Sunday, we were really looking forward to going to a baseball game. We took the green line for almost an hour only to find that the game had been sold out! We were so sad, but we decided we should at least do something in the area, so we walked around the Lotte World Shopping Center for a while, and I bought a jacket decorated with a patch of Florida and the words "Redneck Riviera" emblazoned over top. What? Amazing. It is too small, but I am from that Riviera, so I obviously had to have it for my life.