Gentle Readers, I apologize for my laxness in updating. I suffered the devestating loss of my camera and in my grief haven't much felt like blogging. I shall try and fill you in on some of the exciting happenings of the past month but until then, here is a summary of my weekend.

I had a pretty frickin' amazing weekend. Friday night wasn't anything special. I stayed in, caught up on my TV and went to bed early. woopdeedoo. However, Saturday I went to the National Museum of Korea because they are (well were, yesterday was the last day) having a special exhibit on the Inca and a variety of Peruvian artifacts and I love me some Peru. Unfortunately the self guided tour (with headphones!) and all the signs were in Korean. So Jen and I had to guess at some of the meanings behind what we saw. That was pretty fun. I dazzled her with my bulls***ting abilities. I was surprised to see Mummies. I think because most of the American museums I've spent time at don't show human remains (seeing as most of the remains are Native American and showing 'em off pisses people off). There were also a couple of skulls with treppaning holes. Crazy!...well not any more...that is what the holes are for. To let the crazy out. The special Inca exhibit was 10,000 won and the regular museum was a staggering price of: FREE! so after a brief lunch of Kim bap and Dokbokki (and a survey!) we went to the regular museum. We didn't look at everything, because it was really big, almost entirely in Korean and we were tired. We did spend a good 45 minutes in the little alcove looking out the window and playing "Will You" Go Fish from her English tutoring session. Then I took her to the room with all the Buddha statues. It's very peaceful and the statues are very big. After the museum we went home for a quick rest before heading off to dinner at Mad for Garlic with Veronica. DELICIOUS!!! I've had my eye on that place since it was being renovated. I mean, I am Mad for Garlic so it made sense to sample there menu. I'm glad I did. We each got something different and were able to have several courses for the price of one! We ordered an appetizer but it didn't arrive until we'd almost demolished the salad, spinach leaves with bacon and dried garlic chips drizzled in Balsamic Vinegar Dressing. The appetizer was not what we had hoped for. With a name like "Garlic Bread Tower" we imagined several steaming pieces of garlic bread stacked on top of each other, possibly displayed in some metal stand, making it a tower. Not so. It was a few inches of a baguette standing upright to be a "tower" with a poof of garlic on the top that the waitress mushed down into the soft center. Mostly we used the bread to soak up the left over dressing. Balsamic is a rare commodity here. The next course was a Gorgonzola pizza with a honey dipping sauce. The honey had sesame seeds in it. Oh man. It was a true culinary delight. My taste buds danced with joy. Rounding the meal out was a mushroom risotto. It was appropriately garlic laden to please me. As a bit of sweet to finalize our culinary adventure we had vanilla ice cream in a dish of chocolate sauce sprinkled with dried garlic and a side garlic cookie. Even that was divine. By the end of the meal we had eaten enough garlic that hints on the ice cream and cookie were quite mild and an exotic accent. After our meal we retired to Veronica's to visit with Maven. Maven is V's extremely pregnant cat. We're all a little worried about her because she seems to small and young to be having kittens of her own. One of the hilights of the evening was looking up words in the English/Korean Dictionaries on our phones. It sometimes supplies examples of how a word might be used in a sentence of "common" sayings/idioms. My absolute favorite was "F***ed by the fickle finger of fate" and I've attempted to slip it into conversation a couple times since then. Jen and I had to leave sooner than we would have liked to make sure we caught the subway home on time. A good nights sleep and I was ready to attack:
SUNDAY!!!
Frequently on Sunday Veronica goes with her pal Dave to touristy things. Often it's hiking or exploring fortresses or whatnot. Many times there is a small group but I have never gone. Until yesterday. Saturday evening she was still trying to decide where to go and I suggest Namhansanseong. A mountain not to far from where I live. It has a very famous fortress and many other wonders. There is also a bus that goes to it that stops right in front of my house. We got a later start than originally intended but that's okay. It gave me extra time to clean my apartment. Always a useful endeavor. The bus ride was a little bit nerve racking as the driver took the bus places I'd be afraid to go in a car much less something as unwieldy as public transportation. Finally the bus driver kicked us out and pointed us across the street and behold! Namhansanseong! We approached the mountain with both excitement and trepidation. We knew not what wonders we would behold or hardships we would conquer. As we approached the slopes we saw the "Master Plan" a map of the area. We had glimpsed a temple high up as we approached and after consulting a different map decided to go for it. The way was steep and treacherous so my companions made sure to stop and take many pictures allowing us all to catch our breath at various intervals. At last we could see our goal! A beautiful Buddhist temple! There were so many statues and figurines and paintings and relics. It was amazing. I mourned the loss of my camera heavily but am comforted to know that it's replacement will be coming soon. I could go on about the temple but words won't do it justice. It needs to be seen, after climbing a mountain preferably. The way down was, as always, much easier. We took another bus to a subway to a mall and waited around for Brandon, a person I met on facebook. The lot of us went to sushi for dinner. Yummy! It was a place with a conveyer belt! Kee-ripes! some of the bigger items were plastic and if you picked them the chefs would make if for you. Including a giant fish head! yuck!!! But what we ate was good, if a bit pricey for conveyor belt food. After dinner Dave and Veronica left and Brandon and I wiled away an hour waiting for one of his co-workers: Kendra, a newly arrived teacher from Boston. We spent our time in a Kyobo Book store looking at the various stationary and supplies. He seemed to get a real kick out of it. Once we picked up Kendra we went to Dublins to get settled in for Pub Quiz. Sweet sweet quiz night. As always my team came in second. We did have the excellent name of Kim Jong Skillz though.