Sam & EJ Come to Town!

Sam and EunJeong, our friends from Ulsan, had a wedding to go to in Seoul one Saturday afternoon, so we convinced them to spend the night in Andrew's empty apartment and hang out with us for the evening. We decided to take them to 'Wing and Wine Night' because that would be a perfect opportunity for us to rub in their faces how much better Seoul is than Ulsan! After the wedding, we met them at the subway near Andrew's apartment, they changed out of their wedding clothes and into their couple gear, and the four of us headed to COEX.

Sam is lookin' good in his Korean jeans!

It's hard to see, but this old Korean lady had a huge Michael Jackson cellphone charm dangling from her phone. It was amazing!

Individual shots

Damn pole stole the focus...

Wine, breadsticks, fruit and condiments!

Couple shots with the lobby Christmas tree...

Without matching clothes, you can't even tell we're a couple...

The only downfall of 'Wing and Wine Night' is that COEX is on the other end of the city, so it's a long subway journey home...

Christmas Cards!

As many of you know, this year we decided to send out Christmas cards. This is the sort of thing that Andrew loves, so it came as no surprise that he took it as seriously as he did. We spent an afternoon using the tripod and self-timer in our neighborhood and having passerby's take our photos inside of a mall. That was the fun part, and the easy part. The real difficulties came when we tried to print the pictures.

Naively, we thought we could just go to a photo studio with a picture and use their computers to add a message and make it into a card. That is not the way things work in a country that neither makes nor sends Christmas cards!

We ended up having to import the pictures into Microsoft Word, create the the whole thing using ClipArt and WordArt, save it as a PDF, and then finally convert the PDF into a format compatible with the computers at a photo printing place. It was far more work than necessary, but in the end, the final products justified the hassle.

Final #1

Final #2

Of the hundred or so photos taken that day, here are a few of the honorable mentions:

메리 크리스마스 and Happy Holidays!!!

Exploring - 여의도

After the market, we decided to keep following the Line 9 Subway and head to the next neighborhood (actually an island in the river), Yeouido, which is a main business and investment banking center for the city.

Crazy Lady

It's hard to get more authentic than a saloon on 2F

The 63 Building reflected in another

Being a major center of business,
there wasn't much to see aside from office buildings...

Strange Windows

Judy on the bridge to City Hall

The sidewalk along the river

Caution! Don't let this happen to you!

Too bad Gnome Bar was out of business...

Exploring -노량진수산시장

With more difficulty than necessary, we finally found our way into the market, our original destination. The entrance we found brought us in from above, so we were able to first look down upon the rows and rows of fish mongers and take in all the action at once.

Shellfish Lady

The Noryangjin Market is huge

Making his escape

Tentacle Close-up

I'm free!

Couch and Cold Storage

Meat Store

For sale at the meat store... :(