Hana Bank is on FiYA!

This Friday was like any other Friday, nice day, a little chilly, but otherwise quiet. Jake and I were off to the bank for a relatively banal event of paying bills and getting a bank card - until we get sight of the main branch building shooting out flames from the roof.

You don't believe it at first, it seems so strange to register, only until after Jake said, "Oh. The buliding's on fire." Then I saw that yes, that orange flame and billowing smoke should NOT be there. Jake, despite this handicap, decided the fire was isolated enough and he had enough time that he went and got his card anyway. He said that after he got his card, he informed the bank that their building was shooting flames, to the panic of all the staff. I had my camera, and I stayed outside to film the action.

Thankfully the fire was out before much damage was done, and the firefighters did arrive and all was well. But still, some excitement all round. (The awesomeness that is video is available only if you look at the post in blogger.)

Couch surfing: Alex - Nov 9 - 12

So my second attempt at couch surfing was pretty successful. Meet Alex, a Russian Torontonian well-travelled and just starting a new 4-6 month backpacking journey in Asia. We totally had fun hanging out, and he went on this temple stay at the Zen Buddhism Centre. I think I'm going to head there myself soon.

So after his temple stay, he came back to stay a couple more nights and we went to Hongdae to scope for some electronica. We ended up going to M2 bar, which was playing some kickass trance. We were the only foreigners there and the place was pretty empty, but it was all good, we danced as much as humanly possible. At first people were a little shy, but with two people dancing full energy, it eventually gets contagious and the place was pretty hoping at one point. This one guy kept saying, "The best!" and giving me thumbs up :P It's a nice release, dancing like that. I hadn't done it yet in Seoul because all my coworkers aren't into "techno." Le sigh.

Staying out until 4 AM on a workday rules. Here's to 2:00 PM start times for work!

Couch surfers and Palacing - Nov 3-4

I had my hosted my first couch surfers this weekend. Dan from Mexico and Jon from Sweden. A good way to think of them as holding out their thumbs and a sign: "have hedonism, will travel." :P They'd been traveling all around Asia, and they'd just taken a train/ferry from Russia. They actually came on Thursday night, which was a Sean's going away party. We all had a pretty good night.

It was interesting having people over. The first night was mostly crashing after being at Pop's pretty late. On Saturday we went to the Deoksusung Palace and Nomdaemoon. We got to see some changing of the guards ceremony and the market was spectacular.

Halloween @ Jackie's

This Halloween wasn't so much partying as it was getting used to Seoul, but I did do some Halloween festivities at work. There was some costuming and candy and games to celebrate. I went as a kitty =^_^=

Since there are three different groups of kids, I ended up putting on a costume three times! I was nearly sick of it by the end, but I'd really hyped up dressing up so I wanted to stay in the spirit. A lot of my classes all wore costumes, it was really cute. I don't have the picture (yet) but my level 5 class won the costume competition! They were all so cute.

Lex did a great job as a disgruntled Indian princess :P