hey keely! i'm in korea!

Hey Keely!

It's Esther in Korea! It is Sunday morning and it still blows my mind to think that it is at night where you are. I think we might actually get some sun today, which would be really nice.

At this point I think I should tell you that you are the first in a series of experiments: a public blog email. I figure I'll be writing most people the same kind of thing, but people still want to be contacted in a some-what personal manner. So this email that I'm writing will be on my blog as well. Except with pictures and links. I hope you don't mind. You, of course, are certainly not expected to email me back in blog form, or really at all if you don't want to.

Anyway, I've chosen to write to you because you're the first person I specifically thought of while out here looking at stuff. I saw the Great South Gate yesterday, of which I knew nothing about until you. I remember you saying, "Hey, that gate thing burned down," or something like that. Then I said something like "What gate?" "It's like one of the only things to survive the last 600 years. How do you not know about this?" But that, of course, was in my white-washed past. Now I'm in Korea, therefore, very Korean. (ummm....)

Now I've seen it, and I was actually really surprised because I didn't know where it was - I didn't even know it was in Seoul, and I was just in Namdaemun Market, and then I was like "Oh! This is what Keely must have been talking about!" But I guess you heard it from pH, and we all know he's more Korean than I am, but now you are more Korean than me by extension.

Korea's fun so far. I've done a lot of practical shopping in high stress areas like the market. My lack of Korean makes me feel extremely prone to being ripped off, but never the less, it's fun, and the prices I get are never really that bad. My friends here tell me that it's expected that I bargain, but I don't even like doing that in English. And then add the fact that I speak very little Korean. It took me forever just to explain that I wanted a blanket. Then to demand a lower price seems ridiculous, when I can only use hand signs and the price must be written down for me every time. But I got a really good deal on a digital camera! The dude spoke really good English, and it was a display model so I spent like $130 on a 8.1 Megapixel, 3.6 zoom digital camera plus 2GB of memory. Not to my credit though - I just lucked out.

It would be cool to have you here. My apartment screams for your practicality and you always seem to do well with those kinds of things. Plus I think you'd have so much fun in the Market. (That's basically the only thing I've done so far.) And the cheap clothes shopping is plentiful. Today I'm going to Gangnam subway station to shop.

So the internet connection I've been piggy-backing isn't very reliable. Maybe they're figuring out that there seems to be way more computers in the area and are taking the proper precautions. I hope not. Just wait one week until we get our own! This means I'll have to post this email later, and it will neither be Saturday night for you, nor Sunday morning for me when this goes online.

Okay, I'm going to stop writing.

I miss you!

-esther