Recommencing.

See who has awakened from her month long slumber and finally remembered to take her camera out into the Eastern world. It's me! For weeks I have burdened Dan to remind me to bring my camera when we go places-- for weeks to no avail. But we went down to Itaewon for some half priced Tuesday fish and chips with Korrine, and there I was with my camera triumphantly strapped across my person.

Another hindrance to regular blogging is that our life here has just become our life. We have normal weekend activities that take up the whole of each Saturday. We eat at home on weekdays. Dan has regular language and friend appointments two nights of the week, during which I watch Britain's Next Top Model and knit baby clothes. Lovely things all, but not terribly exciting.

2 for 1 fish and chips, though. That is exciting.

Dan's Birthday Dinner at Greek Joy.

Dan's been 27 for weeks now, and I keep forgetting to put up his birthday pictures. We went out for Greek food at Greek Joy in Hongdae. The owner goes to Greece regularly, makes his own feta cheese (and refuses to substitute with store-bought), tailored my meal to be dairy-free, and gave the three pregnant ladies present extra portions. What a dude! Our 4 course meal included a salad, pastitsio, souvlaki and rice, and gyros. If you live in or near Hongdae, you should obviously go there. It's across from the playground.

Weekends 50-52 of 52.

America and all of its yummy foods

Part of taking up temporary residence in a foreign country includes going back to visit your sending country. For us that meant a two-week trip to Ohio to see parents and friends, nephews and cousins, dogs. It also meant eating American food and eating a lot of it, because what else do you do on vacation but actively ward off potential hunger with lots of communal eating. It was a wonderful, wonderful trip.

Korea made the return a welcome one by offering two weekends of amazing weather. Turns out, I'm one of those people who get (and remain) grumpy during the winter. At least while living in a city that requires a minimum ten minutes of frozen walking time for any activity outside the apartment. Last Saturday, though, I could have walked around Dongdaemun for hours, so that is promising for the future of this blog.

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!

Weekend 48 of 52.

Lunch at Loving Hut, Bake Sale to benefit Asan Animal Shelter, Soul Underground Session with Film Star

Some promising weather news: it has reached above 30 for the last two days, which means one layer of pants and only a coat instead of a coat stuffed with hoodies and lighter jackets. What happy news. Our weekend could not actually have happened without this most brutal Seoul winter, as we spent Saturday at a bake sale raising funds for dog houses and medical care for the little frozen pups at the Asan Animal Shelter. We pre-ordered a box of cookies, brownies, muffins, bread, which secured the donation of a dog house. It also secured for us our only chance of buying anything. By the time we got to the cafe after eating lunch, every last item for sale had been purchased, and I think people were eyeing my box hoping I wouldn't show up.

Lunch we had at the Loving Hut Buffet, the delightfully militant vegan restaurant with its 24/7 propaganda TV that we went to for the first time so long ago. I'm pretty sure everyone who takes the time to read the subtitles on the propaganda TV thinks it's hilarious. We saw some Koreans chuckling to themselves, while we were openly cackling. At the time, we were learning how to delete memories of bad past lives with our computer souls, while clinging to the hope of one day owning our very own UFOs. I don't know what that has to do with veganism, but somehow both will save the planet.

And we ended our Saturday back at Soul Underground to play another show. Our final Korean show before our journey to the New World is this Saturday, and then Dan is letting me rest for a while. Thanks, Dan.