sleep, or lack thereof

Right now it's pretty late and I'm just laying here in my room munching on some sushi I brought home from E-Mart this evening. It's pretty tasty I must say (and much better than the poor excuse for sushi that you might find at the grocery stores back home. Plus this was way cheaper too...I got a whole little box-full of tasty sushi for 4,000 won (about $4.00). Yummy...

Today I woke up waaaayyy later than I wanted to, at about 3:30pm actually, but only because I stayed out all night again last night. It kinda sucks though cause when I wanna hang out with people on the weekends I either have to stay out all night or crash at a friend's place. Of course this wouldn't be a problem if I was able to take the subway or bus home after midnight. But since the subway and buses stop running at that time I'm usually stuck until 6am when they all start up again. Last night was no exception.

To begin though, yesterday evening I met up with that Jason guy for dinner with him and some of his friends from Suji. We went to this little Mexican place in Samsung Plaza called "LaMerce" (or something like that I think). Suprisingly, the fajitas I ordered were fantastic, even rivaling some of the fajitas I've had back home. Overall I give Korean Mexican food a very enthusiastic two thumbs up!

Anyway, after that I left them all to meet up with Chelsea and her friends at WA Bar in Suji. It was a fun evening really. A bunch of us grabbed some tables outside and spent much of the time discussing politics and foreign policy (if you can believe that). I even ended up with a couple of pints of free Guinness (thanks again Mike)! The evening was only slightly marred when some British guys started vehemently discussing the reasons why America is such an awful country. Though I didn't believe that everything they said was based in truth (obviously) I could see where they were coming from and appreciated the debate. Still though, they managed to really piss off one of the other girls there (an American of course) and she stormed out without so much as a word of goodbye to the rest of us. By that time I was fairly tired of said discussion and just wanted to start heading home. At this point it was already about 4am so I figured I didn't really have that much time to go before the buses started running again. I said goodbye to the few remaining people there and hailed a cab to take me back to Ori Station where I was hoping to take the same bus back home that I had rode out there the night before. Unfortunately I couldn't find the stop for that same bus going in the other direction so I decided to wait it out and take the subway home at 6. In the meantime I went to one of those kimbap places and had a breakfast of bibimbap and kimchi, all the while reading the new Harry Potter book that my my friend Erin lent me. At about 6:05 I hopped on the subway and headed home.

But like I said, I slept until late today and only really got outside at about 5pm. I went to Yongsan this evening in search of bootleg DVD vendors cause I had wanted to buy some movies to watch (since I knew I'd be up all night again tonight and would have nothing to do). After Yongsan I went to Myeong-dong and once again climbed Mt. Namsan (it's such good exercise after all!). Following that I took the bus back to my neighborhood and walked around there for a while cause I still wasn't tired. Failing to make myself sleepy I resigned to come home and read more Harry Potter (not that I'm complaining). And so here I am...

Tomorrow I'm hoping to get up at a decent hour and get out to enjoy the day. This is another three day weekend cause there's a holiday on Monday (Liberation Day), so I'm hoping to do something fun. I was toying with the idea of taking a train down to Busan, but I probably won't considering I'm going out of town soon for that thing with the teachers from my school. So maybe I'll just roam around or meet up with some friends and go do something. Who knows?

And of course...some pictures of stuff!

our table at WA Bar last night

a new restaurant opening in my neighborhood today
(notice the scantily-clad girls designed to lure in unsuspecting customers...)

a shot I took from the bus of some cool-looking building (not sure what)

the exterior of Yongsan Station

inside Yongsan Station

the courtyard at Yongsan

the view from the very tip-top of Mt. Namsan (which was actually accesible tonight)

Looks like the pig is mooning you doesn't it? Makes me really wanna eat there...not.

this beautiful wedding dress I saw in a store window tonight, very old-fashioned

a red bean paste-filled steamed dumpling I had for dessert tonight (YUM!)

scary...almost all the churches here sport these neon crosses atop their spires...looks kinda eerie to me

and finally...the Costco near my school
(I'm going to get a membership there after I get paid again)