February 13, 2005

• The guys return tonight...

  
  

  A GREAT WEEKEND ADVENTURE:  Where to start?  Friday I was planning a Seoul-searching adventure by myself but lo and behold Roger who's fresh back from his 3-day trip to Japan decides to come along (Note to fellow travelers: adventures are always better when you have a friend tagging along).  We first set out for Songtan where we went on a shopping spree, Roger needed some clothes and I found a jacket, two pullovers that look great and a phone card.  After about 2 hours in Songtan, we ventured forth onto the bus to Seoul to head up to Coex Mall.  Coex is a pretty big mall when compared to other malls in Korea.  They have a huge bookstore with a huge English section.  I was pleased to discover a DVD copy of Charlie Chaplin's "The Great Dictator" for only $4.80!!!  In case you didn't know, this movie was Chaplin's first 'talkie' movie.  Many of the comedians who were famous during the 'silent' movies were not considered funny when they crossed over to the movies with actual speaking and sounds.  So Dictator would either make or break Chaplins career and it turned out to be a huge hit and is one of his funniest (in my opinion) because it mocks Hitler in the pre-WWII era.  Yes I was very very pleased to find a copy.  Exhausted and weary from the walking and hustle & bustle of Seoul, Roger and I decided to splurge for the KTX (speed train) back to Daejon.

  
  

       Saturday, I got to have coffee at Starbucks with Neesa, who is an English teacher in town.  It was very interesting to learn about the lives of English teachers, they teach between 260-280 something days out of the year (TCIS school year is 180 days).  We shared some good stories about kids and what to expect in behavior... she's got some really good ones.  Yes, a great person to know!  I learned from her that parents shell out close to $200 a month (price varies between English schools) for their kids to go to a 1 hour a week English lesson.  Yes, parents are absolutely nuts about their kids learning English!  Huge demand for teachers but the schools expect alot.  She shared, its all good but sometimes it tough because you don't get to travel as much as you would like.  Her next extended break is Chusok which is in September!  Later that night we went out to see the new Keanu Reeves movie, Constantine.  Hmm... its very... different.  I guess you have to be a fan of the comic book to understand it but its religious tones were neat about works and faith.  The story: the main character, John Constantine, tried to commit suicide when he was young but survived so he knows he is condemned to Hell when he dies, however he has a gift to see demons and believes if he sends enough demons back to Hell he can buy his ticket to Heaven thus escaping his condemnation.  Which he is told over and over that Heaven doesn't work like that, but yet he continues to fight the good fight anyway.  Its an interesting movie, its sorta long at points.  Maybe I would understand it more if I had read the book.  Reeves' acting overall was okay but I liked him better as the "what's going on?" type of character we saw in The Matrix, in Constantine he's more like "I know what's going on" we saw in Morpheus.  I wanted to hear his "Whoa", but alas it was not meant to be.  Very sad and yet a long way from Bill & Ted!

  
  

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  Will

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