Saturday

Saturday began with Ronan waking me up at 8 am and telling me that, 'I made dress-fest [breakfast].' He waited for me to stumble out of my cozy bed, make coffee (always an essential part of waking up) and then sit down to his gourmet, specially-prepared breakfast of an apple, handful (or three) of almonds, and some water on the side. It was actually a nice treat. We spent the day before eating some fatty food, so this naturally healthy breakfast hit the spot. Of course, I asked him if it would be ok if I washed the apples--something he didn't have time to do while preparing. ; - )

Jack and I spent the morning taking down the Christmas tree and cleaning and doing laundry and the kids got creative with their play. Dahin and Oliver set up what was initially a library and then turned into a bookstore/loan program. They were selling tickets for 100 won (10 cents) and you could trade your ticket in for a book. Although, they were a little tricky because, as I was choosing a hardcover book, Dahin told me that the ticket gave me the right to choose a book, but the hard covers cost an extra 1000 won ($1); the little scammers. Oliver diligently traded turns with Dahin in advertising their store (sitting in a chair outside of her room yelling, 'Books for Sale!!! Come to Dahin and Oliver's Book Emporium for the Best Deals!"). He also served as her accountant. Oddly (not), she kept all the money in the end. Between Jack and I, she earned
about 5,000 won and some change (about $5). Ronan-- not sure what he was doing, but he added some moral support by playing with his Thomas computer on the side.

We had movie night in the evening--kids watched 'UP' and Jack and I watched 'Haeundae'--and we also caught a tv show of which I was a very small part. They have these mini documentaries strung together in a new show documentary program on KBS (kind of like a Dateline kind of show). I was at KBS for over 4 hours filming, and I know the producers and writers, etc., spent the whole day filming just our interview and discussion portion of our segment (it was called, "Are Women Really Worse Drivers Than Men?")--the entire segment (there were about four differently themed segments that made up the whole hour-long program) lasted 15 minutes. They interviewed me about driving in the US and if people believed in the US that women are terrible drivers--answer was yes, but not as extreme as in Korea.--plus other questions. For once (and Jack agrees) I did a great job in the interview. The discussion with the other people was ok--hard to do well when you're the only foreigner having a discussion with seven Koreans. In the end, they didn't show any of my interview, but snippets of the discussion (yay). It was actually alright, but a lot of time and work for just a short segment. The other women on the "woman" panel included a race car driver, an announcer, and a comedian. The "man" panel included a taxi driver, two comedians, and a reporter. They also had us do this test that had to do with remembering patterns--pretty much measuring attention span. The women scored higher. The point of the show was to tackle the myth that women are worse drivers then men. Ideas on why the myth exists included the fact that men have been driving, historically, longer than women. The end conclusion was that yes, indeed, it is a myth. Men and women have distinct driving styles overall--men tend to drive faster and women tend to focus on safety--but there is no real evidence to support the idea that women can't drive when compared to men.