annyeong hi gyeseyo Seoul & gamsa hamnida!

that's good bye and thanks!

so having done very little on my final day in Seoul, Luke (Australian guy staying the hostel) and I decided we'd go and see a Korean martial arts comedy theatre show called "Jump!" last night.
It was 7 men and 2 women chosen from a rotating cast of about 50 I'd say.
Wow, wow wow wow and wow, it was amazing!
I was on the edge of my seat for most of it and my hands were raw from clapping by the time whole show was finished.

The best part was the finale where each character shunned their costumes and the (fairly loose) plot and just gave the most stunning martial arts display i've ever seen.
their mastery of their own physicality is just awesome. and inspirational.
the funniest part was when they did a little audience participation and who did they pick out first? the one person in the crowd who was most opposite to every single cast memeber, Luke!
well it was like seeing Gulliver in Lilliput for real. He was about 15inches taller than anyone else on stage and well, i guess you had to be there so i won't bore you, but it truly was hilarious.

i got my photo taken with one of the cast aswell, i'll post it when i get a chance.
he was the one all the Korean girls were most taken with and it was easy to see why!
it's a pity the girls wouldn't come to see it while they were there too, i know for a fact that Karen would have been in her element! ;)

so then we went back to the hostel where a small crowd was gathering of all the solo travellers and we had a few bottles of beer and a good laugh.
at 12 the guys decided they were going out on the pull and seeing as Bora (the Korean girl in the group) wasn't going out it was decided that i might lend a little credibility to their mission....hmmm!
so anyway, Marc the Manillan-born New Yorker, Deech the half-Indian Australian, Luke the really tall Australian, Julien the French-Canadian and myself hit the town.

unfortunately it seemed that not one girl in the club we went to spoke english so the guys didn't really do very well for themselves at all but I took great pleasure in rubbing it in their faces that I did in fact get chatted up by a Seoulite called Joel.
ok, just one more time - haaaaaa haaaaaa, I won! (sorry!)

so anyway, given that all of their attempts failed, we just ended up dancing the night away until the club closed at 5am and then made our way back to the hostel in the breaking morning so i could pack my bag and head to the airport.
there's organisation for you eh?!

so there you have it, it's now 9pm SE Asia time and i haven't been to bed in 36 hours so i'm going to hit the hay. i'm really glad to have met all the lovely people i did in the hostel, it's renewed my confidence about meeting people during the rest of the trip and i'm looking forward to it.

i'm also really glad to finally be in Vietnam. the language and the people are just so lovely and i'm really looking forward to trying to speak it and learn some more. i'm more than a little anxious about the work ahead and what is about to unfold, i think it's going to be pretty hard.
but i'm also quite sure it will be well worth it.

just a note though, it's 9pm but the temperature is in or around 29degrees celsius.
if it's hot now, what will the daytime be like?!!
yikes

i'd love a bit of soda bread and real butter right now
bye!