Edinburgh Update!

It has been a crazy and busy month and a half back in Edinburgh! School started off slow, but has picked right back up. Socially things have been busy as well. I was in Manchester, England last weekend for an MBA football tournament and have a weekend class this weekend, so things are not letting up any time soon! Just to get caught up, here is what I have been up to since arriving "home" from Asia:

Burns Supper

The Business School put on a lovely Burns Supper in honor of Burns Night, a holiday to celebrate Robert Burns, Scotland's most prolific poet. It is held on January 25, his birthday. Current students and alumni were invited, and we had a wonderful Scottish dinner as well as a Ceilidh. There were about 200 people there, and it was a wonderful evening!

My table at for dinner. All MBA peers and their partners.

Smoked salmon starter. Yum!

Scotch Broth soup.

Haggis, neeps (turnips) and tatties (potatoes). The neeps were delicious!

Dessert: cream, chocolate and fruit.

Women of the MBA

Ode to the Haggis. We toasted the haggis before starting to eat. There were also toasts to Rabbie Burns, a toast to women given by my friend Steve on behalf of the men, and a toast to the men by my friend Elisa on behalf of us gals.

Maria, Elisa, Amanda and me.

Me and Karim

Dancing with Jonny. Notice one missing shoe. It was getting intense.

With Kieran

 Edinburgh Capitals

I somehow convinced 15 of my classmates, many of whom had never seen an ice hockey game before, join me for an Edinburgh Capitals match. The calibre of play was probably equivalent to really good high school teams or Division 2 college. It was a lot of fun, though! The stadium was probably about the size of Park's main ice area, and there was a turnout of about 2000 people. They give out a case of beer to the MVPs at the end of the match, and I hope to have that honor one day!

They did Chuck a Puck during the second intermission. I convinced Jonny and Cassie to do it with me. This was our competition: a bunch of kids. It was a little embarrassing. Luckily, the winner was the only person older than us!

Superbowl

I watched the Superbowl at a bar called Malones with a bunch of friends. They were selling discount Budweiser and chicken wings. Very American! I wore my awesome Vikings sweatshirt I found at a vintage sale in Edinburgh. It is from 1989, and perfectly balances my 1987 Twins World Series Champion sweatshirt.

Beer and wings

Ale, me and Ruk were the last ones standing, and the only of our group to finish the entire game. An Argentinian and Thai were up later than my fellow Americans!

 American Night

After going out for drinks for my friend Kieran's birthday, there was a party put on by the North American Society. Inder, who is from Vancouver, Ale and I stuck around for it and were able to play a little bit of beer pong. I did so good during my turn, getting 5/6 cups and winning the game. Leah would be proud.

 Birthdays

Two of my good friends have had birthdays: Cassie and Karim. Karim's birthday also fell on the night we celebrated Chinese New Year.

The gang for Cassie's late birthday dinner. We went for Mexican!

Kieran, Omar, Karim and I out for Karim's birthday.

Amer and I at dinner.

Chinese New Year

Our Chinese and Taiwanese classmates threw a great New Year's party. We all wore red, and the girls made an awesome spread of food. We all had a really nice time, and it was so kind of them to include us in their special holiday.

Six Nations

My friend Ale was able to get tickets to the Six Nations Rugby match Scotland vs. Italy. I was lucky enough to accompany him. Our seats were fantastic. We were about ten rows from the pitch. We were sitting in the section with Italy's supporters. It was such a fun game! Scotland ended up winning the match in fine form, and they have just beat Ireland as well. This is very unheard of for Scotland rugby!

So close to the pitch.

Drinks with Gerry

I also was able to catch of with Gerry, one of my professors from WIS. We have stayed in touch over the years, and were finally able to get together since my return to Scotland. He is such a wonderful person, and I enjoyed catching up with him very much. He is a great person to count as a friend.

Manchester Weekend

Manchester Business School hosted an MBA football tournament, and our guys scraped together a team. A few of us ladies went along as supporters to cheer them on. The other schools were Lancaster, Warwick, Oxford and Cambridge. We were the only school without an established football team, and were also the smallest class. Our guys were a little outmatched, but everyone had a wonderful time. I took my role as supporter very seriously, and we cheered our guys through thick and thin. No other teams, even Manchester, really had supporters, so everyone was quite jealous of us. I even overheard someone from Cambridge (who beat us 5-0) say that they felt bad because no one even cared that they were winning, while we were thrilled for our guys to just be playing. We also did quite a bit of trash talking to both the referee and the other teams. By the end of the tournament, all the other schools were on our side, going as far as booing the opponent when they scored.

The weekend included two parties and a tour of Manchester United's stadium. It was a long weekend, but very fun. I am so proud of the guys. They really did their best.

Cassie, Chloe, me, Elisa, Swati and Zorah: The supporters!

Team meeting during half time.

Old Trafford

A rest stop. It was such a beautiful part of the country.

Supporters after the last match.

Elisa, Ale and I at the club for party number 2.

My favorite moment of the weekend, captured by the talented Chloe. We only scored one goal in the tournament, and it was by Ernst. After the game, instead of being disappointed, Sam picked him up like he has just won us the world cup, and we all cheered and celebrated. It is a great example of how we spent our weekend: just having a great time, no matter what. The boys were also so sweet, and told us how our cheering made them feel good, even when they were tired, sore and getting beat. I have many great memories with some truly wonderful people.

We are almost done with this part of the semester. Our classes finish on March 21, and I will be leaving Scotland and all my friends on April 4. My lease is up April 5, so I will be going to Korea to visit Travis for a  little bit before reporting to Shanghai with the rest of my exchange crew. It is hard to believe in just a few short weeks I will be apart from most of the people who have been making my MBA experience extraordinary.  Hopefully most of them will still be here when I return in July, but no matter what, I will never forget them, and have made some friends that will last a lifetime.

Seoul Top 3!

Only about a month and a half behind schedule, here are the best three things about Seoul:

3. Shopping

Shopping in Korea is amazing. There are some of the largest shopping malls/department stores I have ever seen, plus lots of market-style shops where you can get very inexpensive clothes. There is truly something for everyone. The only downside is that many of the clothes are "free fit," or one size only. Luckily, even with my height and curves, I was still able to find a few things that worked for me. My most-wanted item was a cape-style winter coat, which I was luckily able to find and have been obsessed with ever since. I also got a super cute pair of ankle boots and a skirt. I plan to do even more damage next time!

Why don't we have cool Pokemon hats at home?

Showing off my fabulous cape.

One of the many amazing parts of Lotte department store. This area was based on Rome, with this large fountain specifically representing the Trevi Fountain.

A mural painted all the way across the plaza. This was all connected to a subway station as well, so there is no need to go outside to get in to the mall!

Another fountain.

Ice rink on the ground floor. There were tons of people skating, as well as speed skating lessons going on.

A view of the amusement park, Lotte World, on the top floor.

There was also a Korean folk museum! 

2. Food

The food in Korea was absolutely amazing. Even better, it was all fairly cheap! My favorite meal was tuna kimchi, a spicy dish with tuna, kimchi (fermented cabbage) and rice. It was incredibly delicious, and less than $5! Every meal also came with soup and side dishes as well, so you really got a lot of food for your money.

I also loved dukbokki (not sure if I spelled that correctly!), which were rice cakes. You could buy them from street vendors in a spice sauce, but we also had them as a part of dak galbi, a dish similar to a stir fry with chili paste and marinated chicken. Kimbap, a rolled rice dish, was also a favorite. There was a little kimbap shop very near to Travis' apartment that sold many of these dishes. By the end of my trip, many of the little old ladies working there knew my order as soon as I walked in!

I truly don't think I had a bad dish the entire time I was in Korea. Everything was just amazing!!

This was a fish cookie that was filled with sweet red bean paste. They were one of Trav's favorite treats. They were delicious, but very rich!

Traditional Korean BBQ. You cook the meat right at the table. This wasn't my favorite dish, most likely due to neither Travis or myself having much experience with cooking and eating beef recently. It was still a cool experience.

Tuna kimchi, my favorite dish. This is what they would give you every time.

Though this is a drink and not a food, it is definitely worth mentioning. The bottle on the left is Soju, a distilled  beverage native to Korea. It can have anywhere from 15-45% alcohol by volume. This was likely around 20%. It is incredibly cheap. One bottle is less than $2. The drink on the left is aloe vera juice, which is surprisingly delicious. Most Koreans drink Soju straight, but I was a bit of a wuss and mixed it with the aloe juice, creating a concoction I named Sojuice. It was very delicious.

There is also a lot of pizza in Korea. This monster was absolutely gigantic, and was less than $10.

1. Travis

There was really no competition for the top spot. I am so glad I got to see Travis after so long, as well as meet some of his friends and experience his lifestyle for a month. He made my trip fantastic, and I can't wait to visit him again.

On the way to Tokyo

At Lotte

Ringing in the New Year

Seoul Top Ten: 6, 5, & 4 (Gotta catch up!)

6. Nanta

Nanta is an awesome musical theater performance. We did this my last week in Korea. I actually don't have any pictures as cameras are not allowed, but you can see some pictures in this section of the website. It is mostly non verbal, so just about anyone can enjoy the show. There were many foreigners as well as children in the audience for our showing.

There are several Nanta theaters around Seoul. The performance will vary slightly between them, but all have the same story line: four cooks have very little time to complete a wedding feast. There is a lot of comedic elements, and really good music based on traditional Korean music. All the instruments are household goods, such as pots and pans, knives on cutting boards and containers. There are also audience participation parts, but since we were sitting in the middle, we weren't selected. :-( One of the other English teachers at Trav's school has gone to see Nanta performances several times she likes it so much! Here is a video clip of the show in action:

5. Hanok Village and Namsan

The Hanok Village was basically an open-air museum with traditional Korean buildings and houses. I was unfortunate to go on a Tuesday, the day during the week the village is closed, but I still had a great time. There was an Ice Carving Festival going on, so I saw some amazing ice sculptures. There is also a time capsule that was buried in 1994 to celebrate Seoul's 600th anniversary as the capital city. The buildings and scenery was lovely, and the village was situated at the base of Naman, the mountain in the middle of Seoul.

Though wandering around the grounds was great fun, the highlight for me was having the opportunity to wear hanbok, or traditional Korean dress. This was especially lucky considering I had tried to wear kimono in Japan, but didn't because it was just too expensive. It was only $15 to try on hanbok, and I got a souvenir photo! Since the park was slow because the village was closed, the girls working spent lots of time taking pictures of me all around the grounds. Korean visitors even stopped to take photos of me. It is not everyday that you see an American girl wearing Hanbok!

One of the many beautiful buildings in the Hanok Village

A view of Namsan and the N Seoul Tower from the village

A hanok house made from ice!

Ice pagoda

Me with my hanbok helpers!

This Korean family was so excited to see me in hanbok they wanted to take a photo with me! It was really neat how excited everyone was to see me in hanbok.

This was the traditional winter dress. Note my fabulous fur vest and hat! The dress is two pieces: the long skirt with an empire bodice and the long-sleeved jacket over the top.

The time capsule!

These other visitors were modelling the unique back carriers invented by ancient Koreans. I believe they are still in use today. In the photos of the War Memorial I posted before, you may be able to see one of the figures around the tree wearing one of these.

After the village, I took a bus to the top of Namsan. There is a shuttle bus that brings you up for free, then charges for the ride down. (You use the same T-Money card for all public transport in Seoul, even taxis, so it is very easy to pay and get around. You never have to worry about change!) It was maybe 800 won for the ride down, which is only about $0.70. All transport was incredibly reasonably priced. There is also a cable car that goes up the mountain, but I couldn't find that.

Besides the view, there are two main attractions on the top of Namsan: The love lock lookout area and the N Seoul Tower. The love locks are really a cute idea: a couple brings a lock to the lookout point, locks it and then throws away the key, indicating your love will never be broken. There were also some benches that tilted in toward the middle to force the people sitting on it together. It was a very romantic spot, with thousands of locks overlooking the city. I would have really like to have gone with Travis to leave our lock, but sadly neither of us knew about it before my trip. Next time!

The N Seoul Tower is just a large tower on the top of the mountain overlooking the city. I did not pay to go all the way to the top, but I am sure the view would have been spectacular!

A view of Seoul from the top of Namsan

N Seoul Tower

Me, overlooking the city

There were so many locks! This was just one section.

A close up of some locks.

A festive tree sculpture made from still more love locks.

4. Claw Games

Unsurprisingly, arcades and video games are popular in Korea. When I think of an arcade at home, I think of a Chucky Cheese style place with machines giving out tickets for prizes. In Korea, the arcades are much more hardcore. There is an arcade right below Travis's apartment building, and the games were pretty impressive. We played one 3D zombie game that was super scary. You sat inside it and it was dark and very loud. It even tracked your heart rate, which of course spiked when the zombies popped out! There were many other neat games like that, but my favorite type, by far, were the claw games.

The claw games are similar to what you would see at home, but they are everywhere! They will even be in the street, not just in arcades. They vary in difficulty, and with prizes. Some will be very difficult and have special collectors items for prizes instead of stuffed animals. There were also many varieties. Some were normal, others had only one half of the claw and still others didn't even have claws. For some of those, you had to do things like line up scissors with a string and cut a prize loose. They all were the same concept, though.

My favorite claw game was one very near Travis's apartment. It had adorable little sushi stuffed animals inside! Travis had won me one ages ago, but I knew I had to try it when I get there as well. Luckily we were successful. More than once!

Here are my spoils, from the bottom: Nigiri (type of sushi), Sake (salmon) and Chibi Tako (little octopus). I gave them all Japanese names. Sake and Chibi Tako have come to live with me in Edinburgh while Nigiri keeps Travis company.

After winning Chibi Tako. Travis won him on two tries, and the Korean girls at the next game were extremely jealous and upset. There was also another couple there, so Travis had quite the audience for his victory. For this machine, you had to knock the prize from the shelf on to a ramp.