Work days remaining: 8.5

Days until flight to Canada: 15

Days until trip to Tokyo: 3

I had a pretty interesting weekend. Twas one of those bittersweet moments in life- my last real partying weekend in Seoul. I say this assuming I'm going to spend all of my money in Japan next weekend, so my very last days in Korea will likely be spent packing, wishing I could afford one last club night. But most of this past weekend was money well spent with good friends.

Two of my favourite people left Korea on Sunday. Rhoni headed to Thailand and ought to be in Cambodia by now, and Al should be happily settling back into his life in England. One of the hard parts about the expat life is seeing your friends leave, wondering when/if you'll ever run into them again. But we had a pretty good last weekend together, and so very many laughs over the last few months.

Al came into Seoul on Friday night, and somehow managed to get me to go to Limelight with him. When I arrived it became clear that there was some sort of Miss Limelight talent/raunchy dancing contest going on, which was tolerable if only because the winner was a friend of a friend. I did happen to meet the three most beautiful women I've ever seen there - models from Brazil. Stunningly beautiful ladies (I believe a friend who shall remain nameless attempted to make a go for one of them and was brutally rebuffed, but that's just hearsay). After a while I headed over to Bricx for a few drinks, chatted with some interesting people, and promised a few would-be suitors that I would bring my single friends back the next night. I may or may not have made drunken phone calls to a Canadian boy who was hung over at work...

On Saturday I met up with Ryan and Stella for about an hour and a half. I emptied most of the contents of my cupboards into Ryan's backpack, as I shan't be needing 10s of packets of instant sauces, taco mixes and gravies over the course of the next two weeks. After that I took myself for a Valentines Day coffee and bagel at my favourite western cafe. I had some time to kill before I was meant to meet Rhoni at the train station, so I picked up a copy of "The Great Gatsby", somehow having missed reading it up until now (classics are incredibly cheap to buy in Korea), and was a good third of the way through it when Al decided to come meet me for a bite to eat, and then accompanied to meet Rhoni. We had to wait for 2 other friends to arrive (there had been a time-telling mishap which had resulted in a missed train), so Al left us there with an intention to meet up at Bricx later in the evening. After a quick creepy-less stop at my apartment, my three Valentines and I were out for Rhoni's last night in Korea.

We went to Bricx where a "lock and key party" was in the works. When women arrived at the bar, they were presented with a lock. Men had to buy a set of keys, and then wander around the bar, trying to find the corresponding lock. None of us wanted to participate very badly, but the owner Soo Jin insisted that we take locks. We had a few unsuccessful Americans come to try out their keys, before the gentlemen at the table next to us came over to try (three Americans, all in the airforce, all computer guys, not pilots). Rhoni's lock was the first one to open, and then mine. It was lame, but kind of funny, especially since the guys weren't really trying to pick us up (a refreshing change from the usual behavior of men in Itaewan). Mind you they did try to convince us to go to a club with them, so maybe I've become naive...

We stayed at Bricx for quite a while, but Al didn't appear. Around 2 a.m. (I think) we met up with a Korean friend from Gumi, and went for some street food. After a few more beers with my new ajuma friend in one of the cheap food restaurants, we went back to my apartment for an hour and a half of sleep before Rhoni had to make her way to the airport. We managed to fit all 4 of us girls in my bed, and would have been comfortable too if it weren't for Toby's crazy cat pouncing on us every 2 minutes. We were awoken around 6 a.m. by a rather grumpy boyfriend of mine who wondered why I didn't have someone in this hemisphere to act as a wake up call. We wandered out of my apartment and found a cab, and set off for the airport limousine bus stop. As we neared our destination, I noticed the airport bus in front of us, so we got the cabbie to speed up. We overtook the bus about a block in front of the stop, jumped out, grabbed Rhoni's things, flagged down the bus, and hardly had time to give her one last hug before she got on. None of us like long good byes, but that one happened too fast. We were all in tears (especially Rebecca) as we watched the bus drive away.

Us three remaining ladies went back to my place where we slept in a more sprawled out fashion for a few more hours. The other two girls had to be up by 11 ish to make it to their Sumo date with the boys from Gumi. They got conned into taking two extra tickets by crazy Nick the night before. When they called to find out exactly where they were meeting, however, they were informed of another extra ticket, which I was pressured into taking. 30,000 won and 2 hours later, I found myself in the midst of an arena in East Seoul for my first ever Sumo tournament. The surroundings weren't too exciting, and neither was the first hour of ceremony, warm ups, and demonstrations (except for the first 5 of the 30 minutes that child sumo wrestlers went for adult sumo wrestlers in groups of two), but it got better once the real fighting began. It's amazing how agile a 200kg man can be.

After sumo, Amanda, Rebecca and I left the Gumi boys and headed out for dinner. We decided to go to this great little Indian/Nepalese restaurant that Toby and I found by accident one day. Only when we go there, we discovered it was under renovation. We were unbelievably disappointed, but the owner recommended that we go to a place called Himalaya down the street instead, which was a little more expensive, but about as good. It was just missing the sweet Nepalese lady who works at the other one. After dinner, I accompanied the girls to Insadong, where I bought my first ever mixture of incense and a burner. I've never had cause to use incense before, but it was only 2000 won, so I figured I would try it out. I also bought something for Toby's birthday, but I can't tell you what it is on here. He's going to think he knows what it is, but he won't.

I said a sad goodbye to the girls around 8:30 and headed home. I don't imagine I'll see them again for quite some time as they both want to travel for a while, but at least they are fellow Canadians and will someday end up back home. And that sums up the weekend.