Somehow i made it home when the subway closed...

Tonight I had my choir performance. It went well and I had a drink with some friends after... Being responsible we decide we better go catch the subway since it is approaching 11:30 and the subway ends earlyish never quite sure on the exact time... Turns out on Saturdays it ends exactly at midnight... leaving me stranded in Yaksu...

I picked a random Korean and said "English?" I was super lucky today as he spoke English well and he was drunk. Korean's are often afraid to speak English when they are sober because they don't want to embarrass themselves... THANK YOU SOJU!!! SO he didn't know the subway was closed early either... many Koreans seemed to not know this... How was I supposed to know it ends early on Saturday??? Usually we are out so late we have to cab home...

So I talked to this Korean boy and we established that neither one of us had money but fortunately this random person from the subway lives in my neighborhood!!! We go to an ATM but it won't let me take money out.. he said something like either my bank is closed... or they are doing something or another... either way i could not take out money!

So we get out to the street... looking for cab... not that we could even pay him but we have to get home it's -10 outside!!! This van pulls up and a man gets out asking where we are going. He offers to drive us and rallies up other people as well.. So I am a bit freaked out... I mean this was NOT a cab... this was a random van!! and I am with a random Korean whom I have to put all my trust into! The Korean boy went a took a picture of the mans van and license plate just to be safe. So me and 5 random Koreans drive off in this van to Kyodae (Seoul National University of Education.. which is where i live)

Korean boy had explain to the van driver that we had no money. The van driver was not angry and simply got the Korean boy's phone number and said he could pay him later! We arrived safely and I gave the Korean boy my number so I could give him my share of the money at a later date.

It was quite the adventure and at the time I was like.... shiiiit!! what am I going to do!!! If I really had've taken a moment and thought about it, I would have realized I had my Canadian debit card and I could have taken out money on that possibly if I found the right bank machine.... I also could have taken money out on my credit card but I don't even want to think about what the charges and interest would have been. Either way I solved the problem and survived another day in Korea...

Mom and Dad don't be worried! I can figure things out in sticky situations.

Note to self... if I spend the emergency money I leave in my wallet make sure I replace it!!!

C'est Lalloween

So halloween was awesome! Some girlfriends and I decided to dress up as the ghostbusters. So for the two weeks before we were scouring Korea for stuff for our costumes. It was really hard to find coveralls here! I mean things exist in Korea but if you don't know the Korean word for it or just who to ask it is near impossible to find!! Sometimes google is useful and I have found a few locations of things by using it but naver would be way better to use.... it is like the Korean google... unfortunately it is all in Korean!

Anyway we got all of our stuff together and met up at Leslie's to make the costume. This girl has such a gorgeous, new loft apartment!! Makes me jealous although my place has gotten much cozier... I still need to put up pictures of my rearranged and decorated apartment... man I am lazy hahaha!

Okay so back to halloween... so we met up on October 30th and we worked on our costumes till like 2 am or something and we weren't even finished! We had the bright idea of actually making the patches. We did not just print them off the computer... we cut out the red, black and white parts all separately and then with the one needle Leslie and Jenelle slaved away hand stitching them... we made our backpacks out of cereal boxes and attached tubing to our guns... and made gun holders! It was a lot of effort and time. oh and like everything had to be spray painted black... we had to find somewhere to spray paint because we could not do it in an apartment... we probably looked ridiculous hunting down the street trying to find a back alley to paint in... we had cans of spray paint in hand... we probably looked like criminals. We found a spot, spray painted and got stared at by Koreans... what are those crazy foreigners up to???

The best part of the night was riding the subway! No one else on the entire subways and stations we went through were dressed up... the Koreans smiled at us and laughed... asked us why we were dressed up. It was a lot of fun!

We went to Itaewon to the Wolfhound pub because they had some competitions going on. Well we walked in and everyone was impressed with or costumes. People bought us drinks because they thought our costumes were really good. The people who owned the bar were like don't leave don't leave!!! So we stayed and we won best group costume!!! 50 000 won baby!! which essentially covered the cost of the entrance cover and no where near the cost of the costumes but it was worth it and soo much fun!

This is my halloween album for my non facebookers!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2297784&id=81005275&l=5658d0401d