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…

Please Mr.White Tiger, Don't Eat Me Up! - SWEDEN

Most of the people I know over here in Korea hopped on a plane for a few hours, found some small piece of island paradise a friend of a friend recommended, and spent their winter vacations languorously spread across a beach chair sipping $2 cocktails .... I did not.



I took a train from Busan to Seoul (3 hours) + bus to the airport (1 hour) + played in the Seoul airport (3 1/2 hours - this I didn't mind. I like airports) + flew to Paris (12 hours) + 2 hour layover ... CHEESE ...+ flew to Stockholm (2 hours)

I guess I should somewhat sheepishly acknowledge that my major in university was geography, and yes I am aware that flying to Paris in this situation was somewhat redundant as I was almost literally passing over Stockholm would just going to back track ... but my judgement was clouded by visions of wine and cheese dancing in my head.

... but eventually I made it ....


... and it was more than worth it ....





... in fact it was quite delicious. Let's start with the food.
Swedish breakfast.
It is already very sorely missed. The key to it is to have a man make this for you. They butter the flat bread in a way only a men can, with a reckless disregard for hips and thighs, paying attention only to ensuring that inappropriate sized globs of butter cling to all the bread's nooks and crannies.
You name it, we shake it. Brilliant.



Don't you want to nibble on his sausage? Just for reference 7 krona = a little more than 1,000 won = around 1$ CDN.
This little Italian restaurant near Pet Sounds had the most wonderful fennel salad and shared a secret with me, I might miss Toronto a little bit.

Question - Are muffins the new cupcakes? Because the enormous blueberry "shhheasecake" beast we feasted upon was amazing.
We spent an afternoon wandering around the modern art gallery. They had a Dali exhibit which was alright - I liked this video - but in general the museum wasn't quite as goood as their hot chocolate.

Stockholm only gets a few fleeting hours of sunlight a day, generally it is pitch dark by 4pm ... and it got chillier everyday I was there. So there aren't too many outdoor photos.

Back indoors I brought a little Korea to the Swedes. Gonggi is an ancient and popular Korean children's game that all my kids play between and during classes. I brought over a set for each of the boys. It was a hit. The wolves make it look so easy ... me and the blondes soon learned it wasn't.

On New Year's Eve we headed over to Oscar and Ailyn's for dinner. Oscar is pretty much allergic to the world which isn't such a terrible thing when you come over for dinner because he'll make you 3 kinds of meats (chorizo, steak, and chicken), loads of gravy, salad with healthy amounts of avocado, and then for dessert you get Marängsviss.

After dinner we returned to the city all the while sipping on mini bottles of Jägermeister which we proceeded to lovingly place at special locations along the way ...

Eventually we found ourselves at one of her favourite places. It was a beautiful bar, filled with beautiful people, and decadent cocktails. I felt a little shy about bringing the camera out ... which in retrospect was ridiculous because despite all its beauty, most of the beautiful people in the bar looked so bored ... but not us. I couldn't stop smiling. We giggled in our chairs and drank our drinks and when midnight came around we were standing on those chairs and we kissed, and it was wonderful.

And just like that it was almost time for me to go... but first .... more food ....

I am Canadian.

I can build a fire.

I am quite proud of this.

Me: We should make smores and drink glögg.

Linus: Smores?

Me: Right. We need to buy marshmellows immediately.

So we made smores ... Gingerbread, with dark mint chocolate smores.




They were delicious .. and then it was time to go.

Puss puss.

Ps. Mary Flynn - I'm sorry I went without you. Next time?