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!

Mikey Teacher vs. Chicken Wing

Tuesday Nights are Wing Night at Rocky Mountain Tavern. The wait is horrendous (good luck getting anything in less than 45 minutes) and you are lucky if your full order is right. But these are the best wings you will find in the Land of the Morning Calm. For 300 won a wing, it's a bargain so the wait is at least worth it.

Mikey has slowly been teaching me the Ways of the Wing from which flavors to order (a Lemon Pepper turned Creamy Cool convert) to how to properly eat a wing (you have to take the wing by both joints and twist).

Seeing Mikey Teacher eat his wings is pretty funny. He means business and focuses his whole attention on gettin down. So I put Mikey to a challenge: How fast can you eat one wing?

Behold.

Boooo-san

The more time I spend in Busan the more grateful I am when I return to Seoul. It's not that I don't appreciate the beach, but honestly, Busan is a poor man's Seoul... However, I did want to take advantage of the last of the summer sun so Liz, Lori, and I took the KTX on a Saturday morning to Busan last weekend. We met up with a few people who rented out the "penthouse" of a motel. We had a sick view of the ocean from our balcony!

The weather could not have been more perfect, the sky was crystal clear and I was a little worried about the crowds we would have to battle to find a spot on the sand. However, I was pleasantly surprised once we saw the sand and surf. There was hardly anyone on the beach! Once September rolls around, the Koreans stay away from the beach like Way-gooks stay away from white after Labor Day.

If I had taken a picture at this spot a month earlier you would not have been able to see much more than umbrellas everywhere!

At times, I felt like I was back in the states, it was so strange to overhear conversations in English. I did see a lot more foreigners this time around. Apparently there was some sort of surf competition going on... though, as you can see, the waves were less than gnarly.

We spread out and soaked up the sun. I could feel the vitamin D soak in and felt very content with the few hours outside. With an encore of sun the next morning I felt revitalized and energized... but I still fell asleep at 8:30 on Sunday night when I got back to Seoul.

The Big Chill, Seoul Style

After a lovely afternoon in Yongsan, Liz and I went back to our old stomping grounds, aka Daerim, to meet with the SLP Teachers of '06-'07. Is it amazing that after 3 years we all are in Seoul at the same time once more? Well, it actually is.

The St. Opistel and the Funky Bunch was my first family away from home. The first night in Korea, Rick, Daniel, and Adam took me out until the sun came up. Then Andrew and Liz came into my life and I really felt that everyone had their place... even good ol Jun! There were fights, there were dramas, but the great thing was that at the end of the day, everyone would be in your corner if necessary.

3 years later, some have married, some have kids (or are expecting kids), and we've all received some wisdom lines and maybe a gray hair or two. But the fact of the matter is that we loved each other enough to get together at our old green galbi restaurant we frequented back in the day. *My gawd I just said "back in the day."

I truly hope this isn't the last reunion for the SLP Family but as I looked around the three tables that we took up I couldn't help but think of the wise words of Ms. Carrie Bradshaw:

"The most important thing in life is your family. There are days you love them, and others you don't. But, in the end, they're the people you always come home to. Sometimes it's the family you're born into and sometimes it's the one you make for yourself."

And while I'm here in Seoul, this is definitely the family that comes to mind.

Texas Fight vs. "Fighting"

This kind of puts Longhorn Fans to shame....

Snip Snip

Decided it was time to change up the 'do. Went with Vanessa and Stephanie to V's salon and thought I would give the bangs another whirl. Good thing is that it always looks good when you walk out of the salon. The bad thing is that it never looks quite as good when you try and style it yourself.


We'll see how long this will last, and worst case scenario is I end up pinning the bangs back until they grow out again. For now, I enjoy my Koreanized haircut!

Thoughts????

Sold!

One of my goals in returning to Korea was to become more involved. I gave myself the option of leaving it open-ended as to HOW involved I could be and in what arenas I should I could become more involved.

Before coming to Korea I browsed through some Facebook groups and came along Nabiya, a cat shelter located in Itaewon. It's a haven for kitties young and old and is run by a fabulous woman, Allie. I go in once a week to volunteer (clean 'em, feed 'em, and cuddle with 'em) and have been doing it now for over 2 months. And now I'm actually a lucky foster of cute Casey (or as I like to call her, "Lil C"). Casey is from Camp Casey, a military base north of Seoul. She's about 8 months old and is a sweetheart and the perfect little Southern Lady. I thought of renaming her but if I did that it would make it harder to foster her and not just snatch her up and adopt her. It's VERY hard not to but I know my lil man, Bosie, is waiting for me back in Texas- I'd like to think he is eagerly awaiting my return but my mother likes to point out weekly that he's most likely forgotten all about me.

Anyways, Nabiya joined forces with Animal Rescue of Korea, aka ARK and held a fundraiser at Rocky Mountain Tavern in Itaewon last night. Supporters came out in big numbers to see live bands (some good, others not so good), hear a hilarious MC, win some loot in a raffle, and witness a date auction. I had the (lucky?) opportunity to put myself up on the auction block for a good cause. But let's face it, I was just really desperate to get a date in this city!

My friends came out to support/witness/laugh and point at me as I went up and stood among the crowd of auctionees. I surveyed the "competition" and thought, not too shabby. Some decent money should be raised. The date auction started at around midnight and the event had been going strong since 7:00 so I assumed people were decently liquored up.

The first girl went up and got 110,000 won. Not too shabby and then it was my turn to go up. My skills at hamming it up fell flat and at one point, I thought I could hear the cicadas outside, but slowly I got up to 80,000 won and the lucky winner was, *drumrolll* Mikey Teacher!

So we're going to celebrate with some On the Border and enjoy Lady Gaga at Olympic Stadium tonight!