This is the view from my apartment on the 23rd floor.  This apartment isn’t as nice as my previous place, but the view is much better.  The picture is skewed because three photos were merged to make this panorama, but you get the idea.

In the background, you can see Anyang Country Club, which strangely, is located in Gunpo city.  The country club is owned by Samsung and is one of the most expensive country clubs in Gyeonggi-do, with an annual membership of about $30,000 USD.  They don’t take any more membership applications and is invite-only.

Anyang Country Club was founded in 1968 and the mission was to create a wonderful new golf course that would be as good as those in Europe, Japan and North America. Consequently Anyang is widely considered to be the Korean Home of Golf. 

In 1996 the club changed its name to The Anyang Benest Golf Club. The word Benest was derived from the combination of the words best and nest. Why? We’re not entirely sure.  

Robert Trent Jones Jnr was called in to renovate the layout and in 1997 a new more challenging and strategic Anyang was reborn. Amazingly, the course was sown using its own unique grass, named Anyang Jungji, which grows densely and stands bolt upright so the ball sits invitingly on top. 

The Anyang Benest Golf Club is run under the stewardship of Lee Byung-Chull, the founder of the Samsung Group and the objective was to create Korea’s best private golf club and a course that would inspire ordinary players rather one intended for tournament play.  

The course is cut through mature trees, which not only prove a challenge for the crooked driver but also brilliance of seasonal colour. This is a very special tract of land and it’s easy to see why locals call Anyang Benest “Home”.  [source]

 Magnolia and tulips.

Mother and daughter enjoying the tulips downtown.

The area of this hillside will be full of purple azaleas at the end of this month.

I finished work today at noon and had to catch a bus to Gangnam for a 3:00pm dentist appointment.  After finishing that, I returned to Gunpo and met my co-workers for a staff dinner near our school.  I ate so much meat that, had it been warmer, I would’ve had beef sweats.  Apparently, there’s money in the school budget for the staff to get together for an activity about once a month.  Previous events included the Christmas Party and dinner at Churrasco.  This month’s activity was dinner.  There’s been talk of going bowling, miniature golfing, or an outing in Yeoido for future events.

There are three foreign female teachers on our staff.  Here we are:

[Kristy (Australia), Melissa (Canada), and Me (America)]

Last night we had a housewarming party for our new apartment. I only invited my co-workers because our place isn’t that big. Including Jenay, who was my co-worker last year, twelve people dropped by. Hopefully, we’ll be able to get our friends in Seoul to come down for another get-together in the near future.

(above: Dave and Steve)

I have a Fujifilm instant camera and had everyone take a self-portrait with it. I hung up the credit-card sized photos on the fridge. No, my picture’s not there. I was going to take my picture later in the night but forgot about it.

Dave and Nathan try to open the Chinese whiskey, which was 50% alcohol! Needless to say, it didn’t go down too well. The hit of the party, though, was a hot bean dip I made. Ingredients: 1 can of refried beans, 1/4 cup sour cream, 1 cup of cubed cheddar cheese, and 3 Tbsp of Jack and the Bean Dip seasoning (which I brought from the States). It was then heated in the oven until the cheese bubbled. The dip was literally gone in five minutes.

Overall, it was a very good party. There was enough food and drink for everyone and our place was pretty cozy with the amount of people we had. I got to bed around 2am and slept in without a hangover in sight.

All the photos from the night can be seen here.

Ras’ KTX train from Pusan arrived yesterday around 4:45pm. Greg picked him up from Seoul Station and drove him home in about half an hour. We had some wine and waited for Jenay and Dave to come over. Greg’s been thinking about buy a new TV too, and was sold after watching the first part of Transformers on the big TV with the surround sound. At the same time, I also started downloading the 1.1GB HD season premiere of Lost (4×01).

The five of us went out to dinner and hoped the download would finish by the time we got back. We went to my favorite bosaam restaurant, which is a two minute walk from my apartment. This is the same restaurant we went to with Bart on a different occasion.

There were a lot of stories told throughout the meal, with dongdongju flowing freely.

A: How did you manage to smoke weed every day when you were 12 years old!?!

B: I had a paper route.

Greg also celebrated 100 day of not smoking cigarettes, so I gave him a 100 won coin to commemorate it. One of the reasons he quit was because his wife recently gave birth to a new baby girl - Jina.

After dinner, we went back to our place to watch Lost. The four of us were so excited (Jenay had never seen the show before). It’s been on hiatus for, like, five years. Click to continue reading my thought and SPOILERS for the upcoming season. And by spoilers, I mean, I know who the Oceanic 6 are! Continue reading »