This is an old video I did with Kirby Ferguson a few years ago... and this is how i'm feeling today!

Boo! I came down with tonsillitis yesterday at work. Waking up in the morning with a funny feeling in my throat I knew something was coming but hoped it would go away. (it never does)
Around 3pm the feeling was getting worse and I became dizzy and feverish. Maybe I was lucky that it was a rainy day and there were no customers.
The gift shop at Seoul tower had really cute sick masks, in various colours, I had a hard time choosing one but went with grey, cause I love neutrals! Wearing a mask when you are sick is very common here, and very considerate. I know back home people would think it strange if they saw me in one but not here, the only funny look i got was from some white tourists.
This mask also doubles as a sleeping mask, which is great because I don't have curtains and the sunlight always wakes me up early here.
So I left work early at 6pm, and went straight to bed. Yonie brought me some hot syrupy drink thats some kind of chinese medicine, but tastes sweet.
I slept right until 1pm the next day but didn't really feel any better. Yonie took me downstairs to the Vietnamese restaurant in our building for some beef pho, the spices were probably good for my throat but it hurt! She suggested we go to a masseuse to get my circulation going, but it was going to cost $40 so i was a little reluctant. She then suggested that we go to the doctor, because it would be cheaper, like $10. I thought that was kind of funny, but agreed.
The doctors office was super efficient. I only waited about 5 min in the waiting room, spending most of the time trying to make out a large sign advertising a weight loss treatment they offered (injection). The doctor asked me my symptoms, (yonie translated) then looked in my throat and said "tonsillitis!" he then stuck a little video camera pen in my throat and I could actually see the infection! I took a picture of it with my cell phone.

The doctor wrote up a prescription, and then the nurse brought me to another room and gestured for me to pull down my pants and bend over on a cot. Yonie said: she's going to give you a shot! I made a nervous moan and so the nurse slapped my ass a few times so i wouldn't feel the prick going in...which I found humorous and laughed.
Yonie told me to rub my butt hard, because otherwise it would really hurt later. It was already starting to hurt so I started rubbing. The doctors appointment cost me $15 which was pretty good considering I got the shot and I didn't have health insurance.
Down in the pharmacy I was given a gargle solution, and some antibiotics, a whole bunch of vitamin c and some more chinese medicine drink, and that cost me another $15. I was pretty impressed at how cheap it was, and how quickly the whole experience was.
My medicine will only last 3 days, and I was reading online that tonsilllitis can be 7 to 10 days, so we'll see how all of this plays out, but right now Im pretty optimistic, considering its 9:22 pm and already my throat doesn't hurt that much. If all goes well I may head back to that doctors office and get the weighloss shot after all.

Today I had the day off but had to get a special commission done, so I buckled down at Yonie's studio and got it done in 8 hours. I'm a slow worker. I'd share the finished product but I can't upload the picture until June, after its been gifted. I can't wait!
Yonie and I usually work out at the gym weeknights, after I get off work but today the gym was closed because tomorrow is a holiday. (?) Instead we crossed over the Han River and Went down to the walking/cycling path, it was already 12:30am so I was concerned that it'd be sketchy at that time of night but much to my surprise it was quite a magical atmosphere.
There were all sorts of small groups of people with their blankets sitting along the river side, watching the cars go across the bridges. People were exercising on the foot/bike paths that run along the river, there were couples kissing under trees and walking hand in hand. Small boats in the water, had people fishing, and there was even an outdoor free gym. It was kind of spectacular! so we power walked for 40 minutes and I attempted some pull-ups and various machines, and some sit ups, and we got to take in the atmosphere, which was way more pleasant than the stuffy little gym we go to every night.

well, i gotta get to work early tomorrow, to hopefully do well on children s day, but I'll leave you with this Korean music video full of fashion and colours eye candy.

Today Sean and I met up with our Manager Won-Young to watch Iron man 2 for his birthday. Won-Young is pretty cool, when I lost my bag on the subway he drove to 6 subway lost and founds to try and find it. And he loves ally mcbeal!

Speaking of birthdays, I found out that I'm in fact older here! In Korea, the day you are born you are one year old; you celebrate your first birthday when you pop! From that day on you age a year on new years day! So for example, say you were born December 31st, You're born 1 years old! The next day you turn 2! It's crazy, but whats even crazier is that while I'm only 27 turning 29 back home, here I'm 29 years old! OMG!!!
Another interesting thing about age is that its not rude to ask someone how old they are because of the respect customs they have for seniority. For example, if you are drinking (alcohol) with someone older than you (someone is always older!) the younger person typically turns their head away when drinking. Also if you are greeting someone older than you, you have to bow a little lower, and if you are shaking hands with someone older, you should use 2 hands. Receiving gifts (or anything, like money or if someone is pouring you a drink) is also a two handed affair. (you should also pour the drink with two hands)
I'm Terrible at guessing age here. The women especially really age well it seems. Its funny when they ask me to guess their age, I'm thinking mid twenty's and they turn out to be late 30's. I thought this boy at my gym was kind of cute, but guessed he was probably 21... turns out he was 29! So especially for foreigners, it never hurts to ask someone's age, and it definitely won't be considered rude.

By the way, for all you iron man fans, check out this hilarious video by the amazing Kirby Ferguson.
Iron Man Dance

Sitting and absorbing, its like 75% of what I do here, because most of the people I work with know slightly more English then I know Korean, and after almost 2 weeks the novelty of communicating with me is starting to wear off. Its exhausting! so I kind of sit around wide-eyed listening to Korean fly by, trying to pick up on words I recognize, and occasionally repeat things that sound cool and ask : what does that mean. eg. Nee-gah means "you"! hahahaha. so yeah, there's that.

Yesterday was my day off and it started out good, I went over to my friend seans house and we had a little lunch, grilled cheese and my specialty: doctored ramen. Then we tackled the subway to find an obscure art store. Lost, we stumbled upon a really fancy mall, with gucci, prada type shops, then I saw it, a glorious shoe store with manolo blahniks and jimmy choo's!!! the kinds of shoes I'd only heard about in movies, magazines and sex in the city!
I picked up a Jimmy choo and looked at the price tag, $1300 OMG> so i asked the shop lady, "what is your most expensive shoe?" she of course didn't understand me, so I tried to re-phrase and use gestures of money and up and shoe. she calmly walked over to her co worker and started speaking ominously like, no smile, not making eye contact, but i was so bedazzled by the shoes that i continued on my mission to find the priciest one. The one lady followed me around as i checked various shoes, like she gave me a foot of space, I started to get a little offended, okay clearly she things im going to steal a shoe, so i hurried up what i was doing and left the shop. $1700 was the priciest shoe I found btw. So standing outside the store, with good distance from the shoes we were trying to figure out where this art store would be on seans iphone, when two security guards came up to us and asked us what we wanted. sean and I were like uh??? and we pointed to the name of the art store we had written down and they in fact knew of it, but quickly and gently guided us to the nearest service elevator, pressed the down button and told us where to get off and where to go. So yeah, Pretty sure they wanted us out of the fancy store.

The Art store was amazing! i found these brush pens that you can't get in north america, i bought 5 of them (should tied me over for a while) and a travel journal too! a hello kitty notebook (for work ;) some korean sketch markers that i'm quickly falling in love with, some husky puppy stickers for Diana and some stationary to write you a letter! Hooray! It was hard to leave that store. so much awesome.

Next stop was the electronics district. Sean wanted to get some blue tooth earphones and I wanted to get a cheap small digital camera.
we found both! but the store was closing so I had to hurry in my camera purchasing decision, as it turns out the camera I got for $120 takes totally crappy pictures. Most of them have turned out blurry and over contrasty. I messed with all the settings to try and sort it out but still always crappy photos and the screen has some strange marks on it. I don't think i can return it because there were so many shops selling camera's in this place that even if I had received a receipt I don't know if I could remember which shop it was. (its kind of set up like a flea market/swap meet)

so thats a bummer, but then the biggest bummer of all happened next! on our way to meet yonnie (our boss) I left my bag on the subway! so all the new art supplies + drawing materials I already owned are gone. about $250 worth of markers, the ones I use the most.
It was like loosing a part of me, like the left heart ventricle or a couple fingers. the good ones, not the baby or ring. so i've been feeling pretty down about that. Yonie's manager Won Young spent a lot of time calling the transit offices and driving to lost and founds, but nothing turned up. between that and the camera rip-off I was feeling pretty defeated. I slept 11 hours.



So now its 2 in the afternoon, I'm at Yonnie's office now, and it seems like I've been ringed into teaching a few classes on my wedding commissions, which freaks the shit out of me because of the language barrier and I've never taught before. I don't know how to explain my "amazing technique" that everyone here wants to learn. I can honestly say, when i'm making a piece, I feel like i have no idea what I'm doing. But if I've got to do it, I'll just have to be positive about it, and besides I need the extra cash to replace my lost markers. The bright side is, it seems she wants me to make one or two new samples for the class, I don't think she understands that these take me a long time to make but Im thinking of doing one for some friends of mine since their wedding photos were so great and at the end of it all I'll have a present for them.

So how have you been?! Is warming up nicely over there? Its still pretty chilly here in Seoul! Man this city is huge! I had my first day of work yesterday, it was at Seoul Tower, which is about the same height as the stratosphere, maybe smaller, but its on top of a small mountain, so you can pretty much see all of Seoul from the top. This enormity of this place is mind boggling. what really adds to it is there are clusters of high-rises everywhere, not just in one "downtown area" its amazing. first paycheck I'm buying a digital camera to show you.

There is so much to tell you about this place i really need to get a journal to jot down observations throughout the day.

As it turns out, its not as hard to sell caricatures when you can't speak the language. There is much to be said for body language and pointing at stuff. ha! Actually there are some things about not understanding that I LOVE. Like I can't understand when someone is saying: "that don't look like them" behind my back as I draw. Ignorance IS bliss! I just keep drawing, ego in tact and produce some uninhibited jacked up drawings!

Drawing a little girl:


She wasn't impressed


This girl hasn't seen the drawing yet... hence the smile.

All that being said, I'm trying to power learn the korean language. Its a little tricky, but I've got 1/2 the alphabet down and some basics, like thank you, good bye/hello, that bitch is crazy, I'm hungry, this is delicious, where's the bathroom, etc.

I was having some issues with the public bathroom practices over here, seems like businesses, namely restaurants don't want to have a bathroom in the store, so they have one on the side of the building, usually accessed by a dark damp alley, usually pretty gross and usually the eastern style toilet, aka: the squatter. Also, as it turns out I have to use the bathroom about 4 times more here due to the drastic increase in liquid consumption, soups with every meal, green tea, water and free coffee everywhere!

Yesterday I worked 10 hours then went to the gym, yeah i joined a gym down here, its kind of a dump actually, so i'm a little annoyed i decided to join but my boss really wanted a workout buddy and with the healthy eating I may as well take full advantage of this situation. But all the equipment is old and they gym itself is super small and crowded. they do have some hilarious old timey equipment though, like one of those belts attached to a motor that "shakes" your fat. I put it on my belly then butt and couldn't stop giggling, the whole gym was staring at me. hahaha. fun times.

Then there is the other part of my health regiment, the Jjimjilbang This one I actually LOVE doing. for $5 you can go to this 24 hour local spa/bathouse get buck naked with a few dozen other locals, aged 5 to 95 (gender divided in the naked rooms) and yeah, nudity is no biggie here and ladies don't shave the bush! Between my tattoos', short a-sympetrical hair, giant pale body and groomed genitals I felt like a bit of a freak here, well more so than ordinarily.
Scub, shower, scrub more, shower, soak in various pools of water of different temperatures and with different things added (like green tea!) scrub more, shower then moisturize! Put on the orange t-shirt and shorts they give you and go to the co-ed sauna rooms, several different rooms some freezing cold some hot, some super hot, some made of stone, some made of wood and you drink vinegar water or eat baked eggs, and if you like you can sleep over on a matt! Its cute to see old couples sleeping next to each other, or entire families! My boss Yonie and I actually slept over inside one of the mild sauna rooms, set at 42 degrees C. I woke up sweaty and refreshed and 3 lbs lighter!

So I'm In Seoul, South Korea Working with Yonie Woo. I roomed with her at the last Caricature convention in Sandusky Ohio, and she extended an invitation to me, to come work at her company. Never one to turn down an opportunity to travel and work, here I am 6 months Later.

Its hard for me to find time to write about all my experiences, but I have been sending emails back to friends, with some details of my adventures, So I'll be copying and pasting parts of those emails here to save me time, in case you're confused.
anyways. there's your introduction. Hopefully I'll have some great stories to tell over the next 2.5 months.