Thanks to YouTube, below are some of the acts from the show.  I have no idea what the woman in white was singing about, but the song was damn catchy.  After the show, Thomas, Kristy, and I were singing the only word we recognized from the song: Alegria.  Before attending the show, I thought it was called “al leg ria,” as in a man’s name, a lower appendage, and the last syllable of the name Gloria.  Boy, was this American bumpkin’ ever wrong.  I was soon embarrassed to find out how much I butchered this word.  It should have rolled off my tongue as “ahl leg rhee ahhh.”  See below:

[audio:Alegria.mp3]

[youtube]http://kr.youtube.com/watch?v=smkiSJf2cHE[/youtube]

If there was to be one act we liked the least, it would be the two Mongolian contortionists.  Is it just me, or does it seem unnatural to see someone sitting on their own head???  Yikes!

[youtube]http://kr.youtube.com/watch?v=8nEsgpGJbr4[/youtube]

After the show, we showed up at Star Chef with our party of 12.  At Star Chef, the salad is always the belle of the party:

Shrimp:  Before and After

Me: Before (dinner) and After

Definitely check out Cirque du Soleil while they’re still in town.  If nothing else, their churros are fantastic!

[View the night's Flickr album here.]

I liked both of these sweet wines, but the one on the right had a nicer after taste.

Salad and carrot soup.

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 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.

(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.

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.

We also talked about our love of Juno‘s soundtrack. Here are some songs from the album.

Barry Louis Polisar – All I Want Is You [audio:01 All I Want Is You.mp3]

The Moldy Peaches – Anyone Else But You [audio:17 Anyone Else But You.mp3]

The Ansy Pants – Tree Hugger [audio:15 Tree Hugger.mp3]

• had to wait 15 minutes for amazing Japanese ramen near Hongdae with Ras, Reardon, Barbara, Kevin, and Amy.
• made Ras buy an Atoma notebook at Paper Republic.  They’re one of my favorite notebooks because of their disc binding system.
• had dinner and drinks with Kevin and his lady in Sinchon.
• went to the Superbowl with Kevin and Ras.  Good times.  Good drinks.  Good company.
• had people over Wednesday for a Sollal potluck.
• Joel and Bart came over for pizza, beer, and Arrested Development on Sunday.
• watched the 2nd season of Friday Night Lights, and asked Ras why we can’t just see all the exciting plays in real football.   He tells me it’s called SportsCenter.  Boo.
• watched the last season of The 4400.  Thank god it’s finally over… I was getting tired of it.
• been eyeing the game in my living room and think it’s too bad you can’t play Pictionary with only two people.
• did LOTS of recycling today and took out seven bottles of wine from Wednesday alone.  No, Mr. apartment security guard/recycling organizer, I’m NOT an alcoholic.  My friends are.

Here are pictures from that night:

Mat gave us the recipe for the stuffing and it was fantastic!  We also had another turkey, which is good for anytime of year.  Yeeaaah!  It might look burnt, but was perfect on the inside.  Even the white meat was juicy.  Too bad turkey is a seasonal thing at Costco.  After the first Thanksgiving meal, we bought another one and had it in the freezer for two months.

[View the entire pictures from the day HERE.]

After finding Greg, we immediately went to look for something to eat. Our first meal of the day would be Thai food. There wasn’t a big selection at the food tent we went to, but it was pretty good. They didn’t Koreanize the taste at all.

Our day can be summed up by this: eat, drink, walk, eat, drink, walk, eat, drink, drink, drink.

There were food and merchandise tents as far as the eye could see.

We took a break here because if you ordered the 2000 won pajeon, the dongdongju was free. How could you pass that up?

We also ate spicy hot wings, covered with Texas Pete hot sauce (the best sauce, as proclaimed by Mat and Ras). While the lady was making the wings, she accidentally broke the bottle of hot sauce. We were devastated, since it was the only reason we stopped under her food tent. Luckily, she had her son run out and get a new bottle. While eating our wings, we used about 1/4 of her new bottle.

It would not be a proper Korean festival, without half a pig roasting.

This looks so good! Especially the crispy butt to the left. A typical serving for two of this roasted pork runs 20,000 to 30,000 won. It’s delicious, but not cheap.

This is where we spent most of our time. It involved draft beer and people watching.