Last night, I got together with thirteen other girls for a “Sex and the City” party in Suwon.  I traveled with Kristy to Jenay’s apartment and we had appetizers and drinks before dinner.  I brought a shrimp ceviche that Ras made, while Kristy made hummus.  Mojitos and cosmopolitans were our drinks of choice.

After drinks, we walked across the street to have an dinner at the same Italian restaurant I went to for Christmas.

When dinner was done, we all headed up to the 6th floor CGV to watch “Sex and the City” together.  I tried to stay clear of reviews for the movie so I wouldn’t go into the theater with preconceptions.  To tell you the truth, the movie was surprisingly good.  Sure, it had a lot of brand name dropping, and was a little sappy, but that’s what I liked about the movie.  It was uncomplicated and fun.  Definitely a good girl movie.

While Kristy and I were in Suwon, the guys were having their own “Entourage” night.  Ras, Eddie, Jeremy, and Bart hit the town and I met up with them after returning from Suwon.  They definitely had their share of liquid fun.

This past Saturday, Thomas had a work-in-the-garden and BBQ party on his farm, but unfortunately, I wasn’t able to attend even though I really wanted to. Almost two months earlier Raswan and I had signed up to take part in Kevin’s Sinchon Sportsapalooza: So big, it’s a “palooza.” Kevin did all the organizing and logistics for this all day event.

13 teams of four people (2 boys and 2 girls) competed against each other in various sports and activities in Sinchon. They included:

1. bowling
2. batting cages
3. Mario cart video game
4. air hockey
5. basketball shootout
6. billiards

Our team was called “Lastman Soccer.” The following is the story behind the name. Last summer, when Ras and Kevin were at the Yeoido swimming pool, they met a Korean guy there who was mentally challenged. This didn’t stop him from coming up to the foreigners and asking Ras what his name was. He said, “Raswan.” The guy said, “It’s nice to meet you Lastman! What’s your family name?” Ras answered, “Sockol.” “Lastman Soccer, ok.” Throughout the rest of the day, whenever they saw each other, this Korean guy would yell out, “Hello Lastman Soccer!”

Our team consisted of Ras, me, Jenay, and Ben. We met at Sinchon’s lesbian park (behind Hyudai department store) at noon to get instructions for the day. We received t-shirts, a bag with two bottles of the official sport drink of Sportsapalooza (soju), a map, and directions on where to go and what teams we were competing against for each event. For the 20,000 won fee paid by each person, we received the t-shirts, all events paid for, two pitchers of beer at “Watt’s On Tap” for our team, and a burger and fries for dinner. Not a bad deal at all.

(Above: The girls of CanAM Crushers (who won the entire event!) and Lastman Soccer. L-R: Stef, Gisela, Jenay, & me)

The two events Ras and I liked the most were the batting cages and bowling. I had never gone to a batting cage before, but was able to hit 11 out of 13 balls in the 120km cage. As the day winded down, we had dinner and drinks on the rooftop of “Watt’s On Tap.”

The day was fun - good times had by all. I think Kevin wants to have another Sportsapalooza in June or July, so I’ll post information on this blog as it come up. Thanks again, Kevin!

The entire album can be seen on Flickr.

Saturday night was Ben’s housewarming party in Suwon.  This is the “Ben” I went to Spavis with, not my brother’s friend.  What’s unusual about Ben’s apartment, is that he lives one floor of a Korean house.  I’m so used to going to people’s apartments, that I almost forgot what the inside of a Korean house looks like.

This is Hank.  Ben was watching him for a friend.  Hank’s a cute and docile dog that liked to watch Ras as he was cutting up the pot roast.

Ben lives on top of a hill, right next to where the Suwon cherry blossom festival was happening.  We didn’t check out the trees during the day, but went out at night instead.  It was sometime around 1:30 am, but there were quite a few people out strolling with us.

After the party, Ras and I spent the night at Jenay’s place in Suwon.  The next morning, she made us a breakfast of pancakes, bacon, fresh fruit, a fruit shake, and coffee.  We’ve decided to unexpectedly crash at Jenay’s more often.

You can see the rest of the photos here.

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.

The start of the new semester has been busier than I expected, and has kept me from blogging.  My last post was about St. Patrick’s Day, which I celebrated in Seoul, but still haven’t posted the pictures.  I’ve also moved into a new apartment and have been slowly settling in.  This post is the start of me updating regularly again.

Over the weekend, I took a trip with Ras, Jenay, Gisela, Eddie, and Ben to Spavis in Asan.  To tell you the truth, I’m still not really sure where Asan is.  While Jenay was driving, I remember seeing a sign that said we were 22 km from Cheonan… if that give you an idea.  Spavis is a spa with pools and water activities for the family.  There was an indoor and outdoor area, with different temperatured pools.  Unfortunately, a bigger outdoor pool for adults was closed because it wasn’t warm enough yet.  I had to be really careful with bringing my camera outside to the pool, but I couldn’t NOT take pictures.

I think the guys enjoyed having barbecue pork and beers at the food court more than the spa itself.

We all tried a little “fish therapy” where small fish will eat the dead skin off your body in a shallow pool.  Ras and Gisela freaked out when the fish started nibbling on them.   Ras: “I don’t like this at all!”  I don’t blame them because it was pretty strange.  To me, it felt like being electrically shocked or having your feet fall asleep and trying to wake them up.

I got used to it after awhile, but some of the bigger fish DID break skin and drew blood!  The cost was 5,000 won for 25 minutes, even though we stayed about an hour and none of the staff made us leave.

After Spavis, Jenay made us some phone calls to get us a room at a pension.  It seemed like everything was “full” after the pension owners figured out she was a foreigner.  Therefore she got her Korean friend to call and mentioned that we were all university professors.  Viola!  We got a room.   Later that night, someone told the pension owner we were on M.T. (membership training)!  She as really happy about that.

Our room was 70,000 won, with an additional 10,000 for the wood and grill.  Supposedly, the room is for four people, but the six of us slept there with no problem.  The only complaint were the noisy neighbors.  Just from the toilet flushes I heard in the morning, I’d guess they had at least ten kids.  The actual number was probably two or three.

We ate and drank and fell asleep way too early.  Honestly, the heat from the spa made me really tired.

We’re going to plan another outing in a month or two, when there will be more green in the country-side.  Next time, I want to stay two nights, and have time to enjoy our surroundings more.  In the meantime, Raswan, Jenay and I are planning on going to Everland in a week and a half because we all have Wednesdays off.