pushkin

 

i found out about a month ago that a friend of mine from my years in germany lives in korea...not only does he live in korea, he's been here for over a year!! he's finished one contract, traveled for a couple months, is currently working part time, and starts a new full time contract in january...pushkin isn't very good at email/facebook so it didn't surprise me at all that he was here for so long and i had no idea...he lives in daegu, which is one of the bigger cities in korea...daegu is a bigger city, but it's NOT a place people think to go when they want to travel around korea...anywho...i figured out a weekend i could visit, and asked him if it was okay...it was...yippee!!

saturday morning i got up and (running late of course) took the ktx to daegu...the train goes 300km/hr, so it takes less than 2 hours to get there...not long before i arrived, pushkin sent me a text telling me in korean what to tell the taxi driver when i walked out of the train station...i could've shown it to the driver, but i had more fun saying it...and i got it right:)

pushkin met me at the entry gate to a university, he lives really close...he also brought along his girlfriend...as it was noon, we found a nearby restaurant, indian food...YUM...pushkin is currently doing a chinese medicine/cleansing process so he can't have caffeine or alcohol...the only options on the drink menu at the restaurant were sprite or orange juice...

we ended up staying there for 5 hours!!! soooo much catching up to do...and of course we gossiped about all the people we both know from our years in garmisch...so many people we knew there are completely different people now...good times...after realizing how long we'd been there, we left and stopped in a bakery, as pushkin was craving something sweet...(which he said doesn't happen often)...from there is was back to his flat, which i loved...a one bedroom, one living room, a small kitchen and a bathroom...i would be thrilled to have a flat like his...the idea of having more than one room is almost heaven...and his rent is CHEAP...somehow, i don't think i'd have that option in seoul...

after eating far too much, pushkin took off to the gym, leaving me behind with his girlfriend...she's a sweetheart, and speaks great english, so it wasn't awkward...we chatted about all sorts of things, and ended up watching part of a movie...pushkin came back and we went to dinner...a pizza/pasta place...she was craving cheese, so was i, so pizza was perfect...between the three of us we finished off two pizzas fairly quickly...YUM...after dinner, i wanted ice cream...(which was crazy, since it was cold)...a nearby 7-11 provided what i wanted, since there were no baskin robbins, or coldstones, or other ice cream specialty stores...given that it was cold, i waited till we got back to pushkin's flat to eat the ice cream....

i slept on a yeo on his living room floor, and slept like a log...i love yeos, and would be thrilled to have on in my flat now...plus, he has his ondol (온돌) on, so the floor was toasty...i woke up before the alarm went off the next morning, so i turned it off, and took my time about getting up...a shower later, i got a cab, and went back to the train station for to catch the ktx back to seoul...i needed to get back earlier than i had originally planned b/c my rugby team was starting filming for our music video...(i'm sure i'll post on that when it's all finished)...

it was great to see pushkin again, and i hope to convince him to come up to seoul:)