Chubda

Cold... (in Korean)

...yeah, it's really cold. This winter is supposedly colder than other winters, I was told by Korean friends. Great, I was already really lucky in Spain. When I was there, it was even snowing in Madrid, an exception.

Did you know? I am already 23 (21 western age) now in Korean age. It's difficult to explain, but in Korea you are always one year older, because the nine month in the womb before birth are already counted as a whole year. And at the beginning of every year, everybody already becomes one year older. So until Febuary 22nd, my birthday, I am two years older and afterwards again, as usual one year. Wow, somehow you already get depressed here when you are 28, in western age, because Koreans only talk in Korean age, which would mean, you are already 30. Well, I am still far away from that. :-)

Oh, I haven't told you about new year's eve yet.

On Friday, 30th of December, we also had been out for quite a while, so on Saturday I was pretty tired the whole day. Even in the evening I didn't feel like partying for new year. So Jang-hee and I stayed at home until 10 o'clock at night. I was chatting with some friends and realized, I can't just hang around at home... I'm in Seoul! But since I didn't want to go out somewhere far away, we decided to go down to Itaewon and eat some real spicy Korean food, Buldag (Firechicken). At 11.20 some friends called and said, the place where they had been so far sucked and they were on their way to Itaewon as well. So we hurried and met them in our favorite bar at 11.30. Since in Itaewon there are mostly foreigners, who really celebrate new year, the bar was packed and it took us almost until 12 to get our beer. At 12 of course everybody screamed and started hugging and kissing everybody. We stayed in the bar until it closed and even went to another one afterwards, where Daniel and Jang-hee played Billard. I came home around six in the morning. On Sunday I slept until four o'clock in the afternoon and then just hung around at home. This week was ok. Just usual.

For this weekend I want to relax more and sleep a lot. I think I need that.

Oh, before I forget. I already got a birthday present... a little bit early, but useful, since I have to go to Incheon pretty often by metro for more than an hour. Jang-hee gave me a new MP3 Player yesteray. Yeah, now I'm as hip and cool as the other young Koreans in the metro, with their tiny Players, not bigger than a man's thumb. (ok, weird comparison, but I couldn't think of anything better :-) )

Well, I have to work now.

Wish you all good luck for this year and that we will all meet again soon!

Which is by the way the year of the dog... in Germany we hardly ever hear about that, except if we go to eat chinese, but here it was in the newspapers quite often. But unfortunately I don't really know what it means.. sorry

This is Lee Sun-shin, his statue. He defended Korea against one of many invasions by Japan around 1550. He only had 13 ships and won against 333 ships by the Japanese. The statue stands on a huge street in the center of Seoul, in front of the Kyobobuilding. What I really love about Seoul, are the huge buildings and skyscrapers.