:: Brinna's ::

:: Tuesday, December 27, 2005 ::
:: yet another week in korea ::

Merry Christmas, belatedly! It was an o.k. Christmas here. Not a whole lot is going on, really. We did host a little Christmas get-together at the apartment we're staying at, on Christmas Eve. I cooked dinner for about 12 ppl. Nothing too fancy, just a ham and green bean casserole, as well as a version of my aunt's mac&cheese. Quick, easy, delicious. I also made 2 pumpkin pies and we had snack food out, like veggies and crackers and cheese. It went pretty well, the only food that didn't turn out was the cinnamon rolls for the next morning, and it turned out everybody left and went home that night instead of sleeping over, so only Andrew got to suffer through a couple.

I did go to the Coex mall, I spent most of the day there. I wore flat shoes but my feet still ached, they didn't have much cushioning in them. I got a pair of jeans, a couple of shirts, not much. I did get a coat, I'm not sure how warm it is really, but it is very nice. It cost a ton in my book (178,000 won, which is about $175), but it's real fur/suede, and the design is very nice. I don't know what type of fur, but does it really matter? Here's a couple pics:




I also have some long-awaited pics of my dresses. Hopefully we can get some pics of us all dressed up together at the New Years' formal. Did I mention Andrew and I got a digital Canon Rebel XT? We got the camera and basic lens on sale, as well as a tripod and some other accessories, for under a grand. It has 8 megapixels. That means massive pictures. The pictures I'm posting today are 15-20% original size. Andrew has posted a few good pics of Alice taken with the camera on his website, www.dragro.com.
Anyway, here's the original project, the dark red dress. Yes, I sewed it. Not the scarf though, what a pain that would be. $20 is worth not having the hassle of edging chiffon ruffles. Also, here's a close-up of my Bebe shoes.




And, the second dress I sewed, which was even harder to find the fabric. I had a specific color to match, and the pattern called for a fabric no one carried. Also, I could not find satin ribbon 1" wide, even close to the right color. I had to get sheer wired ribbon at Michael's, then strip the wire. Turned out o.k. I think...doesn't look much like ribbon though.



Hmm, what else...oh yes, the black silk dress from Express. A bit wrinkled in this picture, but I didn't feel like doing anything about it at the time. I got the boots at a subway station, for 15,000 won (exchange rate is roughly 1,000 to the dollar..I think yesterday it was 1040=1), I doubt they're real leather but they're nice enough. There's a cord that wraps around the ankle and ties in a bow, makes me think of corsets but it's not really. I really need to smile in my pictures... :)



For Christmas I didn't get much yet, just what was in the box the Samsons sent to Korea. My favorite gift, of the ones I can think of, was the makeup palette from Debbie. It's Sonia Kashuk from Target. Debbie's the coolest person. (And not just because of what she gave me, although I had been wanting a good, portable makeup palette for awhile.) But it was nice to be with my husband. Only a couple more months and he'll be coming out of Korea. Here's a pic of us all together. The second is of the restaurant mentioned last entry. You cook your own meat. It's pretty tasty.




Well I can't think of anything else at the moment. Hopefully I'll write again soon.. :)

:: Brinna 7:16 PM [+] ::
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Here I am, a whole week later...that dinner was pretty nice. It was my first real experience eating with chopsticks. I've tried before, intermittently, but this time I was in an actual Korean restaurant, and eating with forks is a major no-no. I picked it up pretty quickly in my opinion. The most interesting thing about the restaurant (other than the top floor, huge window views of Seoul in all its neon brilliance) was the restroom toilet. Some bathrooms in Korea are rather archaic, basically a basin set into the ground (feels like camping, but you flush), which is interesting. And maybe this nice type of toilet is common in higher class places, I don't know. But using a toilet that has a warming seat, built-in bidet, and a warm-air fan to dry you post-unmentionable seems pretty nifty to me. As well as amusing to see how the bidet works when you're not sitting on it...juvenile, I know, but amusing. (A little rod extends from underneath the toilet seat, in the back of the bowl, and sprays water upward (which makes a nice little arc and lands on the floor in front of the seat when you're not sitting on it), then retracts out of sight when you push the off button.)

Other happenings...we went to a company Christmas party (as in, Andrew's company in the Army, akin to a battalion, not an office), that was fun, I wore the silk dress I got from Express. The dresses I'd sewed were a bit too formal for that one..it was supposed to be semi-casual. I can wear at least one of the dresses still, though, to the New Years Eve party. Not sure which one.

Also, we went shopping a bit, I haven't bought any clothes yet. I'm kinda proud of myself. There's a huge mall called the Coex Mall, which is under the Coex, a large convention center. Here's the link: http://coexmall.com/foreign/english/ I mean, this place is huge. Apparently the largest in 'the Orient'. The nice part is, it's got expensive brands (Chanel, Kate Spade, Burberry, Escada, to name a few) upstairs, and cheaper shops downstairs. Kinda makes up for the fact that in Denver, the shuttle took us to the Denver Pavilions instead of Cherry Creek, which was a large mall but it didn't have the same shops, and I was really looking forward to browsing Bebe. Anyway, I didn't buy anything at the Coex Mall, but I'm going back today via the subway while Andrew's at work. He wanted me to wait until we went down to Osan, a city about an hour south of here, before I decided to buy anything. The shops there weren't much cheaper for the clothes I wanted. They did have some nice things down there...we got a nice silk embroidered comforter/sham set for cheap, a silver chopsticks/spoon set with roses engraved on them, a mini kimono type outfit for Alice, and a lovely four panel painting. Great prices for souvenir type things.

It turns out Andrew will have to go somewhere else (like another base) for awhile a week before I leave, he's trying to get my tickets changed so that I can leave before him so I won't have to be in Korea a week by myself. I'd have to get some help from somebody, I've got too much stuff to haul around by myself. I suppose if I mail some of the large stuff back it would work, like the painting. I could go back with my suitcase in the expanded mode and pay oversize charges on the bag. I couldn't handle 2 bags and a carryon. We'll see..

I was kinda hoping to get a nice coat here, they have a stellar selection, because it really is cold here. Forget what they say about a temperate climate, it's freezing. Although, it's really no colder than Colorado, right now anyway. Very dry, which is odd because it's so humid in the summer. The temps have been at the highest, 30's, and the lowest, single digits. No neg #'s yet I don't think, but there's a hefty wind chill factor. Good thing I leave before it's supposed to get really cold!

:: Brinna 5:42 PM [+] ::
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Here I am in Korea, the "Land of the Morning Calm". It's pretty nice, it doesn't feel that much different than the U.S. Looks like California really.

The first two nights I stayed at the hotel in Yongsan, the main Army base here, near Seoul. It was pretty nice really, and not that expensive. Their breakfast buffet was great--not many choices of food but half of it was fruit. Pears, pinneapple, grapes, nectarines, peaches, and more. It was wonderful because I'd been hoping they'd have a decent fruit plate.

Where I'm staying now is not in Andrew's barracks, as planned (he got a roommate after all), but in someone's apartment off-post. He's house-sitting somewhere else. It's much better than in the barracks really, we'd probably have ppl coming in all the time. That, and he has a nice sound system and lots of movies. I heard Korean apartments were puny and odd, but I find them very nicely done, and they don't feel small, even though they are. Not like other large cities' apartments I've been in and seen in movies.

Andrew seems to like Alice well enough, :) and she really likes him so far. That is, she accepts him as normal in her life, and smiles at him all the time, and doesn't cry for me when he holds her.

Not much happening yet, tonight we're going out to dinner at a Korean restaurant with other ppl he knows. I have to get ready for that..it's not formal though. I don't know when the first formal event is.

I'll write more at a later date!

:: Brinna 10:16 PM [+] ::
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Today is the 5th day of December. It's the second to last day before I leave Grand Junction to go see my husband. Hopefully I don't have too much stuff crammed into my suitcase, the limit is only 50 lbs. I'm only taking one so I can buy a suitcase there and take a bunch of stuff I don't need home with me.

Not much has been happening...we got a Christmas tree yesterday, but we haven't put it up yet. I'm trying to get the kids to clean the house.

It snowed a bit the last few days, off and on. For some reason it's been below freezing, but the snow hasn't stuck. Oh well, it means there probably won't be a problem getting to Korea. Today here in Whitewater (next to Grand Junction, CO) the temperature is 19, and the high is supposed to be 29. The day I'm supposed to be in Denver all day, Wednesday, is supposed to be really cold. The hotel I'm staying at has a free shuttle to the airport and to downtown, where they have a great shopping center, called Cherry Creek. It has Bebe, A Pea in the Pod (expensive maternity clothes...I'm not pregnant, but it'll be fun to look, and they might have killer nursing tops), A&F, Adrienne Vittadini, Ann Taylor, Arden B., Banana Republic, Body Shop, Hugo Boss, Burberry, Anthropologie, Cache, Diesel, Forever 21, Fossil (clothes, not just watches), Guess, Lucky Brand, MAC, Ralph Lauren, Steve Madden, Urban Outfitters, and of course, many more. But like I was saying, I think it's supposed to be really cold. The forecast has a high of 15 and low of 4. :) Not sure if it will stop me though. When else would I have the chance to spend a bunch of extra time walking around a great mall? I just have to be back in time for Lost... :)

:: Brinna 9:58 AM [+] ::
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