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This morning, Adam discovered this meeting of our two worlds: my favorite band–U2, and his favorite film– a German film called “Wings of Desire” directed by Wim Winders. We were surprised that we’d never come across this before. The song was written for the film’s sequel, “Far Away So Close”. Winders directed U2’s music video, borrowing heavily from his own films.

In this video, the members of U2 are angels watching over the city of Berlin. Lovely. Bono can sing in my ear any time.

-Jessica

Adam and I have been keeping busy with our voice-over work recently. We recorded 12 abridged Shakespeare stories last week, and today I did my first singing job. I sang a plethora of children’s songs revolving around the story of the little gingerbread man (or cookie man as they call him here). I sang in the voices of an old woman, a little girl, a fox, a bear, a witch, and even a bit of my own voice. I had a lot of fun, and I look forward to more of that kind of work.

This is one thing a person can do with a music degree. :).

-Jessica

This chunk of metal has been my constant companion for the last year and a half, but alas, it shall be no more. My phone has died. Getting out of a taxi this evening, mid-text-message, I dropped it in the street, and it was finally one drop too many.

Our first week in Korea, Adam and I took a trip to Yongsan, Seoul’s huge electronics market and paid 100,000 won (about $100) for this used, battered, brick of a phone. It treated me well.

I can’t say the same for myself… I dropped it almost daily. Not long ago, I was running down the sidewalk, it bounced out of my pocket, and I stepped on it, skating a meter or so across the pavement. The phone kept right on working.

It has worn many ornaments that tell stories of my life here. My first cell phone charm still adorns it: a small piece of a stick engraved “Seoul Fringe 2006″ that I picked up in our first Fall, visiting the art festival of that name with our English Village friend Neville. We now live in the neighborhood where that annual art festival is held. Then there’s my “T Money” fob & finger leash that has paid my way onto hundreds of buses and subway trains all across the city. The “Mini” charm is random, but one of my students gave it to me to match his own cell phone charm, and it makes me think of my brother who drives a Mini back in California. The blue “Bourjois” charm was the newest addition, only a week old, that Adam just added as a joke, and I left it. A favorite charm that was retired months ago was my “Little Prince” charm to match Annie’s, as she and I became good friends like the Prince and the fox.

I’m not looking forward to the day or two without a phone until I can replace it, but I am excited about the prospect of getting a nice, new phone with a Korean/English dictionary and a subway map program. Woo hoo!

Oh, and if you’re trying to reach me this week, it would be best to email.

-Jessica

Yesterday, we went to the new Seoul Global Center to talk to someone about visa stuff.  If you’re a foreigner in Seoul, you should check it out.  There is all kinds of info there to help you out, and there are people available to help you with any questions or issues you may have.  They even have an immigration desk and can grant a visa extension without a wait!  They’re located in the press center by City Hall.

After we sorted out our stuff, we went for a walk downtown.  We haven’t spent much time in the “downtown” Jongno area since we moved to Hongdae.  As I’ve mentioned before, Hongdae is a university area, it’s awesome, and everything happens here.  However, it’s nice to go where the  buildings are tall and shiny sometimes.

It was a beautiful pre-Spring afternoon, and we meandered from City Hall to Euljiro to Jongno, and then walked Jongno in the direction of Dongdaemun.  There is a big park, Jongmyo Park, around Jongno-4-ga that I’ve seen from the bus dozens of times, but I’d never actually walked through it.  We wandered into the park and saw large huddles of old men watching pairs play a traditional Korean game, like chess.  They’ve probably been playing the game for decades.  All of the spectators were enthralled and murmured their approval as the players took turns, sliding etched, white disks along the board and clacking them down.  We watched for a little while, then wandered the paths to the Changgyeonggung palace gate, but alas it was locked.

We continued our excursion toward Dongdaemun, and approached a knot of old men yelling, and I thought we would have to give the scuffle a wide radius.  We got closer and realized that this, too was a friendly knot of old men, engaged in a competitive variation of horse-shoes.  They had drawn a large, chalk rectangle on the pavement with a bulls-eye at the top.  Each man took his turn, standing at the foot of the rectangle, tossing a coin to the bulls-eye.  They cheered and jeered at their friends as they went along.  We approached, and they cheered again, grabbing us by the hands.  One old guy gave Adam a coin, and he gave it a go.  He overshot the bulls-eye.  I thought I would just watch since it appeared to be a men’s game, but they tossed me a coin too.  Mine bounced through the bulls-eye, but landed outside the rectangle.  We smiled and said good bye as they continued, seeing who would win the pot.

With our destination in sight, we took a final detour into the Gwangjang Market.  Adam had been there before with his photography class, and wanted to share it with me.  We window-shopped then found a stall where we could eat pajan (like pancakes) for dinner.

We never quite reached our destination of Dongdaemun last night, but an evening exploring was just what we needed.  I’m glad Spring is on its way!  It’s time to go exploring again!

-Jessica