Misery is addictive..... I'm officially in rehab.

What an interesting week. I think I've been experiencing that weird now that you're done school and have achieved all the goals you originally set out for yourself what the HELLLLLL do you do with your life situation. Heavy, yup, you bet, but might as well be now as later. I've been waging an internal battle all week concerning the concept of free floating and why it would be such a goooooood thing for me to try and do right now. I've been so freeking focused on getting from one deadline to the next that now that I have no deadlines I'm a bit .......well..... lost. What do I do with myself? There's nothing I have to do. There are sooooooo many things that i could be doing here. It's maybe slightly overwhelming alllll this freedome! What to do with it? I keep having these moments of blind panick that i must not be doing Something correctly because just working full time as a public school teacher here seems way too simple. And then it dawned on me "THIS IS WHY PEOPLE HAVE HOBBIES!" as opposed to let's say procrastinating on my assignments by doing something else that wasn't them. I can do what ever i like and I don't have to feel guilty about it!!!!! Because I am alllllllll done my homework! NO WAY! It may seem strange, but there you go. So now it's a question of figuring out what do I like to do for me? Well have I not been saying that when I finish school and pay off my debts I would like to devote a lot of time to my art. well why not begin now. Clearly my work situation is such that I may reasonably be able to both work AND make art. Cheers! So, now is go time. I've joined a coupple artist collectives for expats in Seoul, but I've put some serious effort the last week into getting in touch with some of the head honchos to try and find out about any upcomming exhibition opportunities. I may have found one! We shall see. I have sent him some jpegs of my more recent work and hopefully I hear back soon. that would give me all the motivation I need to get back to work. I have some ideas.....

This past week I have had some good times. Last Wednesday I went to a soccer match at the world cup stadium. Cool! I felt like I was transported in a geeky fantasy way to J. K. Rowlings' "Quidditch world cup stadium". Funky, geeky, there you go! It was a riot, and I met some new English teachers! This past weekend, I set about finding myself a new pair of high heels for work. You have NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO idea how difficult it is to find a size 9 1/2 -10 high heel shoe in South Korea!!!!!! After visiting close to 15 shoe stores I'm sure, I finally admitted defeat and head to the tourist shopping district in Itaewon. There, I was not dissappointed and i am now the proud owner of two new pairs of super cute and well fitting high heels. Excellent! I also managed to get back to Insadong for the 3rd week in a row. Fabulous! My friend Grace and i discovered a quirky SECOND HAND clothing store with good quality and extremely clean and well organized second hand clothing. A lot of it is actually overstock and NEW! It's called the Beautiful Store, but I'm not saying how to get there because it's worth the adventure of trying to find it yourself. This week has been flying by. Yesterday I succeeded in making a roast chicken and veggies in a pot on my gas range! And people thought I was overzealous for bringing North American herbs and spices with me. Take that! This was for Deanna and Diana who bet that I couldn't cook as well as our host mom in Cuba Mayra. Well..... ok, I still have way to go to master stove top cooking, but it was pretty frikin' good none the less!

Today I climbed my second mountain with the grade 3 and 4 teachers departments. Let's just say that their promisses that it would be easier than my last climb were not an exageration. It was penuts in comparison with bloody rock mountain! But it was still beautiful! Afterwads we all went out to dinner at this amazing little restaurant. It was the best BBQ I've had since I've been in Korea, no joke. The best part was that the school picked up the tab. Excellent X2!! I was feeling slightly out of focus and homesick earlier this week, but the combination of the art show possibility, my successful chicken and climbing a mountain seemed to put me in a more positive mental state.

My improved mental state must have shown on my face or something because since then everyone has been smiling at me and saying "Hello!". The barista in the cafe here just offered me a free coffee! HA! So there you go, an improved attitude and a free drink. Another week, another series of adventures. They may be slightly more PG rated than a lot of people here, but there's still time ;)

Zen Buddhism, take II

I took this sunday to begin reinvestigating my spiritual side and return to explore the Zen Buddhist Temple which I once knew so well as a child and have since almost forgotten. But I think real spirituality like knowing how to ride a bike can never be really lost but rather just becomes slightly rusty if not used or given much attention for quite some time. Well it's time to oil my spiritual gears again. It's only now, far away, without family close by and without the pressures of school or heaven forbit a secure place to live, that I feel abloe to take on this challenge. I was doing some reading on line about the Toronto Zen temple that I grew up in and I found it really interesting to see and read the information as an adult. I could make the connections with people and place and time, but everything was somehow scued. I really liked reading the biography about Samu Sunim. I never know that there was more than one Sunim. I thought he could be the only one really there was NO other ultimate being on this planet. And i consider myself a lucky little creature to have gotten to be around such a venerable person. www.zenbuddhisttemple.org

I managed to find this absolutely amazing Zen Centre here. The Hwagyesa International Zen Centre. This is no hokey temple stay for tourists. Practicing monks and individuals come here to study and for retreats from all over the planet. I would like to work my way up to be able to do a week long retreat here this winter. www.seoulzen.org The large draw is that they do offer services and meditation in English. This is a relief because it's been a long time since i was in a temple period never mind remembering how all of the services go. Strangely enough, or maybe not so strangly, it was not scarry at all to walk into this space and to ask where to go and to begin practicing once again. I did a small orientation with an Australian monk directing the meditation. And I remembered what it was to sit in real silence. I brought the prayer beeds that my mom had given me and i counted my beads with each breath in and out and I began to relax into meditation surrounded by the quiet of others doing the same thing. We sat, stretched and walked in meditation in cycles of 30, 3, 10 minutes for 2 hours!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was like getting into the zone where time goes by unnotticed and you wake up some time later feeling like you have just lost several hours of your life. Not quite as there is always a sense of accomplishment, of having done something worth while to you that you were able to focus on so deeply that ime somehow dissappeared from your consciousness and you were really able to live in the moment. IT WAS REALLLLLLLLY HARD! I mean reallly and by the end I was hurting all over from holding myself still for so long. After the sitting we heard a talk by the head monk. My BRAIN HURT A LOT ALSO BY THE END OF THAT ONE! :) :) :) Following the talk was fruit and tea with the monks and I thought to myself "this could really be a worthwhile way to spend Sunday" In a remote temple surrounded by good virtue and positive energy. what struck me most was how happy all of the monks seemed to be and how lightly they approached everything but also how deeply they observed and thought about everything. We are not used to strangers being so happy and welcoming \I think. We are in fact distrustful of such behavior in general. But I think I will make the effort to go back as much as I can and to take from it what I can also. On my way home I felt like I neeeeeded to talk to someone about this expreience, so i went over to Andrews' to chill out. We ended up talking to his parents (well they phoned and I was there so short of hiding out in the bathroom I had to be introduced.) LOL! Then we went over to the local convenience store to meet his friend Jo who is the owner! Hilarious guy! Educated in the UK, he is more British than Korean I find. Plus, knowing more Koreans who speek english well is really a good thing!

This week I have plans to go to a soccer match and possibly out to a brauhaus with some other SMOE teachers. I may also have a coffee date lined up with a new friend, but we shall see.

Cheeeers!

Settled?..... getting there.

It has been 6 weeks since I arrived in Seoul which seems like an unbelievable long time considering it feels like I've only just got here. I also feel as though I am finally just beginning to really find my feet and be able to enjoy my time here. A combination of sleep, a relatively low stress job and lots of Kimchi seems to be doing me some good. I feel more relaxed right now than I have in over 2 years. That's a fact and I'm glad to say it. I feel as though I would have been soon sprouting grey hairs with all of the stress in my life. And frey hair at 25 is not particularly desirable. But my plan for revesring the signs of aging is to get happy and healthy and keep eating a lot of rice and sea-weed.

This past weekend was a right 'ol adventure once again. Last week I finally joined a gym. It rather old school and is TINY in comparison with the Downtown YMCA in Montreal, but the convenience factor of having it exactly 263 steps away from my house seems to outweigh say the fact that the eliptical trainer looks like it's from 1998. Friday night I went out afterr work with a bunch of SMOE teachers to hear some other teachers play a live set at "The Abby Road Pub". A tribute to a Brittish style pub (and the Beatles of course.) The set was good and the company was great! I realised that I hadn't seen a lot of these people since orientation and to be honest it made me a bit upset that I wasn't in a better state to go out and make more friends when I got here. I mean I can go around and be social with pretty much every new person i meet, but it seems like many "groups" for I don't know what else to call them have formed over the last weeks, and I suppose it will be more work to et into them at this point. Still I can try! I talked to a coupple people that I had thought were pretty cool at orientation but hadn't gotten their contact info. There was also the most adorable golden retreaver there to entertain us when the music was done. I ended up staying out too late and missed the last subway (bad). Thankfully I was able to crash at my friend Graces' appartment not too far away from the pub! Grace is another kick ass Canadian girl. She actually knows Paqtrick Jang from University, so we were sort of friends by connection right away as soon as we figured that one out. She mercifully had the largest bed that I've seen since I got here. Made my kids bed feel like a real joke. YAY for sleep! Not too hung over the next day, I headed to my favorite part of town "Insa-dong" to meet one of my favorite friends in Seoul, Andrew for a day of leisure. We met around noon and began our day by finding the most amazing many storied restaurant with an interior terrace. Table for two please! We shared a yummy beef bbq and then relaxed in the sun digesting our food and enjoying the warm day. Then we began out exploration of the many shops and art galleries in ernest. I found another amazingly cute pair of handcrafted earings ar Samzie Market and Andrew felt compelled to buy himself a pair of 13000 Won boxers and a nice traditional Korean tea cup (very pretty). OK! We also went to a coupple good shows at the Insa Art Center as well as a coupple other spots. Most of the art was ok, some of it was good a lot of it was not so good. But still worth while. Then we had a delicious coffee on a roof top patio and soaked up more afternoon sun. MMMMMMMMMMMM....... On our way back down the street, we came to a free family oriented open air concert which randomly featured a cast of opera singers! Deliciously random and awsome! Then Andrew had to go and meet some other friends for a houswarming party and I headed home to rest. I was at my transfer at Suseo, when I came accross this really cool littel clothing store which when I looked closer had all these american and european designers stuch between some truely hideous polyester clothing. I managed to snag myself 3 new work dresses, 1 sweater, 1 shirt, and 2 new coats for 45,000! AwSoMe!!!! I maintain my status as the ultimate bargain shopper! I also picked up a 4,000W coppy of "Casablanca". Classic! It was even better than I remembered. "Here's lookin' at you kid!"

Chuseok Weekend!!!!!!!!!

Is it general policy to be more exhausted AFTER a four day long weekend than before it? I guess it depends what you do with your weekend. Well in my case I sure made as much use of the time as possible and got out and ABOUT town. Chuseok is Korea's major national holiday where they go home and visite all of their family and honor their ancestors. It's kind of like Thanksgiving,... sort of. Either way, it provides tons of events for non foreigners to become more aquainted with Korean culture and also for Koreans themselves to take that one day a year to really celebrate being Korean. I decided that I was going to cram my long weekend with visites to places I hadn't yet been and with people I hadn't seen in a while. I stayed late on Thursday to make sure that i got all of my lesson plans done for the following week, then I was outta there. Friday was not terribly romantic. I spent the large part of the day doing things like cleaning my house and grocery shopping, but i did go for this really long walk and I discovered an ACTUAL river pathway. It was manacured beyond belief, with a squishy foam walkway and solar powered radio towers that broadcasted cheesie classical music, but it was nice in a non urban (slightly less urban way). Then in the evening I had dinner with my friend Andrew. He brought the wine -thanks dude! And we made sushi and ate and drank way too much. Excellent! I was super proud of myself for having bought Songpyong -a traditional rice cake filled with a honey sesame mellange. And was horribly angry to discover that they were AWFULLLLL! So Andrew suggested that we turn them into wish Songpyong and chuck them off the roof! Verry sattisfying if I do say so myself! Although I'm not saying what I wished for.

Saturday was fun! I went to Childrens' Grand Park with my friend Silvia to see the Namsan, International folklore festival. I had no idea what to expect, but it was actually quite lovely! We went to the botanical gardens, the fountains and the ZOO!!!! Poor animals. There was also an amusement part and plenty of lovely greenery. Expectantly enough there were also a LOT of children and while they can be annoying they were rather charming (as they were with their parents and we didn't have to take care of them at allll). It was nice to be surrounded by oung families considering our families are so very far away! The festival itself was amazing (what we saw anyway) our only misfortune was that it began to rain and the festival was unceremoniously cancelled on the spot. So Silvia and I headed over to the Konkuk University area close by for some chicken and beer! Woop Woop! I got soked going home, but it was well worth it!

Sunday was a rather quiet walk, rest, sit, think, draw, read kind of day that was culminated with an exciting dinner adventure with Silvia in her neighborhood. We decided to go and order Korean BBQ for dinner in a Korean BBQ retaurant. Sounds good, only none of the menues or staff had any English or pictures and somehow then lonely planet version of "I would like some...... " was just not cutting the mustard, but eventually we got there by pointing vigorously at a table near ours which had the dish we wanted and saying "Chu-seo.... " When they brought the food that was another adventure, because the charm of Korean BBQ is that they bring the food and you cook it, so that was a trick, yes, a trick.... eventually it all worked out and with multiple supplications for a bowl our food was spared from being burnt and we enjoyed a delicious meal. well done us! For dessert a cafe and as much whipping cream as possible on a large caramel, moka frapuccino type drink. YUM!

Monday was the most eventful day of my Silvia, Grace, Alice and I (all Canadian Connexion teachers) got together to go and check out the Bukchon Hanok traditional Korean village in the Noth western part of the city. It was absolutely beautiful. Seoul has this cultural resurgency program going on these days where they're trying to get foreigners and Koreans alike interested in traditional Korean culture. It's a very cool neighborhood. So old, you can feel it's oldness around you. Like when I was in Athens or Toulouse. We checked out a bunch of small shops and galleries including this amazing traditional tea shop where we stopped for a beautifully poresented cup of tea in traditional handmade porcelain. Then we continued our way towards one of the gems of the city, Gyeongbokgun Palace. It was the seat of the Korean Royal family and the Joseon Dynasty from the 12-20th century!!!!!!!!! It was taken over and faily destryed during the Japanese occupation of Korea. But for the past 20 years they've been slowly restoring it to its former glory and I have to say it is quite glorious! Like a maze of perfectly designed and structured buildings that form the perfect puzzle. The architecture was just beautiful althoughalso very simple. I find that the design quality and the lines are very harmonious. The chosen colours seem to be this burgendy red and this grass turquoise green. Complementary colours and the effect is great. Afterwards we went and explored the Insa-dong region of Seoul close by. It is fullllll of tiny galleries and art stores and one of a kind designer shops. SOOOO COOOL!!! The tea shops, cafes and restaurants are also increadibly beautiful and full of young vibrant energy. I also found some delicious little book stores that sold English books as well as an art supply store with good materials and reasonable prices! WOOOOOOOHOOOOO! I spent way too much money on books, art supplies, jewlery and food and I had fun doing it!!! Too bad for this whole paying back loans thing. At the end of the day we made our way back to the metro and home to get ready to begin our lessons once again on Tuesday morning. Back to reality. I'm definitely goi9ng back to Insa-dong this weekend to check out more of those galleries in detail. Amazing!

On a completely different note, my dad has been really helpful and supportive in helping me get work into an upcoming art fair in Toronto. It's a combination of established artists and new blood (ie me and 7 other young artists) I really hope I sell some work, becuase that would feel really great and also seeing those little red dots in your portfolio can't help but boost your confidence! Fingers crossed!

I climbed to the top of a mountain and survived!

The temple half way up the mountain was surrounded by wish lanterns, beautiful!
ENDLESS STAIRS!

The view from the top, WOW

650M UP!

Take that Rock mountain!

Last weekend got me in the spirit of going out so I tried to keep the good times rolling this week. On Tuesday I had one of those moments were you truely feel the joy and rewards for all of your hard work. Also the independence that making and having your own money as opposed to living off a student line or any other line of credit for that matter. I made an appointment to have a deep cleansing facial and felaxing back massage after school. To be honest I was kind of nervous. Because I had no idea if I should expect the spas here to be like the ones in Canada. But it was actually very similar in style and aesthetic and also much smaller and more intimate than I expected. I won`t go into the details, but I had NOOOOOOO idea that a facial involved sssssssooooooooooo many steps, toners,scrubs, gels, tools and peels?!?! The most off putting part was that i couldn't relax as much because I kept wondering "What the HELL are they going to do next?" The massage howeer was a different story and if I wasn't relaxed before that I was a large pile of mush by the time I left the spa!

But no rest for the wicked because on Wednesday afternoon, I joined several of the other teachers on a hiking trip to a mountain aptly named "Rock Mountain". Ok, I consider myself to be in fairly good shape, but this was something completely different. I grew up going on nature walks and I thought i knew what to expect, but this was not it. Indeed ROCK MOUNTAIN.... it was like 2 hours of trying to sprint uphill over large boulders! I say sprint, not walk because the teachers leading the hike were obviously quite experienced. I am never going to laugh at bad swimmers again!!!!!!!! It was killer and right when I was about the get bitter I saw these mountaineers leading a BLIND coupple up the hill followed by a VERY elderly coupple and I thought "YOU SHOULD REALLY SHUT UP NOW!!!!!" Even the blind guy is a better hiker than you. NOT in an extremely long time have I breathed that hard, nor have I ever sweat quite so much I believe. But I made it. They dragged me up kicking and screaming and my leg muscles were actually twitching and wobbling when we got to the top, but i made it. AFTER I CAUGHT MY BREATH AND THE SIGHT I FELT AWSOME! What I wasn`t expecting was the sheer terror I experience climbing DOWN the other side! The hike up was hard. The hike down was scarry!!!! There were guide ropes and metal spikes to place your feet in the particularly treacherous areas, but all in all it was the speed at which my party both ascended and descended the mountain which left me breathless. MAN, HIKING HERE AINT NO NATURE WALK!!!!! But it is fun in a painfully concentrated, sweaty kind of way. Nice. Most def worth it though! Enjoy the pics!

Dinner parties, wine tasting events, Norae-bang! and the Seoul Drum Festival! Yoohoo!

It is October 2nd and I've officially been working here for a month!!!! It fgeels like ages and ages longer and also like no time has gone by at all to be honest. Although I'm still commited to getting out there and seeing all that this awsome city has to offer I've been taking it kinda slow the past week. LOL! Not! Last Friday I went out on the town for my friend Andrews' 25th birthday. We went to this part of town in the north west of the city that is absolutely beautiful! It's called Gwanghwamun. It has a newly re-discovered and highly renovated river that runs through the centre of the city. We found the fancy version of Seouls attempt at a French cafe (Paris Baguette) called Paris Croissant LOLLLLLL!!!! The food and ambiance was super fancy and delicious and the wine was great! The good thing about drinking wine with Koreans is that they don't like it very much, so andrew and I pretty much finished off the entire bottle!!! We all then strolled along the river before trecking home.

Later that week we met up once again to go to a wine tasting party! It was at an English Hagwon near the Gangnam area of Seoul (much closer to me YAY!). The point of this party was to mingle in English ONLY and to learn how to taste and drink wine properly with the help of a somalier. They all failed miserably!!!!!! First of all, they were serving WAYYYYYYYYYY too much to each person for a tasting and secondly everyone there seemed to be more interested in trying to get drunk on wine rather than actually tasting the wine itself which was not only slightly rediculous but also hillarious to watch people chugging down these fine wines then headding back to the table for more. ....Unfortunately me cell phone camera wont let me download the shots!

Feeling slightly happy we decfided to continue the party and promptly went out to another bar for chicken and SOJU type daqueries (YUM!). Andrew and i attempted to teach the rest of the party how to play some choice North American drinking games (everyone just does shots there so its quite easy) We also tried some Korean drinking games, but i find that they are slightly less hilarious.

Feeling really happy, we decided to keep the party going and go SINGING!!!!!! I had my first official NORAE BANG (Karaoke) experience in Seoul!!!! It was hilarious! We went to this really posh club with private rooms filled with a large screen TV and sound system and scads of pillows, mics, and percussion instruments, not to mention mirrored walls! Woo hooo!!!!! I've decided that I can't sing to save my life and I always pick bad songs, but it was still a blast.
I will definitely go again at some point, maybe with fewer Koreans though because they kicked my assssss!

Saturday I continued my adventures by hitting up the Seoul Drum Festival with some of the other English teachers. Honestly it was outrageous!!!!! It was soooo good! We saw 4 different traditional Korean drumming acts as well as a Brazilian act that was slightly out of place but still very amusing. brazillians sure know how to shake it!!!!!! SEXXXXY! It was all very nicely orchestrated with hundreds of lawn chairs all perfectly lined up into rows and sections...... no blankets or dancing pits need apply. My years of visiting the Tam Tams on Mount Royal left me extremely torn about how I should behave at such an event. My body said to start dancing around on the grass like a maniac, but my appreciation for not disturbing the peace kept me in my seat for most of the performance. Finally near the end of the evening, my friend Grace and I faced down to the front of the stage where all the kids were hanging out so we could be front row and centre for the final act. It was amazing!!!!!!!! Traditional Korean court music which was not only really difficult music, but like friggin' gymnastics as well!!!!!!! At the end of the performance all of the acts came out onto the stage and invited all of the audience up ont to stage as well!!!! HA!!!!!!!!!!! All of the sudden there were 100 people dancing like maniacs (including yours truely) on the stage along with all of the performers! It was soooooo funny and by the end of the event we had met up with a large number of SMOE teachers that we hadn't seen since orientation but who had all found their way to the stage for the dance party! Classic! We all headed over a coupple of stops to KONKUK University for some wings and beer. It was really nice to hang out with all of these foreigners and realise that "Oh, yeah! There are a LOT of people here to meet and party with!" Sometimes I forget as I spend most of my time with Koreans. http://drumfestival.org/

Some of my favorite works from the Seoul International Photo and Print Fair

Choi Sung Chul

Damien Hirst

? oops!

Li Guanxin

Installation: 1000's of dude rags folded into origami covering the museum.... wayyyy!

Gotz Diergarten

Julian Opie

Robert Indiana

Lee Hyeyoung

It was really interesting to see a real mixture of eastern and western art being presented. There is such a stron graphic quality in a lot of the work being produced by Korean artists. I'm excited to see more!