Did I mention, he proposed...

After almost six wonderful years of dating, Chris proposed to me at one of the most romantic places in Seoul.  North Seoul Tower or better known as Namsan Tower.  But, let's not stop there, he planned it all very well.  You see it was on my birthday in September, and at sunset and on the top of a mountain at the base of the tower in Seoul, South Korea.  Pretty, amazing setting, if you ask me! However, it doesn't stop there..

You see, there is a kind of tradition on Namsan that involves locks.  It's called "A promise for Endless Love."  paragraph from the tower: "From old times, there was a story that if lovers make a wish at a shrine on Nam-san, it comes true.  Since that, this place became a symbol of the place of promising an everlasting flove for couples' love with hanging a lock together. <A Lock of Love>, already famous by media, is not just expressing couples' love by hanging locks, but meaning endless love with experiencing unforgettable moment in the place you can see a view of Seoul...."

And so, we did just that.  Poor Chris had a hard time finding a lock prior to the proposal so luckily that had some in the gift shop at the tower.  We searched for a spot among the rows of locks and found a place with several older locks, thinking that ours would stand out better for a while. Later in December, we came back and had engagement pictures taken that we will cherish forever!

As for the ring...no, he didn't get it back home. The ring was purchased in Korea with the help of one of our co-teachers.  If he would like to share the rest of that information, I'll leave that up to him.  I will tell you, that the ring is absolutely beautiful!

Charlie Brown Cafe

This past fall while out for my birthday, a friend of mine mentioned that there was a Charlie Brown Cafe in Hongdae or the Honguk University Station on the green line (line 2). Anyway,  we went to try and find this again during our Christmas break and retrace our steps in the daylight.....quite a difficult task, but we eventually stumbled upon it!  It's a cute little cafe at the top of a hill in somewhat of a back alley. But, you can't miss Charlie Brown standing outside.

There is a lot of Peanuts memorabilia all over the cafe including some that you can purchase.  It is a very comfortable little cafe with both couch seats adorned with snoopy plush pillows and tables and chairs with Peanut silhouettes. At the counter are many delicatessens shaped like Peanuts characters.  You can purchase whole cheesecakes shape like Snoopy's and Woodstock's heads, or simple cake slices with silhouettes of characters in colored sugar on the plate.  As for the drinks, there is a large variety of drinks to select and many of the hot drinks can have Snoopy or Charlie Brown pictured in your foam.....we found out that if you get whipped cream, you can't see Snoopy in the foam. :(  Oh, well.  Also, on the mugs are official Charlie Brown Cafe seals.

This was a cozy atmosphere for Chris and I to sit, enjoy some cocoa and play on our electronic gadgets. (This one is dedicated to my mom.  Her favorite character is Snoopy and if it hadn't been for her, we probably wouldn't have seen this.)

Kitty Cat Cafe

       This summer, we went to a Kitty Cat Cafe in Seohyeon station in Bundang, Seoul, South Korea.  It hadn't been open for very long when we went.  When they first opened, there was a person standing outside in a kitty costume trying to usher people to the new cafe.

       When we arrived, we had to remove our shoes and wash our hands with sanitizer.  The cost was 8,000won per person.  This included a drink.  They were so sweet there and tried their best to speak as much English as possible.  They ask us if we spoke any Korean and we said " No, not really."  It seemed as if they had a certain list of information that they were supposed to say to us.  However, as much as she tried she soon gave up on trying to explain everything to us.  In our opinion, she did alright speaking English to us, but as we have learned most Koreans are very nervous about their how good their English is.  So then she tried to show us the list of beverages available, but it was all in Korean and we were trying to mention all the teas that we have seen in Korea but they didn't have the ones that we knew.  When we mentioned lemon tea she said no but we have lemonade.  We both agreed to just go with lemonade.  There are tables and chairs for you to put your tray, coats and belongings while you play with the cats. When they brought our glasses of lemonade, we also received a small basket of chocolate chip cookies.

        There are a variety of cats in the cafe.  We counted roughly twenty cats.  There are Himalayan  cats, Siamese cats, a hairless cat, a tortoise-shell, a few tabby cats and many others.  They wer e definitely timid, but we started to realize why after watching some of the Koreans with the cats.  They don't seem to know how to handle cats.  They held them in the strangest way and the cats seemed a bit distant at times. However, they love to play!  The cafe provides feather toys and toy balls with jingle bells inside them.  There are also several climbing tower areas for them to explore/sleep on. There were a couple cats that seemed a bit ill tempered, especially with the other cats.  One cat was put in "time-out" while we were there because he couldn't behave well.  There are rugs on the floor and the cats loved it when we would put the feather underneath and slide it around.  All the cats also seem to have their front claws removed.

For those who want directions:
Seohyeon station is located on The Bundang Line (yellow) on the subway.  Take any exit from the station and you should end up in AK plaza.  Once on the first floor, look for Louis Vuitton.  Exit AK plaza from the Louis Vuitton side of the building.  The first building on your right is where you will find the cafe.  It is located on the third floor and we haven't found an elevator, only a stairwell.

Public Urination

Gross!!!!....I know.  You see this everywhere.  No, it's not just the random Korean who has gotten drunk from too much soju.  The majority of citizens seen urinating in public are young boys, and they're guardians help them. I have heard that this does not only happen outside but has also occurred in the subways (ewww).  There is no shame in it and it seems that none of them actually hide to do their business either....But what's worse, it is not only the male species taking part in this but also little girls ( I don't think grown women do this, but I could be wrong!).  I experienced this first-hand when my students were out playing on the playground a few weeks ago.  One of our little girls pulled on my co-teacher's jacket and said that she needed to use the bathroom.  Without hesitation the teacher helped her with her pants, lifted her ankles above her head and she just peed on a bush!! I was embarrassed to be near this and was looking all around to see if anyone was watching.  Of course back home, you know they would be.

Another encounter that we had was a little boy peeing in the sewer and his nanny was telling him to hurry up.  As I said this is pretty frequently seen throughout Korea and will always be strange/amusing to us.

Maybe Haechi could teach a lesson to our Korean friends :)

Taking out the Trash

One of the really nice things about Korea is their effort in trying to recycle.  Every time we go to take out the trash we have to separate our trash into many different categories.  The main stations are glass, plastic, heavy cardboard, light cardboard, paper, food waste, and a place for trash bags.  Trash bags are pink here because they are government regulated.  We get a pack of 10 trash bags for $5.  A lot of Koreans that we have talked to think this is a high price for them to pay for this.  They use the money to put back into the cities sanitation. When we go down to put everything away we are always afraid of the security guard.  He walks inches behind you and literally looks over your shoulder when you are putting away stuff.  He's checking if we are putting things away in the right spots.  At first we thought he did it just for foreigners, but he does it to everyone.  We have gotten use to it, but when it first happened we wanted to drop everything and tell him to do it if he was so worried about it. Here are some pictures of our place we put all our trash and recyclables.

A walk to school

Here is what my day looks like when I walk to school every morning.  Its about a 15 minute walk and it is very enjoyable to do everyday.  We have yet to take the bus or anything else to get to school, so whether rain or snow we will be walking everyday.  Just some days we have to bring a change of clothes because of the rain during monsoon season.

Pretending to be too busy to post

We have been ignoring the blog too much because we don't want to post very long posts with our busy schedule.  We will be back to doing regular posts soon.  We will try to do a post 1-3 times a week.  We'll do shorter posts, but looking for interesting things about Korea.  We are getting closer to the end of our contract and we are thinking that we are not going to resign with Etonhouse.  There are some things going on and we are looking for a new job.  We are not sure what we are going to do yet, but we are looking for a new place in Korea down south or Japan.  So long story short, we want to make the best of our last months of our contract in Korea because it might be our last.

First post of randomness that happens in our lives everyday, ADVERTISEMENTS!!!!! We live in a studio apartment called an Officetel which means the building could be used for living or business.  So we are use to having lots of people in our building that could live here or be here for business.  Anyone who passes by our door always leaves an advertisement. The ones on the doors are only from this week.  We throw it away at the end of each week.  Then we start over collecting them again.  We are in a busy area having a subway station in our basement.  That's it for now, we'll have more to come.