A few more weeks in SoKo...

I have about 4 more weeks left in South Korea.  I can't say that I will be sad to leave but I don't regret the decision to come.  A lot has happened in one year but I won't go into that now.

Not a lot has happened since the last blog.  Still waiting to hear about Matt's visa and I'm still trying not to be lazy and work on my diet and exercise.  This week I started a sort of low/no carb diet...only for 2 weeks.  I wrote down what I ate for a week and all of it was bread and pasta...seriously a bagels, English muffin, a panini, noodles, apple turnovers, croissants (a major weakness for me)...just bread and more bread.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not giving up carbs I'm just trying to go without for 2 weeks and then slowly introduce them...plus this will make me up my veggie intake...I can go days without looking at a veggie.  I'm not sure what it is about bread products but it's hard for me to walk by a bakery without wanting something.  But I will try.

In other news Ramadan has official ended.  At first it was pretty hard but after the first week it was very easy.  So much so that even today I'm not hungry around lunch time.  Before Ramadan when 12 hit I was first in line for lunch now I rarely feel the need to eat.

Next week will be a national holiday in Korea, Chuseok, I have no major plans just going to Seoul but I'm going to try to get Matt to get up before noon and get out and do something.  For those who don't know, Chuseok is the Korean harvest festival. During this time I am suppose to eat songpyeon...but I really don't like it.  It's my least favorite rice cake...and rice cake is my least favorite Korean food, so you can guess how low on the poll this one is for me.  The plus is no carbs so I can avoid it like the plague.

I recently made a trip to the bookstore and purchased a few books and within 3 days I finished Christopher Moore's "Island of the Sequined Love Nun" and Paulo Coelho's "Witch of Portobello".  I highly recommend Coelho's book, it's a very good read and he had interested things to say. 


My favorite quotes were...."Try to feel good about yourself even when you feel like the least worthy of creatures."

"You are what you believe yourself to be."

and my favorite "Love doesn't bring and never has brought happiness.  On the contrary, it's a constant state of anxiety, a battlefield; it's sleepless nights, asking ourselves if we're doing the right thing.  Real love is composed of ecstasy and agony."


I also had the chance to check out another football (soccer) match at World Cup Stadium in Seoul.  It was "Foreigner's Night" for the FC Seoul soccer team.  They sold us "waygook's" 10,000 won tickets and on top of that gave us a free beer and hot dog.  The Koreans know us too well, first discount than free.  Hook, line and sinker...granted most of the people there could have cared less about football.  Which meant they paid almost $8 for a beer and hot dog...much cheaper than a beer and hot dog at a US game.

I'm not going to lie, the free hot dog is what got me.  But I do enjoy watching football...I pretty much have to since Matt is a goalkeeper and plays every Sunday...and I do mean every Sunday.  But other than that I'm still hanging around Korea counting down the days and trying to figure out how to get my pension...I'm not leaving without it :)  Still not sure what I'm going to do or where I'm going to stay when I get back but experience has taught me to worry around crossing that bridge when I get to it.  I need to enjoy my time in Korea while I still can.