Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Visiting Ruth

We headed over to Daejeon this past weekend to visit Rob's cousin, Ruth. Daejeon is the 5th largest city in South Korea (I think). Ruth is teaching English Literature at Woosong University and it playing a Korean musical instruments (that I still can't spell) and taking voice lessons from a famous Korean Opera singer --- so, imagine her disgust when we all go to Noribang (Karaoke). ha ha....

Anyhow, Daejeon was really cool and it was great to see family!!!! I have some cute pictures and unfortunately, Rob took video (with audio) while I was singing. Yikes. Don't worry, I won't share that with anyone!
Here we are just wandering around Daejeon where there is a free concert going on outside. Can you find Rob???????? Even the famous Korean singers / groups come and perform out here.

A quick stop at Wa Bar. Lots of international beers, and an open air layout. A great people watching location. It was funny because almost everywhere we went, someone was yelling "professor" because they have Ruth as a professor!

I'm fairly certain that Ruth - the opera singer --- does NOT want to re-live this night... Rob and Allison with a microphone.

And an even bigger nightmare....Allison tries to sing along with Ruth. HA!

After Noribang, we stopped by THE best bar we have been to in Korea yet. It was called "Ethnic" and I'm sad to even pass these pictures along because the flash on the camera ruined the ambiance. This place used candles for about 90% of it's lighting and then a few, very low colored lights from the ceiling. They served flavored Soju, which we think was nicely blended with fruit juice and ice. This night we tried the Peach Soju and it was delicious.

Rob and Ruth putting on their best "Korean" pose on the street.

We were a little tired after the night of Noribang and flavored Soju, so on Saturday we went to a DVD room. This is a room that seats 4. The screen was about 6 ft. x 6ft. tall. There is a large selection of DVDs ( including pornography) that you can watch. We skipped the porn and went for the movie "Perfume", which was demented enough. Interesting movie. It was a nice, relaxing time at the DVD room. Ruth did promise that they wipe the seating down with cleaner between each use, so hopefully it was as clean as it looked.

Enjoying a potato on the street with one of the guys that also teaches at the University.

Saturday night we are back at Ethnic because we just love the place. Once again, the flash of the camera ruins the experience. This night we tried the Pineapple Soju.

Ummmmmm.....

That is most of the trip. It was great to see Ruth and get out of Geoje Island for a weekend. We hung out with Ruth's friends and they suggested that there was nothing to do in Daejeon. Little do they know the life in Okpo... Talk about nothing to do!!!!

Well, it's about 10pm here, so we are signing off.

More updates later!!!!

Saturday, October 6, 2007

China

China was a blast. It was a guided tour, so everything was very fast...wake up call, breakfast, pack, get on the bus, show up at first place, tour it, get on bus, next stop, tour, lunch, bus, tour, dinner, check in to hotel, wake up call next morning... you get the drift. We were worn out by the end of the trip. But bargaining with street vendors was SO fun... The group we travelled with were all expats living in Seoul. The Korean tour guide was the ex-assistant mayor of Seoul and he spoke perfect English and was a lot of fun. Here is the shutterfly link to see the pictures. I took tons (over 400), so I am separating them by city. We went to Beijing, Xian and Shanghai.
Anyhow, back in Geoje. The weather is GORGEOUS today (Saturday), so we are about to take a hike and then BBQ on the rooftop tonight. There's a guy in town from Seoul selling furniture, so we'll probably try to bargain tomorrow as he packs up and there's a better chance for discounts because he doesn't want to drag it all back to Seoul !

We hope everyone is doing well !

Beijing Pictures:
http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8IcOWbJm3bsTw

Xian Pictures:
share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8IcOWbJm3bsUO

Shanghai Pictures:
share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8IcOWbJm3bsUs