Cirque Du Soleil

You all must be so excited. I know. I suck. But anyways. Here's the new update.

I've been here a while but this post will just be about my recent trip to Seoul.

I went to Seoul to see Cirque Du Soleil. If you dont know what that is, I am ashamed. Cirque Du Soleil was started the year I was born (coincidence? I think NOT!) and has exploded internationally with permanent shows in various locations worldwide. I went to see it. I've been wanting to see it for ages, but of course never really had the opportunity. Some of you might know that in order for me to go to Korea I have to make up an itinerary. I had to list places that I want to go every month, in detail, explaining how I would get there and everything. Well. When I was looking for places to go or see or do, I found out that Cirque Du Soleil was playing. Now, that show they were doing was called Quidam. Which I wasnt too excited for, but the show could have been about anything and I still would have gone.

***Note: Although not yet mentioned in any part of my blog as I suck and I havent posted, Kenny (actually He has I think 5 different names... thats a story I will tell when I write an engtry about that situation) is someone I was seeing before I went back home. And I went to see him in Seoul as he JUST moved there to take some course. The way they do school here confuses me. Everyone is always doing some kind of course for some reason. ***

Kenny and I were supposed to go up at the the same time but since he was supposed to start his class on the 1st of June he went on Thursday and I left Friday Morning. Anyways. I go to Seoul. Easy easy now! Walk down the street (in my very pretty pink lily halter style dress and white sandles) and get blisters from the damn shoes (in a 5 minutes walk- no less), I take the 1/2 hr subway ride to Busan Station, where the train leaves from, and as usual I get there in perfect time. I purchase my ticket (48,000 won) with 20 minutes to spare, buy some snacks and go get on the train. I slept for most of the way. 3hrs later I arrive in Seoul and Kenny has flowers for me! Korea does flowers differently than in Canada... We give single flowers wrapped or a bouquet usally also wrapped. In Korea, very common are these sticks under 2 ft long. The stick/stem is wrapped in a paper tightly, like how you'd wrap a cylindrical gift. On one end are the flowers. But they put a whole bunch of lace and ribbon and other fluffy stuff under it. He then tries to figure out how ti get me to a bank, which by the time we finally got to one, we had to leave in order to make it to the circus on time.

So we go to the circus. OMG I am so excited. The frustration from trying to find a bank melts away. I get some kind of icecream brioche (which wasnt really a brioche but it was good anyways) and Kenny gets a cheese dog. Strange snacks for something like this type of event. I was disappointed, and always am, in the number of people who dress far too casually for an event. The amount of work that the people pu into these things, it seems disrespectful. I've always thought this and therefore I always dress up for musicals, plays, etc. AND if you know what Cirque Du Soleil is, you KNOW its NOT a circus. But saying circus is just the easiest way to explain. Anyways. we get in. The seats are pretty good. We had to purchase tickets that were the second cheapest because the others were sold out. But because we went to the afternoon show (4pm) we got a discount. The show cost 61,000 won.

The show was amazing. My favorite part, by far, was the statues. I had seen this on TV but it was nothing like in real life.

That girl kicks total ass. AND she didnt even look muscular! yes! Easily one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. My other favorite was the ropes/ribbons. A woman did the ribbons part in the first 1/2 of the show and in the second 1/2 the ropes part was added in. These have a highlight of having the performers wrap the rope/ribbon around themselves and then drop from the top of the tent (Cirque Du Soleil performs in a big top tent, yellow and blue stripes) to about 2 feet off of the floor. Another part of the show had a mime ask for volunteers. This happened twice. The first time he had a girl come up on the stage and pretended they were on a date in his car. It was really funny when he was offended that she "walked through" the car to sit on the chair, rather than use the "car's door". This continued on, and she was actually pretty good about it, bouncing around in her sear as if they were listening to really good music. The second time, they had a few Koreans act out this 'movie'. They have an old man come on stage with the "Act One" board scratch his bum and belly (which he was very animated about doing). One guy was in love with the girl. He stomps out his cigarette and mimes his love for her. She acts all sexy like, wiggling her hips (being Korean she barely did anything) and beckoning him. Another guy looks in through thr front door, he brought flowers for her. When he sees them kiss (the first guys dips the girl, no, they dont know each other, and makes it really look like they are kissing) he throws a tantrum on the floor and jumps on the flowers. He then pulls out a gun and shoots the first guy. In a dramatic death the first guy moves his hands like his guts are spurting out. He then proceeds to thread out all of his intestines and then uses then to jump rope before dying. The girl goes over, drinks a potion and dies. End scene.

So after the show I of course go to the shop, nervous about what the prices will be like. I end up buying a hardcover 'program' which was really just a book of beautiful pictures of the acts and maekup as well as a history of Cirque. 10,000 won. not bad at all. The soft cover version was 6,000. but I figured the extra 4 was worth it. I took pictures of all of the masks that they had on display, as well as a couple of the shirts (they cost 72,000 won) so that I could take the photos to the place that made Sean's shoes. Damn. I need to post about that as well. Ill add a link to my sony website albums for all my Korea pics. So that they can see about making me a copy of the shirt.

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Went to Namdaemoon, which is a wholesale market that is only open at night time. That was soooooo cool. Apparently the women who have shops in Busan go to this market and bring the clothes back to Busan. At one point Kenny spent prolly 1/2 hr on the phone without telling me what was going on, leaving me to wait. After a short while I got fed up and texted that I was leaving for a walk. About 10 minutes later he called me to find out where I was and tried to explain something about someone from his class in his last semester. But of course I didnt listen, and told him that. He apologized, alot. And we finished shopping, I actually found clothes that fit me. And Kenny picked up some runners. Finally went back to the hotel.

Saturday, went out to Burger King because it was close and I was hungry. Of course, it was past the breakfast hour so I had chicken tenders. Much better than in NA. Went to look for the cell phone that I want. But of course. No one has the phone I was in GSM. Damn it. They all say, oh you can get that in NA. for over 600$. boo hiss. Will ask the cell ppl at LG in Busan about it. Then went to the COEX. Which I was told was this huge mall. It was a big mall. But it was only one floor, and nothing like say... the West Edmonton mall. The stores were nice and decent prices mostly. Picked up a new compact, nail polish and this kind of hair conditioning spray.

While we were walking to meet with Kenny's best friend, this girl comes up to me and says "Cecilia?". I had been talking online with people all over Korea, as I love to chat. And one of the people was this girl in Seoul. She had gone to the mall to see Thierry Henry the soccer player from France. She had initially started chatting to me when she saw my pictures posted on a website similar to myspace. She recognized me from pictures she had seen of me. I was told there are 10 million people in Seoul. So the chances that I would run into someone I know was 1 in 10 million, but I did!. We invited her to meet with us for dinner after she saw the soccer player. We went with Kenny's friend to Bennigan's. As we were finishing she came and had risotto and

we all chatted for a long time. People came and ate and left before we finished! She had to get home early because she lives on the other side of Seoul from where we were staying. Her personality is so much like mine. A bit on the dramatic side, loud, talkative, and georgeous. When I spoke with her late Sunday night about the weekend, it turned out that she had gotten to meet Thierry Henry. They chatted and she had a bunch of pics taken.

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So we continue on the subway after saying goodbye and go out drinking and eating. We had some sort of carbonated rum and cold red tea mixture, which was actually really good. Then peach soju, a personal favorite. On Sunday I had wanted to go see Pirates of the Caribbean, but being myself, I didnt wake up til late and didnt have enough time before I had to catch my train to go visit a friend in Daejeon (well, really he's in Jeonju but meeting in Daejeon).

Meeting up was difficult. It seems Korean men like to make things difficult, whereas the women (at least those that I know), are much more simple about figuring things out, all easy, no big hassles. strange, I know. I wont go on about it but for some reason figuring the trains was difficult. But anyways, I got there and he (Paul in english, 이 동 열 --Lee Dong-Yul --in Korean, remember last name is first here and do you see Yul? like last year's hot Korean lawyer survivor winner) met me. (I think this is new that blogger is allowing Korean letters) Anyways. We went to see Pirates 3 even tho he saw it before. I said we should see something else but he said he really liked it so it was ok, plus he knew how much I wanted to see it. Before the movie had a weird smoothie. It was like yogurt mixed with shaved ice with the raspberry (of course) stuff on it. After it melted a little and became more like a smoothie it was pretyt good. Very very very good movie. I know it was like 3h but it didnt seem like that. After the movie went to get my train ticket to go back to Busan and we ate hotdogs. Now, not like hotdogs at home, this is why I mentioned the hotdogs in the first place. Like a cross between a hotdog, sausage (the skin was like a sausage), and pepperoni stick (the meaty ones, not the dry ones that I prefer). Anyways. Its by Steffdog or something...Anyways. mine was rolled like those pillsbury hotdog roll things, but was totally filled with, drum roll please, cheese sauce. Which I adore in case you didnt know. I could drink the stuff. Last time I went to the theatre with Kenny when I bought my nachos he asked the guy for extra cheese sauce (I didnt know he did this. I asked him to order cause I dont really always like to say things in Korean, esp when its an english word that they pronounce different. like cheese, so I paid and omg soooo much cheese) I could have died! Anyways. Paul said sorry for such a silly meal but I was excited by the cheese sauce and said so! There was so much. Dripping everywhere. A bit messy, but fun :)

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I took the train back to Busan, got in at around 11pm. Very Very good weekend.