New Years and more fun times from my week off

ugh i'm back at work again:( I was enjoying sleeping late and doing what I wanted, but I guess this is life.
So anyway, for New Years eve Abby and I did the Seoul city bus tour during the day. Well, we only actually got off at Seoul Tower and Insadong. Seoul Tower was cool. There was an observatory room that had windows all the way around so we had a really good view of Seoul from there.

We had to hike up a little hill from the bus stop to get there. We didn't completely understand what times the bus came (although later we found them written out by the bus stop) so we walked back down the hill just in time to wave goodbye to the bus:( We had to wait a while in the freezing cold for the next one. Our next stop was Insadong. That was a lot of shopping. It was mostly Korean souvenier type things. Bought a few things, but even though I intended to mail stuff home, it never happened... After that we went to subway for dinner:) I wish there were a Subway or Quiznos in Bucheon! We were trying to ask the people at Subway where we were supposed to go for the New Years eve celebration. They finally understood "fireworks, boom, boom, boom" and we were told that we were pretty much already there:) We easily found the big crowd of people with lots of police officers standing around. It was a little scary.

We soon found out there was a protest going on against the south korean president. they gave us lots of buttons:) we kinda tried to stay out of the middle of all the protestors. they were everywhere though. it was crazy. there was music and people dancing so that was fun to watch. we couldn't see much of what was going on on stage because of the police standing right in front of us. This little old man kept trying to break through. They didn't do much except push him back. It was soooo cold! I was relieved when they finally did the countdown (in Korean). After that there were a few tiny fireworks and they sent these fire lanterns off into the sky. We went to leave and so did everybody else. We were nearly crushed to death in the crowd of people. Everybody was pushing and no one was moving. It was very painful and scary! Other than that, the protest, and the cold, the night was fun though.

I had told Abby there was a Build a Bear at the place I went on tuesday with the underground shopping so she wanted to go there, so thats where we went Thursday. I wanted to make a Hello Kitty, but it was really expensive so I chose a koala for about half the price. I wanted it to be a boy and I was gonna name him Mr. Kimchi, but they put bows on boy's tails and girl's ears and my koala didn't have a tail...so they told me she had to be a girl... so Mr. Kimchi became just Kimchi. I could just take off the bows and call her a boy, but she has a birth certificate and even though its in korean, i'm pretty sure there's something on there about her being female. Abby made a bear and named her Kimbap. Both are really cute:

After that we did some shopping. I bought some boots, earrings, a watch (cause mine has been in a dying process since the plane ride here), and a purse. Then we went to Pizza Hut for dinner. Korean Pizza Huts do not have pizza anything like American Pizza Huts. I guess they're changing the name to Pasta Hut too? Is that everywhere or just Korea? Anyway, we had a potato pizza

I thought it wasn't bad, just different.
I was pretty lazy Friday morning. Later I went to Abby's. She made spaghetti (which was delicious) and we attempted to watch a movie on her temperamental dvd player.
Saturday I met Abby to go to Yongsan cause she needed to buy a computer. I think she got one for a pretty good deal so that was good. We went back to her apt to attempt another movie until Kristina got back that night. We chatted for a while, but we were all pretty tired.
Sunday after church Abby, Kristina, and I went to a sam gyup sal place for dinner and then we went to see Yes Man. It was really funny. I recommend it.
Anyway, it was a fun week. And now I'm just back at work. Not much exciting to tell there. For more pictures and videos, check out facebook!