We're back!

Hi everyone! Thanks to everyone who wished me a happy birthday! Indeed, it was quite a happy birthday - although quite a different one... However, that's not what I want to talk about first!
So here is a fun picture-filled blog post for all of you to enjoy!

Before we went on our merry way to Daegu, we stopped by the vet for Tank's rabies shot! Yay!!! He was so excited to get that... haha not... In any case, we asked her to pose for a picture with him and thankfully, she accepted.

OK, I KNOW she doesn't look exactly like my mom... but can you see why she would remind me of her? Can someone see some kind of resemblance or does everyone just think I'm crazy?

Anyway, we don't know what her name is but she's super good to Tank and I think she loves animals a bunch. There's about 3 or 4 vets within a 5 minute walking distance from us but once we met her, we knew she was the one!

Also, I know a bunch of you heard about Paul's infamous beetle that cost us 10,000W and then proceeded to die 3 days later... but not before it attacked Paul's arm. Let's not get into the 5,000W pupa that died shortly after shedding its outer layer... Here he is - we didn't even get a chance to name him!
Look how happy Paul is with his beetle! And look at the beetle rearing up to roar!!!


And a better picture of the beetle.. haha He is crusted with banana-y dirt.


And so while we took him out to take this picture, the little pooper decided that he did not like Paul's watch and started to attack Paul's arm, biting and scratching!!! What an ungrateful little insect!


Anyway, Karma caught up with him and he died... so his carcass has been sitting in his little blue tank for a couple of weeks now... Anyday Paul...

On the day before my birthday, the office held a cute little birthday party for me! And lucky for me, it was also pizza day!


Here are pictures of our office workers!
Ari - he is a vague asian from Canada who says that he's part Japanese and maybe other stuff as well. He sits next to us at work.


Here's Paul. He sits next to me. He loves potato pizza... lol. He's learned a lot... it's crucial to know that potato is THE best root vegetable/starch/thing in the world. Carrot is such a lame excuse of a root...

And BTW - that is Paul browsing somethingawful. We are super productive at work!

And here is Jackie! He is bringing in my cake! Here is my analysis of the cake.
It was a 3 tiered vanilla cake on buttercream frosting topped with a milk chocolate ganache and then decorated with a GIGANTIC milk chocolate bow. Jackie (the one wheeling in the cake) ate the entire bow. It was impressive. The cake was a little too spongy for my taste... and was pretty lacking in the taste department.... but I don't think taste was the main purpose of making that cake. The buttercream frosting tasted a little too much like butter... and was not very sweet. Seeing as it didn't completely melt, however, I'm guessing a lot of it was also some other fat... I'm guessing lard as I didn't really taste the shortening flavor... who knows?
The decoration, however, was gorgeous and very neatly executed.. which I think is more important in Korea than taste.
The girl to the right of Jackie (from Jackie's POV) is Sunny. She's a new receptionist. Paul thinks she is hot. To the left of Jackie (or to the right of him if you're looking at him) is Chris. She likes spending her money on $500 jeans and overpriced Viao (although, I have no room to talk). She's super nice though and really friendly. She studied in Canada but she qualifies only as a "Korean" teacher since English isn't really her native language.

Here she is holding Tank! Tank came to the office that day because we left from the office directly to the train station. Their shirts match in color! She actually bought Tank that shirt when she went to buy her computer. She super loves Tank (who doesn't?) and has a yorkie of her own (who is 13 years old~!) Just yesterday, we bought strawberry houses for our yorkies from an internet vendor. It should be coming tomorrow so I'm super excited! Pictures will come soon :)

Last but not least is Arnold - the head teacher. We don't have pictures of Jose or Hanif because they weren't in the room at the time... He's now 30 and has been working at 7s for a long time. I guess he likes working there a bunch. He pronounces Florida really weirdly and also has a tendency to send e-mails to us instead of talking to us although we sit directly behind him. He's a really good guy and compared to most bosses, is really awesome. He actually cares about the teachers here and always makes sure that there aren't communication gaps. He also doesn't say stuff like "oh, you just don't understand the Korean culture" and doesn't sexually harass us.

OK so after work, we tried to get to the KTX station (which stands for Korean Train Exsomething).. haha. But we missed it by a) going to the wrong station and b) being caught in traffic. So instead of catching the bullet train that went to Daegu in 1.5 hours, we had to take the Mugunhwa that took 4 hours. It was miserable because they only turned on the air in 2 minute intervals and the air was very very very very humid and hot.


Look, even Tank is miserable. However... compared to the KTX ride back to Seoul, the leg room on the Mugunghwa was pretty great.


Once we got to Daegu, we were so freaking busy, I didn't really take too many pictures... but here are the few that I did take.

This is my oldest aunt on my mom's side. I don't think she's aged much in the 10 years I haven't seen her. My mom is also REALLY starting to resemble her sister.... so much that it scares me. She crocheted that red shirt she has on. I told her that her skills are better than my mom's but their patterns are pretty much the same... I guess that happens when you're sisters...


And here is my mom's younger sister. She cuts hair. She permed my hair... and it came out reallllly well... but then she kind of screwed it up by blowdrying it... so now my hair is damaged... and not curly.


This is a picture of one of the street vendors.... he is selling live squid from his truck. At least that's what the red letters say... and the stuff they were throwing around looked roughly triangle-y...


Sorry.. there aren't any more pictures from our trip.... But here's a picture of Paul with Tank in his pocket. We thought we'd take one to compare with the one a couple of weeks ago to see if Tank grew. He did :)


So that's it for now. Again, thanks for all the birthday wishes!
Coming up next - videos!!!!