a time to be so small

deery-lou.
i actuallly had a weekend, a quasi-weekend, but at least it was something. my health seems to be a lot better. whew! that was the longest time i've ever been feeling under the weather. it was so great to spend a majority of my quasi-weekend outside. fall is in the air. i can smell it. the leaves are starting to change, too. its times like this that i miss the new england area. this would be a great time to head out to a mountain or even one of the palaces i've yet to go to. got to work on that. anyway…i'm sure you all are sitting on the edge of your seats dieing to know what i did. so here's what jethan did:

friday
meet up with christine and anna at the manhatten bar. had two beers [didn't want to push it since i've been sick], ate nachoes [couldn't get enough of the cheeze whiz, soooo good], then left around 11:30 or something. very early evening.

saturday
meet up with my friend chen who organized a picnic outing for the day. there were about 7 of us that went. the destination was the national cemetery located in seoul. the national cemetery is where over 160,000 soldiers and patriots are buried. at the main entrance is the hyeon chung tower. under the tower are memorial tablets for soldiers missing in action from the korean war. the memorial monument [hyeon chung tap] is where they have memorial tablets to honor the soldiers whose bodies weren't found as well a jars containing the ashes of unknown people who gave their lives in the war. there's also the monument of unknown student volunteer soldiers most of these young students bodies were never found. it was kind of like visiting the vietnam memorial in d.c. nothing like enjoying the company of friends and good food with the dead. it was amazing how peaceful it was especially since it's in the city. we ventured up to the top of a hill where a monument for unknown warriors stood. the view was simply breathtaking. you looked out and saw seoul plus all the gravestones from the cemetery. we ate falafel, pears, and sweet potatoes. chen and jen challenged me to roll down the hill. of course i did. i took a little stroll and watch some people gather some kind of orange nut thing. while others were filling up their water jugs with spring water. these people literally were bringing in all their 2 liter bottles and filling them up. a little farther i found this road that went up hill. i debated about following it and finally decided to see where it lead. the sunlight was coming in through the trees further illuminating the red leaves of some of the trees. at the end of the road was a buddhist temple. they seem to pop up just about everywhere. it was small but nice. there was an old man sitting on the stairs to one of the temples singing. i felt so alive as i walked around. the engery was unbelieve. it felt somewhat magical and mythical. its strange because i've been to numerous temples in the past and never had a feeling like this. perhaps the dead were speaking to me. the was a giant buddha in the center and behind in were hundreds of little buddhas. i stayed for a bit then made my way back to the others. i didn't want to think that i disappeared or anything. eventually some of the others left and it was just chen, jen, and i. before leaving we went into the memorial monument and looked around. as we were leaving the main gates there were two soldiers standing guard. hyun-sik met up with us there and we proceeded to make our way out. but before we took a look at the old planes they had there. they were pretty cool. the entrance we came in from earlier was closed. we decided to climb the fence to get out. the four of us went to hongdae for some dinner. we had curry which was actually quite good. i ordered the chicken curry which of course being korea it ended up being fried chicken strips with mustard and then i had to pour the curry over it. we spent some time in a piercing store [no i didn't get anything done] then wandered into the park where all the punks hang out. after the park we went to mary janes where we drank pitchers of long island ice-tea. the best thing about mj is that they have free jello shooters and pool. they also play alot of 80s. toward the end of the evening the owner came over to our table and gave us a shot of something that tasted like licorice. not a huge fan of licorice but it was actually good. he told us that they plan of expanding the bar a little and adding tvs to play music videos. not sure how many pitchers were actually consumed but i finally left mjs at 6:30am. yes, i said 6:30am. which now takes us into sunday…

sunday
sunday morning came and i was still in mjs doing shots. i'm so not in my twenties anymore. i finally got home around 8am. i tried to sleep but i was so exhausted that i only managed to get two hours of shut eye. i spent my entire day watching tv on my computer. nothing like a complete waste of a day. no more staying out to stupid o'clock in the morning.

i'll post pictures from the national cemetery as soon as i get them uploaded.

be well…