Pension Party

A last hoorah at Suncoast Pension happened a few weeks ago. I had my pension family in tow and we had delicious food, beautiful sunsets, a rockstar hot tub, a Wii Bowling Championship Game, and another Big Chill-esque weekend.

Our pension family has gotten smaller and bigger throughout the year but the one thing I really enjoy is the escape from the city and the inevitable fond memories and laughs that come out of these trips.

A new Bro-mance is forged

Ignore the boys, check out the view!

Grampa took a walk after lunch and fell asleep sunbathing next to hot tub

Liz relaxes by doing work

Loser of Wii Bowling (Haglin) has to give a pony ride to the Champ (Usher)

Family Breakfast

My favorite thing about my past two years here in Seoul were these weekend getaways. I regret not having done a pension my first year here and if I talk to any newbies coming to Seoul I would recommend planning as much of these as possible. They aren't expensive (probably the same amount as a weekend of partying in Hongdae or Gangam on Friday and Saturday) and if you are with the right group of people it really is a blast.

You may have noticed a long delay between my last post and this. I've been putting off the inevitable fact that I have less than two weeks left here in Korea. I'm going to leave my coup de grâce until the last possible second but will try to put more posts up before my departure.

It's a rainy Saturday (after an AWESOME 3am thunderstorm) so I've been spending the morning packing and organizing as much as possible as I know I won't get the time to do it during my last frantic days here.

 However I had to take a break and wanted to continue my productivity. We're almost to the light in the tunnel, readers. Will keep you updated on the progress of our journey soon!

I will miss...

these perfect little gems of photo opps. This pic was taken by my Seoulmate in an alleyway in Insadong as we were looking for a place to get some good kimchi chiggae. While Andrew was looking up the restaurant on his iPhone, the girls (Mindy, Liz and I) at once all looked at this little scene and collectively let out an, "Ooooh let's take our picture here!"

I was having a discussion with a friend a few weeks ago and he said that Seoul, while not known for its great architectural style and aesthetic beauty from a bird's eye view, actually flourishes in "micro design." Now I'm not sure if this is the correct or designated term (I just Googled it and got zilch) but the idea is that while Seoul's broadstroke landscape is gray shoebox apartments and boring buildings, there are corners and small scenes close up that offer an aesthetic "breath of fresh air."

Seoul does have its sense of humor in that regard. Areas around Hongdae are a given with an abundance of murals and street art. But it's those unexpected places (around a business district or in a historical place) where it really is refreshing to catch these charming tableaus.

While Austin does have its fair share of, if you don't look twice you'll miss it, I will truly miss all of the small surprises you get when you just take a peek into an alley. Unless you accidentally peek at a guy pissing in an alley. That's just gross.

A Tale of Two Thanksgivings

Friday night was spent with the Pension Gang (aka Angelique, J.O., Charlie, James, Neville, James, Charlotte) at Angelique's home near Itaewon. Angelique slaved over the stove all day and prepared an amazing spread (even the delicious sweet potato/marshmallow casserole!). It was a cozy, familial occasion that would warm the heart. And although I lost Family Feud I still had a wonderful time.

Angelique's Feast

Saturday was spent in Anyang at Jamie's, this time with Jamie, Mindy, Justin, Laura and about 20 other people. The food again was mahvelous and we had a fierce round of Trivial Pursuit going for a few hours. Not to mention we capped off the evening with some good ol' noraebang.

Pulling off meat from a turkey carcass

Happy Slapsgiving!

The surviving bunch of the night

 I know I may be a little late in saying this, but I am thankful for my life, my friends, my family, my health (although my damn lingering cough is going absolutely nowhere), and the experiences that I've had these past 27 years. You can't and shouldn't know exactly where life will lead you. If life's surprises stop coming, you'd eventually run out of things to be thankful for.

Finger Lickin' Good

To celebrate Andrew's birthday we went to Hey-Wha dong and had a delicious galbi dinner with a delicious ice cream cake from Baskin Robins.

But we still were not satiated. So to continue his tradition, Andrew took us all to an octopus (squid?) place where we all tried one of Korea's delicacies. I personally did not want any part of it, but ended up putting one of the sucky crawlers in my mouth (I will NOT be doing this again).

Antics ensued:

Do you ever think you would see so many foreigners stuffing their faces with live octopus?


Andrew also liked chomping on snails. I like mine with lots of garlic butter.


Liz takes the plunge.

Welcome to Korea by Liz

My Seoulmate, Liz, has a video up in the 10 Magazine "Korea Awaits" Video Contest and it's awesomazing!

Please vote for her!! She's #33 and she managed to capture my enthrallment over a big ass piece of kimchi over samgyeopsal. Which is reason enough to vote for her!

My Girl Wants to Pension All the Time

Last weekend, for Buddha's B-day (Happy Birthday, Big B!), I made it to Deok-Jo Do for my first stay at a pension. The throngs of foreigners at this tiny island made it seem like some weird purgatory (this doesn't feel like Korea, but this doesn't feel like home). We went to also celebrate Angelique's birthday and so there was a mish-mash of Speakeasy folks (me, Liz, Charlie, Gina, and Andrew) and "Non" Speakeasy folks (Neville, James, Kate, Charlotte, J.O., Marc, Cailyn). I was kind of hoping for a Sharks vs. Jets rumble the first night but we just ended up making s'mores. We all got along just dandy and we dined like kings for every meal.

For those not in the know, a "pension" is a type of house similar to a villa. They sprout up in tourist destinations and allow westerners to get out of their city boxes and pile into rooms with no beds. It's like camping inside a big room. Our pension also had a mart/restaurant attached to it.

We took an hour ferry to the island and arrived on Friday afternoon. The sun was out and we were able to enjoy the beach for the afternoon. And then the rain came. It kept on coming until we boarded the ferry to go back to Seoul on Sunday evening. Regardless, it was an epic weekend.


These kiddies came with the pension. They look sweet and cute but they are REALLY good at dishes, cleaning toilets, and making beds.

Despite what it appears, these patio chairs are actually coated with 24k gold lacquer.
After 6 hours of Trivial Pursuit I did not end up on the winning team. DAMN YOU SOPHIA LOREN!!!!!
The Groeschen Cream Cheese Olive Family Dip is like heroin. I felt like I was back home in Plano. Aw. Liz's last name is not Groeschen Cream Cheese Olive, fyi...
No weekend getaway is complete without an airplane ride from Liz. Note Angelique's jealousy from afar.

Oh yes. I also witnessed some chickens get slaughtered.

We Got the Beat

Yes, our life really is THIS awesome! Thanks Liz for putting this gem together!

Welcome Back Charlie!

On Saturday, we welcomed back a familiar face, Charlie.

Charlie was editor of the magazine Liz and I worked at, SpeakEasy. Charlie, like the rest of us, cast out his line far away from Korea but found himself pulled back in. We had a big reunion last night in Hongdae. It was Vivian, Anton, Andrew, Liz, Charlie, and myself. First order of business- food.

Once we arrived at the galbi restaurant, we were ushered upstairs at the galbi restaurant..like red headed stepchildren and were tucked away in a corner by ourselves. The reason why we were denied dining al fresco? Personally I think they just wanted to save their street cred and hide the foreigners from street view. But THEIR excuse was that apparently, you can't cook pork outside.

Now can someone tell me the difference between cooking beef and cooking pork outside? There was absolutely no tell tale difference when we were cooking beef and pork upstairs on the "terrace". I'll just chalk it up to another Korean idiosynchratic pile of silly... like not flushing toilet paper down the toilet but instead throwing it into a wastebasket atop a bunch of other wads of used toilet paper... mmm toilets and galbi!

After a very enteraining dinner (conversation = A+, Food= D -) we headed to Diggins for a brief taste of Funk Music and then to Nomad for some Jenga, Captain Cocks (that's their insane version of Jack and Coke), darts and Liz dragging an unsuspecting Korean man to the dancefloor for a quick K-Pop dance lesson. After hearing numerous songs from Mariah and Janet, I simply was not content to just singing along at a table... I wanted a mic.

Next stop was the Candy Shop Noraebang. You would think with (what Westerners would deem) an excess of noraebangs in Hongdae, it wouldn't be a problem to get a room. Wrong. Even for it being rather early (around 12?) we had to stoop into several establishments before even getting someone to tell us we'd have to wait 10 minutes for the next available room. Well we certainly weren't going to let that room go after all that trouble so we rocked out for a good 3 solid hours. Songs ranged in styles and tempos. There was some Boyz II Men, Hall & Oates, Kim Carnes, Ricky Martin, Jamiraquai, Beyonce, Meatloaf, Stevie Wonder, Queen, Mr. Big..

However I am going to get on my soapbox and say that my Fleetwood Mac AND Kelly Clarkson selections were prematurely aborted! Noraebang etiquette states that should someone hit the cancel button on someone else's song, said offender should either let victim choose another song or at least fill up the victim's Buy the Way dixie paper cup with an acceptable liquid apology.

Now I don't REALLY know if there is any sort of Noraebang etiquette but there should be... maybe that will be a future blog post.

Bow Wow Bauhaus

In an attempt to distract Liz from the departure of a good friend, I took her and Eva to Bauhaus Dog Cafe in Hongdae.

I'm going to stay away from the whole "dog as food" controversy and just say that Koreans LOVE their pets. They love dogs and now cats are slowly winning over a few Koreans (Cat cafe post soon to come!). However it can be a challenge keeping a pet in Seoul. So what does the animal lover who can't realistically keep a pet in the city do? Well, go to a dog or cat cafe of course!!

Bauhaus is a cafe where dogs run the establishment. You've got the big dogs (Great Pyrenese to Labs to Golden Retreivers to a giant Malamute) all the way down to the toy breeds (or as Liz likes to say, the ones you can drop kick). Honestly, it's Cesar Milan's wet dream (Cesar is the Dog Whisperer, dont'chaknow) as it's just one huge pack of dogs running around. You think the humans are the pack leader? No no, the employees just walk around mopping up messes and puddles. They do a great job, always on top of a "situation."

From outside you can already hear barkings of all ranges- yip yip yips to woof woof woofs to mong mong mongs (that's the Korean equivalent to "woof"). You walk up to the 3rd floor, hop over a small gate and enter into the cafe.

Dogs of all shapes and sizes come over to greet/ smell you. The human employees take you to a booth and drop off a menu consisting of teas, coffees, shakes, and alcohol. As I wait for my oreo milkshake a couple of friendly pooches come over to say, "Hi!" Some sit and stay, others decide we aren't that interesting and walk on over to the next booth.

Bauhaus is a wonderful place to visit if you're feeling down. It's scientifically proven that playing with a pooch raises your blood pressure and gets the warm and fuzzies going in full production. What could be better in picking you up than a warm lick on the face or a cold wet nose pressing against your hand?

I'll Make Love to You Noraebang style

Liz and I did the honor of serenading Daniel and his new wife, Lana, at a Noraebang as our wedding present. Their first dance was to the classic, "I'll Make Love to You" by the inimitable Boyz II Men. While performing our number, the father of the bride (the most awesomest ajussi in Seoul) took what we thought were pictures of our performance but it turned out to be a series of short videos. With the wonderful editing talents of Liz Teacher I now give you this video. And yes, we sound THAT amazing!! Enjoy!