Slip Stream

I feel time slipping by me. Standing at the window of my 4th grade class looking out over the city like I do every Thursday. It's the lull between 3rd and 4th period and the chaos is getting to me, so I roll up the blinds, open the big windows and lean out to breath in some fresh air. Ignoring the screaming brats behind me for 5 minutes I soak up the scene before me. The trees are almost bare, a few colorful leaves speckle their grey reaching branches. The city is packed into the valley and the mountain behind my apartment rises in the not so far off distance. Summers are hotter here and winters are slower in coming. I feel like a boulder in the stream of time. I'm stationary and the world is flowing around me. I would say its passing me by, but I really don't feel that way. It's nice to be this boulder for a while. I love my routine, my friends, my city. Life is good. Just thought i'd share a pleasant moment with you all. I love and miss you! Happy Thanksgiving!

Ebb and Flow

I feel on the ebb flow of a great wave of joy. My life of the past 3 weeks has been spectacular. It started with the weekend of the 23rd. Friday night I went to a Poko Lambro show (listen to "Long way down"). They are my favorite band here in Busan as well as being great bar friends. I had a great time, as I always do at their shows. That weekend was the Busan international fireworks festival so on Saturday we headed to Gwangali around 3pm to claim our spot on the beach as thousands and thousands of people poured into the area. We spent the afternoon eating costco pizza and playing catchphrase on the beach with friends old and new. 8pm brought the most spectacular hour of fireworks I have ever beheld. Ahnna posted the video of the 10 minute finale to her facebook, but i'll try to get it up here.

The next weekend was of course Halloween. They don't celebrate it here, but that doesn't stop us weigooken (foreigners) from making fools of ourselves. Friday night was the trial run for our costumes. The girls all dressed up as a K-pop group and I was their manager. It was fantastic.

"The fab six" dressed up as K-pop group "K-rage" and their manager.

Extensive photos are available on Facebook. Saturday night was an amazing costume party pub crawl in Kyungsung University district. A whole block was completely packed with weidrunken. There were concerts and dancing and it was probably the best Halloween I've had since I became too old to go trick-or-treating.

This last Saturday was my birthday and we celebrated it in style with a huge taco feed for my favorite Busanites. Perhaps 25 people showed up, all told, and once my neighbors started to yell we took ourselves down to my favorite bar Metal City and continued our shenanigans. The next day Ahnna and I met up with Nick and Natty (great friends of ours met through couchsurfing.org) who had come into town just for my birthday. They rented a scooter and we spent the afternoon hiking along the ocean cliffs at Igadae park.

We finished up the day with Vietnamese dinner at Gwangali beach. The next day we got up early (10am) and took them up to Geumjeon sanseong mountain, the sight of an ancient fortress

with a great view of the city on a clear day. After that we headed to Nakdong Bird Sanctuary and then adventured our way through unfamiliar streets to find our way back to the bike shop and say goodbye. The weather has been turning cold recently but that particular weekend was perfect. sunny and cool but not cold. I've rarely had a better time.

Ok... i forgot to publish this post, so now its a couple weeks later... P.S. we won 3rd place in the costume contest... Free night of drinks baby! Yea!