linda, aren't you proud of me?

Dear Linda,

I climbed a freakin' mountain today, and you'd better be proud, because it was really hard, and I'm never doing it again.

So I called Umma this morning to ask her which mountain I should climb, and she said she used to climb Dobongsan every weekend. Every weekend! It should be no problem for me to do just once. So Sharon and I took the subway for an hour to get there.

Here's me when I still had hope. I took this picture specifically for you, Linda. Please note that I'm eating corn.


I hope you like tragedies. This next picture was taken as we turned a corner. Sharon (who was speeding in front of me) said, "Esther, don't look up." And then when I looked up, this is what I saw:


This is the first of many hopeless views on my climb.

How did Umma do this every weekend? I'm tired, and I will go to bed before 9:00 tonight as a result. I didn't think I was that out of shape, but Sharon went up with me, and she had fun. I was literally saying things like, "I don't wanna do this anymore. I'm going to stop." and praying aloud to Jesus, asking Him to get me to the top of the mountain. It brought back those wonderful, ahem, memories of climbing mountains with you. I kept on thinking about how ashamed you'd be of me for taking so many breaks, then being so proud of me for actually getting to the top.

Oh, and we got to the top. Too bad is was too cloudy to actually see anything. So my proof of getting to the top is the map at the bottom of the mountain. We went to Jaunbong - that's right, the TALLEST ONE.

You would have loved this mountain, though, Linda. There's all these ajimas and ajishees in full-out hiking gear - nylon shirts, Nalgene bottles, and hiking poles. They were all so hard-core, and then they'd all find a corner and have a picnic. The wimps were the younger ones.

Linda, you'd be so proud of me and Sharon. We're eating so healthy because we're on this Daniel fast thing - no white flour, no animal products, no sugar. I was just eating pineapples. Aren't you proud? I'm eating like you minus the weird low-fat foods. They have these tofu chips which are amazing.

I need to go to bed now, Linda. I miss you, and I'm mad that I wasn't home when you were. I feel like I'm getting left out of family events. Especially when I get up early to call home at dinner time when I know you'll all be there, and no one is there, because everyone left already. That makes me sad.

You are going to move to Vancouver now, and you'll be far far away again, so Hardeep and I cannot visit you as easily, even if you insult him when he tries to help you. I miss you, seester.

love,

esther
P.S. I'm sorry for depressing you. I'm actually feeling pretty good. I wonder if that's related to the exercise.

my dear lisa

it's been such a long time, friend! i've been trying to keep updated by blog-stalking you and i love and miss you with every random picture.

so, you are being public blog emailed, which means that i'm going to have this email up on my blog as well. i hope you don't mind. i don't think you will...

i'm in korea! it's been about a month now, and i really hate my job right now (something i know you can relate to)... but right now, i'm reminded of a quote you put on your blog: "I do positively HATE my job, but whatever I hate my job in NYC!" i hate my job, but whatever i hate my job in seoul! i never thought of it like that yet. i need lessons in joy.

i've been thinking about you every once in a while here. in seoul, there are so many cute, cute things. there are some things that i know you would just love - the stationary, for example, is adorable. i was going to take a picture for you, but instead, i'll just send it to you in the mail. but keep in mind, that it'll take me a while to send it, and then it'll be a few weeks. but it'll be worth the wait... maybe. all the clothes are very cute, and some of it is super cheap - like about five dollars for a shirt is very common. and then some of my friends raised the question whether it's christian to buy nice clothes and i brought you up as an example of someone who worships God through beautiful things.

anyway, the reason you are getting public blog emailed is because i went to this amazing part of town - Samchung-dong - and my cousin took me to this cute restaurant that i know you would have loved. check it out.



Basak means 'crunchy'! this is the inside:



napkin holder on the table was neat-oh with this cool picture behind it.



bathroom! isn't it cool!



but here's the clincher. here's why i KNOW you'd love love love it:


HAND-WRITTEN menus! it looks like someone's journals, with little stickers and pictures on it.

anyway, i miss you, lisa... oh wait, i just remember why i didn't mail you that postcard already. how much longer will you be in NYC? let me know where i should mail you.

love to you, lisa lisa!

esther

all l is on!

ALL L IS ON!!!!

you are being public blog emailed! boo yeah! (read here for a description of what that is.) everyone will be able to read this email on my blog so i can share information with everyone whilst specifically addressing people. little brother Danny said that he thinks that "this will be a really neat way for you to kind of catalog your experience, conversationally."

Alllison, I'm emailing you specifically because i just took a dance class today and i feel awesome. tired? yes. light-headed and sore? more and more every second. but i feel inspired. i have forgotten what it's like to have a really good dance class, and i really do want to get better. trying as hard as i was and being amongst people who are so much better than me really opened my eyes to how much i've stopped trying at school.

okay, so this dance class is run totally in korean and it's basically a jazz class. alllison, i took THE BEGINNER LEVEL - the lowest possible level i could take and it almost killed me. okay, so i've never taken a dance class outside of school, but is this what i'm to expect? the little korean woman running the class may have been close to 50, but she was FIT - kind of like Robin if she was korean, and she was tough. maybe koreans work harder than the classes i'm used to, because after this class, no one left! everyone just stayed from 8:30 to 9:00 working on the combo (which, by the way, was long and really fast). alllison, i'm pretty sure if i keep on taking this class, i will be a better dancer come september. please, encourage me. now, i could sign up for a month of classes at 110,000 won for a month (~$110), or just a coupon of 10 classes for 130,o00 won, which i think is more practical because it requires less commitment, which could turn out being Bad News Bears, because i'll do a total of 10 classes for the entire summer.

good news #2! i went to this church called Jubilee (and it's awesome but that's for another email) and asked some lady about singing lessons, and she was all like, "oh yeah! totally! ...but, hold on, are you looking for opera singing, because the guy i'm thinking of is more musical theatre..." I KNOW! isn't that totally wack how i seem to be taken care of out here?

one last thing: you know how sometimes we like to talk about racism? do you think this applies?



maybe you can't tell what i'm referring to. i'll blow it up.


now, to me, it seems like they took a brown happy face and gave it a fro and called it a Black girl and a Black boy, but my friends here seem to think they're just sheep. I don't know. i suppose it's not very important.

okay, friend, i'm tired, and i'm going to bed.

good night/morning!

-esther

dear danny

dear danny,

i thought of you today. not only because i miss you and you are my favourite human being, but also because of this meal i had today:

in case you don't recognize it, it's ramyun, and that is your favourite meal. i ordered it from a restaurant. if you observe the colour a little closer, you'll see that it is faintly orange. that is because i was able to order it with a slice of process cheese on top. i thought this was just some weird thing that you thought up of all by yourself, but apparently not. fortunately, i melted it before i could thought to take a picture.

i have to go. i have to call our korean uncle. this is my fourth try. the other three times, i tried to speak korean (which failed) so they got what i can only assume is our cousin to translate. i think we're going to try and have dinner later this week. but, you know, i think it's important in this whole getting in touch with my roots thing - because if parents didn't move from korea, that's kind of where we'd be. weird, eh?

i also learned from talking with some other teachers here that our parents were some of the early ones to move from korea - that they were the adventurous ones. that makes me really proud and happy because as much as we've been outsiders because of our ethnicity in stoney creek, but also being so endrenched in Canadian culture because we were born here, our parents were doing big things and who we are is kind of a testament to that.

okay, danny, i love you, and i hope you don't mind being public blog emailed.

-esther

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