Haha, last night was fun~
Today I got up ass early and went to Dongdemun, which is many buildings. Floors of fabric. Floors of trimmings. Floors of beads and crystals and I'm almost crying, it is my mecca.
One of these days I will make a real post, but right now it's 10PM, and Project Make A Dress in One Day has just commenced!



I probably paid too much for this wig (about 38,000 won, so that minus 20% if you convert it to USD) 원? Won? No idea if I spelled that correctly.

Hey everyone!

So I owe you all a big update. Sorry about that, haha! I was just... um...too busy actually going outside. (Normally I'm a super homebody)

I saw Star Trek on Thursday! I know I'm a huge slowpoke (it came out in Korea same time as the US, but I was busy doing COSPLAY EVENTS to go then) but I totally have the hots for Spock. And Kirk. And Sulu. And Scotty. And I even want to hug Chekov tenderly.
UNFFFFF THIS MOVIE. THANK YOU JJ ABRAMS. I guess we should let the man make movies. TV shows on the other hand.....>:C

So! Cosplay in Korea! There's a Seoul Comic World every month and it's closer to a NYCC or NYAF setup than a traditional American anime convention - There's the huge artist's alley, and then a gorgeous area outside where most of the cosplayers and photographers hang out. Apparently, the Comic World is described as a mini monthly Comiket, but I'm not experienced with that. (yet?)

The cosplayers are younger here too, mostly around the high school age, but it's not like I could tell, since everyone looks like they're fifteen, regardless :C I'm Renee-ajumma. (grandmother/old lady) Also, the overall quality of cosplayers are WAY BETTER than the american equivalent, but that's because a lot of them buy their costumes. Haha. Nobody cares here though, there aren't any craftsmanship competitions to defraud, so there's not the connecting drama.

I kept taking pictures of cute girls in good costumes (or anything Shugo Chara), I guess I'm a giant pervert!
Also, it was interesting that more than 50% of all the costumes there were from Kuroshitsuji. I saw maaaaaybe a couple sailor moon costumes, some korean MMOs, and one totally awesome guy dressed as like....some crazy historical warrior thing, but everything else was New Popular Anime. AKA Kuroshitwhatsnow and Macross Frontier.

Lee-san also introduced me to a ton of cosplayers and photographers and Very Important Dudes, and everyone is very nice :)

Words words words, I know you want
These pictures are from the weekend before, when I met up with Lee-san, Big Kong, Little Kong, and new friends on Saturday night!







Then on Sunday, I discovered that I had left half of Diva Foxx at home in New York, but decided to wear it anyways, because what the hell. I was wearing white booty shorts, so all the girls can guess what I got that morning! :C
And my first time at ~Seoul Comic World~



















YEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH


These next ones are from yesterday - I met up with YongJin and Lee-san, and then another cosplayer in the City Hall area, where I totally forgot to take more pictures, except for when we went into a gorgeous park that was right in the middle of the business district. It was apparently some palace grounds back in the day! I want to be royalty and live there :C



And then of course we went drinking and engaged in delicious 드ㅏ치 고기, which I'm sure I just mispelled and called myself a bitch again (the perils of mispelling Hello, apparently!) but it's bbq pork. NOM NOM.








So next weekend I'm going to go bike-riding with some teachers across um...some area of Korea, and visit temples and do an overnight stay, aaaaaaaaaand I'm really stoked for that.

Weekend after that, I'm going with ChoHi to DONGDAEMUN MARKET HAHAHA which is apparently a gigantic everything market, but also has a ton of fabrics. Do want. I think I'm going to crap out Asuka's sundress for the Wonder Festival in 3 weeks (where apparently I'm a guest and the WCS team for Korea will be picked!)
Hopefully it won't turn out like this again:

I've been scoffing at the supposed 'Yellow Dust season' occurring right now, which is dust born particles from China, and their idiotic soil erosion problem, because China is the source of terrible things like that, but one day recently I left my computer shut, and a window open all day in my apartment while I was at work. When I got home, there was a film of dust on the lid of my precious Dell, just from the open window, just for the duration of my work day. :C

Okay, so, what's up....

I finally found the local bookstore, which naturally was underground. >_> It's called Hot Tracks, and is filled with the cutest things in the world, dear god. A whole half of the store was the Not Books section, and there were shelves of cute notebooks, and digital supplies (like stickers for my keyboard with english and korean letter, score!) and GUNDAM FIGURINES IONO.

Oh my god, the cute notebooks. I found a Mozart one, and was ready to flip my shit, but I needed just a regular lined book to write my lesson plans in, and the Mozart one was all staff paper. Actually, I found half a section with just notebooks filled with blank staff paper. Who on earth needs that much, that would shop at a normal bookstore? Am I missing a huge underground composition culture here?

I was really tempted to buy it, anyways.

Also, this evening I'm meeting with with Lee-san, the korean organizer for WCS, and going to a party(???) and Big & Little Kong are going to be there! Sonnya, I'll tell them you all say Hi. ♥

Then tomorrow is a cosplay event, so of course I'm going to go, because I am a huge fat weeaboo who probably doesn't even fit in Diva Foxx anymore because all I do is eat in this country. :C
I need to find a sewing machine and supplies stat, I think I want to cosplay from Granado Espada because I happen to be in Korea, and I'm just a bit caucasian-looking. More unusual coincidences rarely come along.


WORDS WORDS WORDS HOW ABOUT SOME PICTURES
This is the super cute notebook I bought at the Hot Tracks store. I'm retarded, and it didn't occur to me that writing in the blank page right behind the cover might actually show through, and it's already bothering me a lot. :C


This is my attempt at taking pictures of some of the shit I've eaten, but obviously pre-cooked rice isn't that cool. Nevertheless, can't find it in America!


Shrimp flavored fries! SO GOOD. Not pictured - a different bag of fries, where the only description was that they were 'Sweet and Delicious'. The verdict? FUCK YES THEY WERE.


Children's Day was on Tuesday, a national holiday so I got a ~Day Off~. This is a mini-carnival ride swing thingie out of the back of a truck. Found it while walking from the park on my way back to the apartment.


New York T_________________T


Buses are green in Korea! And tiny and sort of cute! And sometimes they run red lights! :C

I finally tried Pocari Sweat after years of knowing of its existence because I passed a vending machine selling it for 700 won.
Pocket change!
So I'm sitting here at school, killing half an hour until the staff meeting, and sipping my Sweat.
The verdict: Doesn't taste like sweat. Doesn't taste much better, either. :C

안년하세요!
And there you go, my first actual exercise in typing in korean. I feel as cool as a cucumber doing it, although if we're going to be entirely truthful, it took me over a minute to type that phrase. Most of it was trying to find which keys were for which korean character though.

I have to say, I absolutely love the korean alphabet. It's incredibly logical and clear, and fewer letters than our alphabet, so it's actually possible to learn in an afternoon. Unfortunately, the way quite a few consonants are pronounced are totally incomprehensible to me - as in I can't even hear what consonant someone is saying as they say it. FML.

Okay, so let's attempt to do a recap of this weekend, since I've been slacking on the updates. I came down with a Not Quite Cold on friday, which mostly seems to mean that I'm constantly congested, and if I talk too much I'll start coughing and my voice will go. Great. At least my head doesn't feel foggy. So even though I have this glorious four day weekend, I haven't been doing much exploring of the city at all.

On the one hand, I feel bad that I'm not taking advantage of my free time and acting like an independent adult and just Going Somewhere; on the other hand, I really hate being sick and I should spend as much time as possible resting and drinking liquids.

Alas! Both logical thoughts!

I was invited to an overnight workshop this weekend, from Saturday to Sunday, at some oceanside hotel thingie. Apparently some teachers from another school owned by the owner of our Maplebear (he owns roughly 20 schools) were getting married, and that meant a workshop??
Well what the hey, I thought, I don't have anything else to do and this will give me a good opportunity to meet some other teachers and administrators, and I don't know, learn more about teaching.


Turns out workshops mean drinking and eating barbequed meat. I AM QUITE OKAY WITH THIS. It was a really fun time, but I wanted to kill myself for forgetting my camera, because even though the car ride there on Saturday took EIGHT HOURS (thanks, holiday traffic, it only took 3 hours coming back the next day) I was getting to see the korean countryside for the first time, and it was really neat. Seoul really is surrounded by absolutely beautiful mountains, closer to hills really, and as we got further out - rice paddies! It really started to hit me that I am in a Foreign Land. Sometimes Seoul doesn't feel that way because it is so metropolitan. I could imagine I am in a fantasy version of Flushing, where somehow everything is clean.

Okay, things to talk about.
Motorbikes! Fuck those fuckers, ffffffffffffffffff. They ride on the fucking sidewalk, and don't give a flying DICK whether they're about to run you over or not. They, and regular bicycles, are not nearly as predominant as I was expecting, but they're still fucking everywhere. It's just not as bad as say.....a city in China. But still. Fuck them. And cars. Korean drivers are fucking aggressive. Tina, you would have an absolute blast trying to outmaneuver some of these shitheads.

Right, that's enough of a wall of text. You guys want pictures!
Sorry in advance for the bird pictures, I normally don't give a dick about birds, but they look so cool!

What the hell is this bird? They're everywhere, and they're so pretty.


Oh, speaking of which, guess what other kind of bird is everywhere?
HAHA, PIGEONS. UGH.

I need to take more pictures of the local park; it's huge and gorgeous. This picture is of another park, but these exercise machines are rather ubiquitous -


Here is the absolutely stunning temple a couple of blocks away from the apartment, and on my way to work every day -

I'm not sure if I'm allowed to take pictures, so I sort of tried to snipe the shot. I also really want to go inside, but I totally don't have the balls to barge right in, especially when I'm completely incapable of speaking the language. Ugh, the language barrier is so frustrating. I need to man up and really study the language more. Back to the temple, this is the only temple I've seen so far. Churches are waaaaaay more prominent, with their neon crosses, haha, but I see those far more often. It makes me a little sad, it feels like all the churches are pushing the temples out of the way. :C

Here's a shot of one of the blocks I walk through to get to the park, or work, or pretty much anywhere -

I didn't take as many pictures of the city itself, because hey, it's a city, you can google that stuff and it looks just like you think a modern, bustling asian city might. I need to remember to bring my camera with me and take more pictures of food though. FOOD.

So in conclusion, this is quite the interesting adventure so far, despite my exceeding laziness and general malady. I miss you all terribly, and I can't wait to come home perhaps a little bit more than I should.