Hilary Meets the Land of the Morning Calm

Following my second resolution, getting more involved with my community, I spent hours on the Internet, looking up clubs and volunteer work I could participate in. I came up with several answers.

As it turns out, I had been walking underneath a Korean gym twice a day for the last six months on my way to the subway and back. I finally spotted it one night from a taxi on the other side of the road while scanning the tall buildings for 헬 스 (hail-suh -> health) and 피트니스 (pi-tuh-ni-suh -> fitness). I ran in and got a phone number, and had one of my Korean coworkers call the next day. It was perfect, $100 for three months, open 6am-midnight, and a minute or so walk from my house, depending on the traffic light.

My kindergarten co-teacher, Hena got married in January, and as one does in Korea, invited all the entire workplace with nice card invitations that she placed at each of our desks a month prior to the ceremony. It was to take place a wedding hall about an hour's commute to the East of the city. Many of the foreign teachers were going, as it was our first opportunity to see a Korean wedding first hand. Our boss and most of the other Korean kindergarten teachers also came.

Yesterday, Seoul had its heaviest snowstorm in several decades. Here is a full article by the Korea Herald. Apparently the 25.2cm (roughly 10") was the most snowfall they have had here in here in 41 years, and the second biggest storm since they started recording snowfall back in 1937. To me it looked just like a normal snow storm, but here it wreaked complete havoc on transportation.

New Year's in Korea was quite similar to New Year´s at home, except for the fact I was in a very big city celebrating with some new friends and strangers. Champagne was involved and we spent a good part of the night in an Irish pub, and that's all I'll say about that!