ATMs not open 24 hours, I never understood this!

So there are a few 24 hour ATMs in Korea, but there are also a large number that close at night. Wasn't the purpose of an ATM to be open whenever? Sigh, i should stop trying to figure out Korea...

Half-Chinese

I was invited by a friend of mine to Hot pot over the weekend, it was the Chinese crowd gathering. My friend Han said, "well you are half-Chinese" which I suppose is fairly true, even though it is the one language over here i don't speak (apologies to Cantonese and all of the southeast asian languages ;) The sign outside of the restaurant had a large fish and crab (michelle's and my signs, I had to get a picture!)

Anchovies and Almonds?

Eww. Yes I saw this as a type of canned nuts at the local 7-11. Yikes! Speaking of amusing mixes of things however, I went out to dinner last Sunday with my friends Tom & Claire and friends of theirs from out of town, and we ate "Omurice" (which stands for omelet and rice). The Omurice came with an additional element, ranging from Cheeseburger (on top of the omelet mind you) to Tandoori Chicken.

Japan cannot hit Bong

Quote from espn: Bong (2-0) held Japan hitless (I am totally taking this out of context!) No hits off the Bong for you!! On a related note, i have never seen people move in the office so quickly as when the World Baseball Classic of Japan and Korea was happening. WOW.

Fish market

With Michelle here, we decided to visit the fish market in Seoul. It was quite a spectacle, with a whole warehouse of different types of fish, mussels, shrimp, etc. Michelle and I wandered with slight bewilderment of what to actually order. We ended up choosing some shrimp and a mussel that was about 6 inches long! The great thing is that you can then take your purchase to a restaurant one floor above, and they will cook it for you there. I definitely should have gone there earlier! Next time hopefully I will go with a local to tell me what to order, but we'll see...

Buying antiques

So my parents gave us a really nice present of a Korean chest (or money to purchase an antique chest). Michelle and I went shopping when she was here to find a nice one. We ended up finding two, one not an antique, but a really cool step chest. The furniture here is really beautiful, solid wood with interesting designs. We have no idea how the two of us will combine all of our furniture when the time comes, but we will figure that out at some point!

Birthday party

Michelle's birthday was during the middle of the week (terrible timing), but we made the most of it by celebrating the following weekend (she came out for 4 days, which was awesome, and thankfully it was covered by miles, the 3rd flight in 1.5 years that I have paid for by miles...) We had a whole group out (we took over a room in a restaurant called "Organic Noodle Bar"), 13 of us in total if i remember correctly, and she had two cakes (both excellent). Definitely a fun time!