a token blog

So it's hit the 6-week-to-go mark, and I didn't think I was the type to get homesick but for 'some reason' the thought of getting back to the old CW of C (Commonwealth of Canada) is sounding real nice right now.

Just got back from playing poker with the newly formed Gwangmyeong crew. It includes Wayne, Stu, and I (the Original Three), and the new recruits of the cool Canadian couple of Ryan and Kristin, with special guest Oxford Tom. I made up all those nicknames just now, but they all seem to fit. I can't believe that it's been almost a year since I've been here, and the way my little town has changed since day 1 almost brings a tear to my eye. I'm not sure if I'm ever gonna be back here, and despite it's little quirks, it has come to be as close to home as I've known for some time.

Just recently before the whole North Korea nuclear testing, Wayne and myself took a little trip to the DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) and peered into North Korea for a while. To be anticlimactic, for some reason I expected there to be some cool military stuff in a 'demilitarized' zone. Now I know that the DMZ is called just that for a reason, and there wasn't really much to look at. Still kind of cool though. To counter this disappointment, we headed off to the War Memorial in Seoul, where we knew there would be some cool stuff to look at. There most certainly was, and there are tons of pictures of that here.

I also attended my old co-teacher's wedding (Megan) last weekend. It was somewhat of an experience to see a Korean wedding. It's kind of like a Korean breakfast though, it's one of those things that just doesn't compare to the way we do things at home. It was kind of cool to see, it lasted about 15 minutes in total. In a nutshell, the guy comes up first, then the girl, then the pastor talks for a while and they both say about two words (probably meaning 'I do' in Korean) then the new couple makes very respectful bows to both sets of parents, then they bring the cake out, cut it with a sword (which I'll admit, is one-up on the Western style) and then they leave. Only in about 2 minutes they come back for more pictures.

So the wedding ceremony isn't that much different then Canada, but the aftermath left much to be desired. We went upstairs to a buffet (where the amount of people at the meal suspiciously doubled the amount of people at the ceremony), ate some food, the couple made a quick entrance to say hi, and that was it. Maybe I'm just spoiled by the funness of Bandringa wedding receptions, but I felt a little jilted.

Anyway, that is what has been up, this website is being funky and won't let me add pictures, so you're gonna have to link up to the picture website to be visually entertained. I've got one final big trip planned on November 11th, of all days, a hiking trip to the most famous mountain in Korea: Seoraksan. So unless something else noticably interesting happens, I'll probably be making one more blogpost to the tell the story of that trip, and then will be doing most of my storytelling in face to face form.

See you soon