2009 - The Year That Was (Part 3)

I've never been one to respect deadlines ... and so without any apologies here comes a rather late instalment of nostalgia .. although can it really be considered nostalgia if it happened less than a year ago? What exactly are the time constraints on these sorts of things?



August

My first real trip to Seoul. The boys and I took the rocket to Seoul and spent the weekend celebrating birthdays, fighting zombies, and getting real sweaty with hipsters.  

I had a really strange visitor, and then at the end of the month I had an even stranger time in Thailand

September

Matt Rowe left. Damn.
 
That tall boy from North Carolina and I stumbled upon a tiny monastery nestled in a mountain in the middle of nowhere and found ourselves spending an afternoon eating oranges and drinking tea with two monks. Neither us nor them understood a word the other said, but there were lots of polite flustered smiles and even some dressing up.
 
 

And then the Swede came ....

... and I couldn't stop smiling for 2 weeks ...

   

.... and then Linus left. 
Double damn.

October

Korean Thanksgiving is called Chuseok and in honour of this even all the little wolves came to school in their colourful bests. Behold the beautiful little terrors...

Chuseok also meant a few extra precious days off so a bunch of us packed up and headed to the mountains for the weekend. Those stories are best left to the Koreans and the Chinese, who had little knowledge of English and thus are perfect keepers of our debaucherous secrets.

October also plays host to my favourite day of the year, Halloween. A day so unapologetically selfish, you can't help but enjoy yourself. A night when you get to dress up as whatever you like and run/dance/stomp your way around the city demanding sweets and favours with all the other tipsy monsters.

November

I developed a slight addiction to disposable cameras as the temperature began to dip… they really are the perfect partner in crime as they are light little creatures that cause everyone to smile a little wider at their presence. They embody nostalgia. We all have memories of owning disposables before digitals were so ubiquitous… whether you were carting one around a festival, camp, or school trip, if you were having fun in 1995 you had a disposable in your back pocket.

Little trips were also nice too … biking around town in late November - bet you can’t do that Canada!

We’re both from Canada, met at school in Ireland, and waited seven years to meet up again in Korea … sometimes the world is a small place…

December

The Hot Dog Catalogue entered our lives ....

... and we made kimchi ....

.... but really, I spent the entire month holding my breath waiting for my vacation so I could fly half way around the world and do this…