Yes, I'm still alive...

So that hiatus proved longer than anticipated. My humblest apologies. My school computer recently blocked the blogger website so I can't blog at school, and I'm still waiting on a replacement power cord for my duh-duh-duh-Dell. But life has been good since you heard from me last...and as of today I've been here just over 4 WEEKS!!! That's a whole month gone! I can hardly believe that I have only 11 more to go!

I'm blogging right now on Hil's new fancy-schmancy HP Pavilion. She blew her first paycheck on a computer, I blew mine on a DIGITAL CAMERA!! So now my blog will be colorful. I haven't taken any pictures of the apartment yet because its not clean :( But someday soon it will be. Probably tomorrow even. Anyway. Here's an excerpt of an email I recently sent to my uncle...it pretty much sums up my thoughts on Korean driving:


"Korea is loud, busy, crazy and dirty! There are so many people and none of them seem to follow any laws/rules/patterns of behavior regarding safe and proper traffic flow (pedestrian or car). I never realized how many expected behavioral norms we have in the States. For example, we stop at red lights. Why do we stop at red lights? Because we're supposed to. Why do people stop at red lights in Asia? Oh wait. They don't. Not conducive to getting them where they need to go. Pedestrians? Oh, you mean targets. They should walk on the sidewalk to avoid getting hit. Wait, there's no sidewalks? Then they'll just have to walk down the side of the very narrow street. And there's a rule about which side of the street you walk down right? With traffic, against traffic...oh, no. You walk whichever way suits your fancy at the time. Maybe right down the middle of the street.

General Rules of Korean behavior:
1) Do whatever you want whenever you want
2) When you are impeded from doing what you want, honk or yell loudly, perhaps shove or push, and just maybe, hit them with your car

ITS CHAOS! CHAOS EVERYWHERE!"


For a country of millions and millions of people, they certainly don't operate very efficiently. And they could use some efficiency. Perhaps a study on Frederick Taylor's theory of scientific management. But I digress..


Tomorrow after church Hil and I (and some people from orientation and church) are going to the east coast for a retreat. It'll be a nice escape.


Okay, here are a few pictures from my first night on the town with my new camera! These are pictures of Leigh and Hil at Yongsan, an electronics market-area in downtown Seoul:





















Yes, I realize that some are blurry, and I assure you that it is because of user error :)


More after the retreat! Love you all!


Jess