Distraction.

The true cure for homesickness.
In my case I have gone to gaming, which I cannot say I'm that proud of...  But Sims 3 is so addictive!  The ability to control everything in this simulative world is like a drug for control freaks, (which I must say I am..)  But otherwise, my other distractions include studying (well mostly revising) and housework, when it is cool enough to do so.  Which lately it hasn't been.  As to how I will survive this summer, I can't say.  I'll probably get heat stroke or something and spend half of it in hospital..

Nothing much else has happened, it's just "Business as usual"  with work and all my non-existent hobbies and watching bad korean television.  Which is ok, because my brain is too scrobbled to get even more scrobbled with television.  I just spend my days waiting for it to rain because when it does, it gets cool enough to actually do stuff outside.  Unfortunately the days before and the days after are ridiculously humid.

Anyway, this is just a small collection of photos depicting my life in the last month or so.

Taken from the front of a photo album, with grammar correction by me

My cousin's miniature poodle

The view of the sky from my room

Pictures from a theme park named Everland

Tarot Card readings that I had done at Shinsegae Mall

My students

The view of a rainy night from my bedroom

A fountain I saw on the bus to town

Roses that I took a picture of near my niece's house

Sinking..

There are a lot of feelings I feel right now.
Dread - for the summer ahead.  I've never liked summer and apparently it gets to 30 degrees plus here.  Not to mention the humidity.  With 20 days of monsoon rain...  I'm really really not looking forward to summer here...
Tiredness -hmm, not sure if this is a feeling or not.  But I sure feel tired.  The insomnia still remains, as annoying as ever.  And apparently it gets worse with heat..  see what I mean about dreading summer?
Homesickness -now this is a really new concept for me, because I have never really felt homesick before.  At least on a noticeable level, which I certainly feel now.  I miss New Zealand, and all the lovely acquaintances I have there.


But this certainly wasn't what I made this blog for.  To write about what's bothering me.  So I shall once again write about my many adventures in Korealand.

First of all, last Saturday, my mother and I woke up and thought, "Let's go to an aquarium!".  Yes that's literally what we both thought, and then we did.  Go to an aquarium that is.  We made our way to a place called Indeogwon to catch a bus to Samsung Station to go to a place called Coex Mall where within there was an aquarium called Coex Aquarium. (They got really imaginative with the title.)  And so we happily made our way through but during the second or third exhibition, to my dismay, my camera ran out of battery so unfortunately I have no photos of the cool Amazon forest exhibition, the seven seas exhibition with overwhelming amounts of really cool jellyfish, the deep sea exhibition with LOTS of sharks or the two-headed turtle that got me really thinking about genetics.  From then on, my trip spiralled downwards.  In an attempt at fashion, about a month ago, I got these ridiculously high heels and that day.. the day that I was going to walk around an aquarium for ages, I stupidly decided to wear them. (In the name of fashion of course!) So by the time I got out of the aquarium, my feet felt like they were meeting their very fashionable end.  We then ended up getting some flats so I wouldn't die.  But then they didn't fit either...  my feet are apparently too big for Korean shoes!  By the time I got home, my mom was feeling so sorry for me she kept offering me foot massages.

Notes, left by patrons of the mall.  Most of them were related to love

Fish lead our way to the Aquarium.

Interestingly themed entrance

A squirrel that seemed a little out of place at an aquarium

A traditional-themed Koi carp pond

A harp-shaped fish container.  It had sensors running down it that if the fish passed through, made musical notes.

Fish in a vending machine

Fish in a telephone box..

Fish in a refridgerator.. this is getting ridiculous.

But yes, this was where my documented adventures end as my camera ran out of battery.. I may go there again though, it was rather interesting.

Culture culture.. a..b...c...

Last weekend, I went on one of my rare excursions to this place called Insadong, the traditional culture centre of Seoul.  It was a beautiful day, with lovely warm weather.  Finally a spring day.  So I spent the day shopping for presents and deciding on something nice to eat.  I've never gone to a place with so many vegetarian options...  Insadong felt a lot like my "scene", with street stalls and buskers galore.  The only downside was the way people sold things.  I am entirely sure it's the same for the whole of South Korea, they practically force people to buy things without looking at other stores.  I had to learn the ability to look slightly disinterested at everything I was shopping for.  If I didn't, they forced me to buy whatever it was by recommending the product to the point of saying that they were losing money by selling it to us.  It was ridiculous, obviously they were lying.  And the annoying thing was, once you bought something, you always went down the road a few minutes and then once again the same product came up with a slightly lower price.  Many many times my mother and I both groaned in annoyance....

But nevertheless with the street performances and the street uni students offering massages to parents who'd had to pay expensive university fees for their children, Insadong was really nice.  The restaurant that we ended up going to was lovely too.

The last days of the Cherry Blossoms.

I've been quite tired lately.  Not that I have been doing much, but just from a small case of insomnia and general stress of being in a country that apparently I can't adjust to as well as I used to.  I've been spending my days going to work on Tuesdays and Thursdays and on all the other days either lazing around at home or occasionally going out with my mother.

These trips have so far been the excitement of my life.  And recently, I went to a place called the Anyang-yuwŏnji‎ or the Anyang Public Art Park.  I took a few photos there that I have already uploaded on facebook, but I thought I might just talk about it a little here because it was such a nice place.  This park is currently the venue of the APAP, Anyang Public Art Project, where they showcased different pieces of art through different media (generally on a large scale.) like statues, architecture and gigantic plastic flowers.  It in some ways reminded me of the attempt HamiltON made to become artistic through the makeover of Garden Place and attempts to showcase art and music whenever they could.  In all honesty, in Hamilton at least, this attempt didn't impress me in the least.  Especially when I was trying to have a nice sit-down with one of my friends, eating some food and I was accosted by a man and a woman dressed as garden gnomes who kept asking me ridiculous questions.  I suppose that is the freedom of art, it can be shown in any form and figure.  But to me, I'd like to think that not all things weird and bizzare is art and not all things artistic is weird and bizzare.  I think I prefer the less in-your-face type of art that you don't have to search and search for the metaphor or meaning that it represents.

But that belief, I probably shouldn't press upon others since it's all about personal opinion after all.  What might not seem like art to me, might be beautiful and artistic to somebody else.

Anyway, the point I was trying to get to when I went on this small rant about my dissapointment of HamiltON, was that in this case, even if the gigantic plastic flowers aren't quite to my taste, is that this art project did bring something nice to that area.  My mother told me that beforehand, that place was dirty, undeveloped and almost reaching the standards of a rubbish tip.  But through this revival that they did in order to create an outdoor art space, they also restored the beauty of the area through lovely footpaths and the gradual clean up of the stream and surrounding trees.  And the result is a lovely area for relaxation, next to a mountain filled with cosy restaurants and cafes.

Some friends and some dough

Hmm, I am unsure as to whether I spelt "dough" as in the slang for money quite right, but I have good news! I got paid!
Not in the sense that a bunch of gangsters attacked me and "I got paaaaaid" but in the sense that I have gotten my first installment of a regular monthly salary for 6-8 months.

But to explain the "friends" part of the title, yesterday I went to a place called Gimcheon where a few of my Korean friends from New Zealand live.  Friends is a bit of a loose word in this sense, because here we would call them older brother and older sister.  It's another one of those weird asian things I think, that you call a male of close but older age to you older brother (usually unmarried) and you call a female of close but older age to you older sister (also usually unmarried).  So I call them friends in English in an attempt to reduce confusion.  Both are about ten years older than I am and are married now.  (When I met them, they were just a couple and were on a working holiday in New Zealand)  The female friend is now eight months pregnant, so out of curiosity and also because I haven't seen them for almost a year, I decided to go see them here where they now lived out their post-new zealand life.

There I was bombarded by both Ultrasound pictures and also the photos from the wedding I missed. (It was late last year in Korea and though I was invited, since it was during exams, it seemed unlikely that I would make it.  Sure enough, I didn't.)  Looking at this, I noticed another strange part of Korean culture.  But as to whether it is only in Korea, I am not entirely sure because I am no expert on wedding photos.  In any case, what surprised me were these photos taken in the studio, with borrowed clothes on sets.  It seemed really materialistic and also seemed to miss the point that wedding photos were supposed to give.  Apparently the couple themselves found it strange to be on sets (like the ones from television programs) with really fancy clothing that they chose out of a wardrobe, posing like the photographer told them to.  I was tempted to ask, "Why? What's the point?".  In all honesty, you didn't get many good memories out of it, (apparently it was a gruelling five hours of posing as the man asked) it wasn't meaningful at all (what with all the stereotyped poses and excessive decorations) and seeing as they got nice photos from the wedding itself, I didn't really see the point in it.  But I gather that in later years, they may appreciate that they have such an album to show their children and grandchildren what a lovely couple they were.   Or something, I'm really not very sure.
But overall, the trip to see them was very nice.  I had discovered when I ate out here, that vegetarian food was very hard to find, so it was to a great surprise that we managed to find a restaurant, just a little down the road that did a vegetarian version of one of the meals that I greatly used to enjoy.  It was called Jja jang myun, and it was this noodle meal with this strong soy-based sauce on top.  Definitely one of my favorite things to eat in Korea.  After the lovely meal (which I failed to take any pictures of, due to being busy eating), with full stomachs, we went for ice cream.  I say ice cream but what I really mean is frozen yoghurt with fruit, some toast (apparently given out free as a service) with cream and a piece of blueberry cheesecake that for some reason failed to taste like a cheesecake at all, but was still delicious.  Now this meal, I do have a picture of.

Below, is a picture of me with each of my friends

 And some of the cafe itself

That's right, their seats were SWINGS.

We also wandered around outside for a bit too.