"NOTHING IMPORTANT SHOULD BE DECIDED AT 12:30 AT NIGHT....WHEN YOU'RE SOBER"

It's been awhile since I've written on here. If anyone cares I'm sorry.

I've had a darn good last couple of weeks. My friend Emily from St. Thomas came to visit on the 13th. We spent that first weekend down south (south of Seoul at least) with Krista. We went to Suwon on that Saturday. Suwon is a city south of Seoul. It has a neat palace, as well as a wall that goes around the older part of the city. It is an UNESCO World Heritage Sight. All the buildings inside the wall are shorter old buildings, then outside the wall are all the high rises. You can walk all along the wall. It pretty cool, and gives you a neat view of the city.

On Sunday we took her into Seoul. We checked out the area called Hongdae. I'd only been there at night so it was neat to see during the day. It's right by a big university, and they just have a bunch of little shops and such. We then went to Myeongdong and walked around there. One of the things that is different about Seoul compared to European cities is that there really isn't a lot to "see". Others may disagree with me, but its not like Rome, or Prague where you have a list of all these things to see. There are a few such things in Seoul, but for the most part "seeing" Seoul mostly involves walking around the different districts that are mostly full of different shops and restaurants. I think Seoul is more about experiencing, rather than seeing. Anyways, located in Myeongdong is the big Catholic Cathedral. As it was Sunday, Emily wanted to go to mass there. As the good Catholic girls Krista and I are we felt enough guilt to oblige our guest, and agreed to attend the Sunday evening mass. It was pretty neat though. I hadn't been to church since I'd gotten here, and its always interesting going to mass in a different country. I can now say I've experienced a French, Polish, and Korean Catholic Mass. One thing that was pretty funny was when they took up the collection. Instead of just passing around a basket through the pews you went up the aisle like communion and put your money in the basket. That way no one could skip out without being noticed. Your made to feel like a real jerk if you don't give money to the church.

Emily then spent the rest of the week with Krista, and joined me in Guri on Thursday night. I made sure her expectations of my place were low, so she wasn't freaked out by what she had to live in for the rest of the weekend. She actually said my place was nicer than she expected. We spent a few lovely nights sleeping together in my slightly larger than twin bed;)(I'm joking if you didn't get that, about lovely nights sleeping together, not about the size of the bed). It was nice for her to be able to see Krista's area and mine. Krista's is a much quieter, family area, while mine is bright and flashy, and there is much more going on. On Saturday we checked out N Seoul Tower. As the name suggests, its a tower on a small mountain in Seoul. You get a pretty good view from the top, and they had some guys performing some martial arts with swords and the like. It was neat to see.

We made sure to show her a typical Korean weekend night, complete with a Noraebang (Korean type karaoke, rent the room with a group, I wrote about in a previous blog), and she was on her way back to the good 'ol USA on Monday, after hopefully an enjoyable 12 days in Korea. It was great to have someone from home here to share my experience with.

I celebrated my three month anniversary last week. And by celebrate I mean, took notice of. It really is hard to believe I've been here three months already. What's even harder to believe is that I just bought peanut butter here for the first time yesterday. I really have no idea why I hadn't bought it till then. I will tell you though, that peanut butter and banana I ate for dinner was the best thing I'd tasted in awhile.

I think that's about all I have for updates.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!!!!!