The New Year had begun!

Since Christmas we have been keeping busy both on our vacation and since we have returned to work. After Christmas we decided to go to a cafe that has a Dr. Fish. Dr. Fish is a kind of pedicure, basically you put your feet into a pool of fish and they eat off all the dead skin. We went with Brian and Stephen and on the way stopped off at Krispy Kreme where Don finally had his first Krispy Kreme doughnut.

Upon arriving at the cafe you can't really tell that it is any different from a normal cafe but soon you see the Dr. Fish Zone sign! We ordered a coffee, which is required and paid our 2000 won for the Dr. Fish experience and had a seat. They have a break bar where you can eat as much bread as you want, which is pretty nice. After our snack and coffee we made our way to the Dr. Fish Zone and had our feet rinsed in freezing cold water before we put our feet into the fish pool. Even though two groups of people went before us the fish were still hungry and began eating away immediately. It was super ticklish and I was pretty tense the whole time with trying not to move. We were allowed to stay there for 15 minutes, which was more than enough time for me. It was a fun experience and my feet did feel softer afterward.

On our way home from our fish pedicures we encountered the craziness of the subways at rush hour. We got onto a subway that already looked too full for anyone to get on but the 20 people behind us didn't seem to think so and they literally will push you until they are in. We were pretty snug, and there was not risk of falling over since we were packed in so tight. Since we were only going one stop it wasn't too bad but getting off the train was almost as fun as getting on since when you are shoved on you end up no where near the door, but we managed to get off using our new found Korean shoving skills and our body checking skills learned growing up playing hockey in Canada, hehe.

For New Year's Eve we went to dinner with a few friends and then made our way to a local bar that many of the teachers frequent where we received a drink on the house and some of us played darts. It was a nice relaxing evening away from the crowds of more popular New Years venues.

A couple days after New Year's Don and I made our way to Hongdae, an area surrounding Hongik University. This area has a lot of young people and is a very popular club spot in the city at night. We went during the day and explored a bit. We went to Subway for lunch, we have been missing sandwiches, since cold cuts aren't really found anywhere here. We saw a few funny restaurants. There was this guy selling cotton candy and he had a huge dog, well huge for here anyways. He wanted Don's lolly. Then there was Jaws Food, not sure what kind of food it was. And finally Mr. Wow which was a sausage/hot dog place, I hope this is self explanatory.

Before returning to work we made our way to The War Memorial of Korea, which is a huge museum containing war artifacts from this area dating all the way back to the prehistoric age. There was so much to see, read and do. This was the best museum that we have been to here so far. There were models of everything that you could imagine, there were amazing statues, vehicles of every kind that you could touch and even go into. There were many dioramas of battles and of scenes after battles. You could see uniforms worn by Koreans as well as their enemies and their allies, it was all very interesting.

It was also nice that the museum really pays tribute to the countries that fought for them and with them in various wars. There are plaques and monuments with flags showing the many countries and describing their role in the war. It was nice to see a piece of our own history here.

It was amazing to see what the conditions were like in this country not that long ago. After the Korean war the country was pretty much in rubble and people were living in boxes and starving. They have come so far so fast, it is truly amazing and hard to comprehend. The Korean people have a strong determination to succeed and they have a lot to show for their hard work.

This is a simulation that they had that showed what would happen if Seoul was hit by an atomic bomb, not sure what this was supposed to accomplish other than make people want to leave, but it was interesting to see how soon we would feel the effects. Our apartment is in the blue zone.

I know this might seem out of place but the museum also had a big bouncy room for kids. I guess this is their reward for sticking out all the boring grown-up stuff with mom and dad. They also had these big colourful characters come out and put on a show for them.

They had rockets, tanks, planes, ship guns, trucks, and more outside. You could walk right up to them and some you could even climb inside.

After the museum we walked to Itaewon and went to Gecko's for lunch/early dinner.

So we thought that the snow on Christmas Day was a treat but then we had the blizzard that broke all records in South Korea. On Monday January 4th Seoul received 26cm which is more snow than has ever been recorded since they started keeping records in 1937. It was a good sized dumping of snow even for Canadian standards. Public schools were already closed here for winter vacation which runs from Christmas to some time in February so they didn't have to close for the day. However, all of the private schools closed on Monday and the shuttle buses did not run on Tuesday either, but the schools were open for students who could find their own way to the school. The main roads were pretty bad but were eventually cleared. The other roads still have not been touched and I don't think that they will be, they don't have the equipment here to clear snow. The day of the storm we saw people trying to sweep snow, with every kind of broom.

Today we went out to find the New York Fries that we heard was in Gangnam station. It is probably the only place to get a decent poutine here, and we found it, and definitely enjoyed our poutine! Don saw a shirt made just for him, but the lady at the shop was mortified thinking that he wanted to buy it for himself because it is not "big size".

After our poutine, we jumped back on the subway and made our way to Techno Mart. This is a mall devoted to electronics. It is 9 floors of TV's, Cell Phones, cameras, and more. We went to buy a new web cam because we have been using the one built into the laptop that we have and it isn't the greatest. Our new web cam is great and even has lights on it so that we can use it in the dark, if we for some reason needed to. Don also found a cover for his new ipod. The first booth that we went to told us that they were charging 25000 won (25$) for the cover and we gave them a look of disbelief and walked away. Then about 10 feet away we asked another person how much he was selling them for and he said 6000 won (6$), a much better price which we bought it.

Some other stores in the Techno mart building. I thought that the store names were funny.

Don liked the instructions posted above the urinal. Just in case you are not sure where you should aim, this might help.