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29 February 2004 (Sunday)

Happy Leap Day! Craig and I are going on the hash today.

27 February 2004 (Friday)

I tested for my second blue belt today. We won't change belts again until we pass the next test (end of March) for our brown belts.

25 February 2004 (Wednesday)

Harley asking to play tug-of-war. 2/25/2004

We've been taking care of Harley since Friday. She loves to play tug-of-war and go on hikes outside. Having her here makes me miss Tillie and Gertie a lot!!

24 February 2004 (Tuesday)

My quality of life has improved now that I'm listening to NPR while I work. I listened to Morning Edition and All Things Considered today. Brings me back to when we lived in Boston and I woke up to Bob Edwards & Bob Oakes on WBUR each morning and I'd listen to it when I commuted to work.

22 February 2004 (Sunday)

"Magic Puzzle". 2/22/2004

We went to Lotte Mart today where Craig found this "Magic puzzle" for me. I haven't had the nerve to really play with it yet though because I'm sure I'll never get it back to the way we bought it. At any rate, I found the choice of flags interesting and now I have something to do whenever I get bored. I suppose I could have just played with a Rubik's Cube Java Applet online, but I can play with this even when our internet connection is down...

18 February 2004 (Wednesday)

OK, so we have been up to just about nothing lately. I went to coffee morning today (that's twice this month!) which I haven't been doing lately. We have been going to the Davinci coffee shop in town a lot after TKD and the coffee is better there and the crowd is smaller.

I should note that Davinci is not just a coffee shop, it's attached to a makeup/shampoo/beauty store. It's 2/3 store and 1/3 coffee shop. (The tables we sit at are right near the false eyelashes and the foot cream. Yum!) There's usually not a comfortable amount of room for all of us who go there after TKD to fit around one table because the space is so narrow, but we like it anyway. Lately I've been getting a "Caramel Caffe Latte" without the whipped cream. It's tasty! My warm weather drink was also caramel, but I can't remember what it is now--not ready to make that transition yet now anyway.

14 February 2004 (Saturday)

Happy Valentine's Day!

The stores were filled with candy bins for Valentine's day. Although I saw some Rocher chocolates, I didn't see the heart-shaped cany boxes or Russell Stover/Whitman samplers. The way the stores I went to sold their candy was to have dozens of different types available and you would walk around with a basket and fill it to take to the register, then they sold boxes and baskets to present your purchases in. It was pretty fun, but the candy wasn't always as good as what we've gotten at home (of course Lotte Mart and the grocery stores did have the valentine's skittles, etc.--items I recognized as Valentine's candy from home).

11 February 2004 (Wednesday)

Flat Stanley at the dojang. 2/11/2004 (photo by Mijung)

Flat Stanley is staying with Nancy this week and visited us at TKD today. He then went to the market to check out the local specialties--he's a much braver man than I am to get that up close and personal with those fish! Word is that he also visited the Okpo International School while he was here--he gets around!

10 February 2004 (Tuesday)

I watched Jaynie's daughter, Alden, for a little while this morning. We read the Velveteen Rabbit and Invasion of the Giant Bugs (that was Alden's choice, not mine!); and then we started watching Barbie of Swan Lake (or, as Alden would say, "Swan Barbie Lake"). We had a good time and I don't think I scared her too much because I didn't let on that I had never babysat a 3-year-old before (although I did disclose my limited babysitting experience to Jaynie beforehand).

6 February 2004 (Friday)

It snowed this afternoon! It was pretty exciting but it didn't last very long and didn't come close to pretending like it would stick, but that's a good thing. I decided that it would be a good opportunity to go into town and get my hair cut--and I was right, the hairdresser was reading a magazine when I arrived.

The guy who cut my hair (and who has cut Craig's hair cut twice since he's been here, although knowing him, he'll probably only get it cut two more times before we move back home) had green hair today. Sometimes it's purple, sometimes another color. Part of the fun in going is to see what color his hair is that day. Anyway, he was pretty intense: he has a tool belt slung around his waist and does deep knee bends to get at just the right angle (maybe the chair didn't go high enough?). For a little less than $8 USD, I got my first haircut in Korea and it was just as good as what I've gotten in the States for a lot more (of course I didn't get a shampoo, a neck and scalp massage, or even offered a glass of wine, but this got the job done).

5 February 2004 (Thursday)

I decided to pay for an international subscription to Real Simple magazine a while ago and I got the first issue last week. It was so strange to read it because I have not read a magazine since we moved here. I got to see all of the ads for Target and Crate & Barrel and it all seemed so exciting and strange. It made me both a little homesick and like I got to have a taste of home without the travel expenses. I don't think I can fully describe the strangeness of the feeling, so I'll leave it at that.

4 February 2004 (Wednesday)

We are learning poomse 4 for our next belt test at the end of the month and it is really hard because practically all of the moves for it are new. To top it off, the videos I have been watching to help me learn the poomses do it differently than the way we're doing it, so I can't use that as a guide. Yikes! Word around the dojang is that the rest of the poomses are easier though, so once we get past this one, we'll be OK.

2 February 2004 (Monday)

Aren't you glad you don't have to wash these dishes? 2/2/2004

There was a Superbowl party at the Foreigner's Club this morning (kickoff was at 8:25 AM). Craig worked on Sunday so he could take the morning off to watch the game at the club.

We got our blue belts today! We (the ladies of TKD) piled into the TKD van and went to lunch in Gohyeon for pork bulgogi. There were a lot of seafood dishes though, so I stuck to the onion salad and the pork! We had some tasty (but incredibly sweet) rice juice after the meal.