So Much for December 23rd.

For the past few years, the tradition went unchanged: Christmas shopping began around December 20th, and ended on the 23rd (or 24th, if I pushed my luck). I wouldn't even think of shopping before December hits (if I recall correctly, at the end of November, it was usually 'Oh-crap-I-have-too-much-stuff-to-hand-in' mode).

Yet I successfully managed to finish all my shopping this year, with a little under four weeks to go. Mind you, all the shipping I usually had to do was fueled by feet. Anyway, this weekend, I went to an area called Insadong - a place in Seoul that's renowned for selling traditional Korean goods. I decided to take a Solo trip for this one, just to prove to myself that i've regained the ability to know where the heck i'm going.

I only got a little lost.

Next up on my list of abilities to regain: How to understand prices, without pointing to the currency! I only ran into a little bit of trouble with that aspect though, and I think it actually turned out in my favour - a storeowner took my look of confusion as a hard-lined negotiation tactic, and when I was pondering over what he said, he went 'Okay, okay.. discount'. So I saved 10$! Whee.

There were also a few 'Cultural Events' going on in the area. One of which I took a picture of, a group of elderly Korean people playing some very beautiful (and what i'd assume to be traditional) Korean Flute music. As you can see, they were just there, in the middle of the street. I don't think this was pre-organized - they just decided to pick that spot to play.

I usually try not to pay too much attention to bad (and sometimes funny) spellings on signs, wherever I go, but I saw one store-sign that was too good to pass up, so I took a picture. It was a Korean Wellbeing Tea and Tea Set store, but the 'e' from Wellbeing was ommited from the original sign - so they added a correctional checkmark with an 'e' on top of the original sign (which is something kids do alot at school, as well). Even though it's hilarious, I have to commend them for the effort to fix their mistakes.

As solo adventures go, this ended up being a pretty successful one. In the end, I made it back to the dorm in Incheon in a little over four hours from the time i'd left. The next step, sometime this week, will be to figure out the shipping details - which i'm really not looking forward to sorting out, but alas, it must be done. My apologies in advance for not wrapping gifts (well, most gifts.. one of them was pre-wrapped), but they'll most likely be opened up by customs anyway.

Speaking of gifts, I received an early Christmas piece of mail from ma Soeur Émilie. When I opened it, there was an envelope marked 'Frère Jacques Alex' - I tried to explain the joke, after I burst out laughing, but alas, it's a bit hard to explain to anglos. With the package came an awesome Sens picture, some lottery scratchers, a keychain, and a great card from Émilie and Nick - thanks a lot guys! As I build up the Korean Senators-shrine, hopefully they'll start having some sort of success again.

They just haven't been the same since I left. Clearly, since the cheering has been quieter without me, they've all taken a psychological hit and are battling depression.

Hang in there, guys. Hang in there.