Snow and Cold

I don't usually write mindlessly on this blog anymore, but here's a little freewriting to brighten (or kill) your spirits.

 Around the corner from my house

I'm a little behind the times this year, but, yes, in case you missed it on every other blog and Facebook page from Korea, winter has arrived on the peninsula. And it's been a cold one.  We're only half way into December and I've already seen more snowfall than I've seen in my whole time in Korea over the past 4 years (albeit, there have been large snowstorms, but I always seem to be out of the country when they happen). Temperatures these low bode for a long and cold winter... or perhaps the new ice age I've been waiting for since high school.

 In my neigborhood

On day one of the snowfall I was far too busy working on my final project for my Curriculum Design course for my Masters to be out in the snow taking photos like everybody else . But... people's photos did come out awfully nicely... 

 In my neighborhood

On other topics of coldness... hanoks are notoriously cold in winter, and ours is no exception. The boyfriend bought me a new pair of fuzzy pajama pants so at least one part of my body can feel warm. Actually sleeping is the warmest time of the day since we've moved to the floor mat for sleeping. It's nice and toasty warm down there... sometimes too warm if the boiler stays on for too long. However, we usually make sure that doesn't happen. The house being drafty is only half our problem. The other half is that heating a house this big (we guess about 40 pyeong) is rather expensive. November alone was over 100,000 won, and we didn't think we even had it on that much. We're constantly playing with the thermostat and adjusting where to send the heat in the house. The cool thing about a house this big is that you can shut off (or partially shut off) the heat to rooms you're not using. So, we keep the heat in the kitchen and second bedroom to a minimum and try to heat just the living room and the bedroom. We'll see how well we're doing when we get December's heating bill... 

 Around Jongno 5 ga somewhere...

Speaking of cold and snow, however, that means it's ski season. Wednesday night we went to Konjiam ski resort for a few hours of night skiing. The conditions were great and all the slopes were open. Unusual, I think, for this early in the season here. I'm severely out of shape, however. I promised myself I'd do sit ups and stretch tonight... but have I done it? Of course not...

 Near my favorite 닭한마리 restaurant in Jongno

Anyway, I know posts have been sparse here lately. I have no excuse now that the fall semester is done and my Curriculum Design project is done. But, it's hard to get the motivation to write again after spending a whole semester glued to my computer typing up things for school. I've been craving other forms of stimulation such as watching movies, cooking and studying Chinese. Did I mention that I'm studying Chinese? Perhaps not. That will be a post for another day... because that's a good one. 

Dongdaemun Gate in the snow

The end of this rant has finally come. Oh, and if you're wondering where all these photos from the snow came from when I said I didn't go out in the snow to take photos? This is from snowfall number three... the less exciting one because it wasn't first. I walked from Jongno to Dongdaemun in the snow, but, it was kind of nice....