Quick Update

It's been a couple of weeks since I've posted, and I've done a fair bit in that time, but for now I'll just give a brief rundown and fill in some details later.

On both Xmas eve and New Year's Eve, my friend and I went into Itaewon (the foreign center of Seoul and therefore the sleaziest, dirtiest part, relatively speaking of course. Basically, it feels like America, haha) to a club, then to a bar. Quite the way to celebrate the eve of our Lord's birth, I know.

We got 3-day weekends for Xmas and New Year's, which was nice, though longer would've been nicer. Then, we had a snow day yesterday, making our 3-day New Year's weekend into a 4-day. However, we will be making that day up on a Saturday :( I tried to make snowmen with the snow but I couldn't get it to pack tight :(:(

I went to the 63 building, which is Korea's tallest building and yes, it's 63 stories tall. I will post pictures from that soon, though I had to delete a lot of almost-good photos. It was at night and difficult to get a non-blurry shot, as well as minimize the reflections in the window.

The threat of overtime is over, there weren't enough students interested so I won't be going into the office 3 hours early during this month, YEEHAW!

Today I got my visa for China; now I need to get a ticket. I'm trying to go directly through China Southern Airline's website in hopes of saving some money, but that might prove to be too complicated.

I think my eyesight is getting worse. I had some problems with it in late summer and got prescribed eye drops which seemed to fix the problem at first, but over time proved less and less effective. Now I've come to realize that if I look through my glasses at an angle more extreme than just straight-on, it improves my vision, which seems to indicate that I need stronger lenses.

I am signed up to go snowboarding on the east coast, where the best mountains are, this Saturday. The cost might be a lot, like around $300 for everything for one day. That seems really steep so I'm hoping there was a miscommunication, but probably not. Oh well, I'll foot that bill once, while I'm here, for the experience, and because I haven't been in years.

And the most depressing of news: I no longer regard snow, that thing which draws out words such as pure, clean, beautiful, which is forever intoned in the phrase "pure as the wind-driven snow," I no longer regard it as such. I have seen it dirtied, trampled on, mixed with grease and grime, thrown onto bystanders by speeding cars, unwantedly sticking to shoes, making black puddles on floors. I have tasted the Korean snow, and far from pure, it tastes like dirt. Dirt...