Happy Birthday, Diana. You better appreciate this.

Alright, I know. I suck. I am FINALLY going to update and you all have Diana Hall to thank. This is my birthday present to you, you skank.

So what I'm going to do is flip through my day planner and write about things of note since I've last updated. Let's see...how far do I have to go back...May?!?! Blerg.

The second weekend in May was a long one, so Stef-the-Housemate and I hauled our asses to Busan. This is noteworthy because Stef and I have a glorious history of not leaving a 100 meter radius during our holidays. However, Miller the Thrilla hadn't been out of Seoul her entire time here so we made an exception. It was a ton of fun, though I was a bit sick and threw up several times on our first day. Also, the weather was poo and we didn't get to spend any time on the beach.

What we did get to do, though, is explore the city itself. We went to the fish market (the biggest in Korea, thank you) and took a ton of pictures of the delicious little fishies swimming around in tanks. We went shopping in Busan's downtown area and got matching dresses from American Apparel and saw Iron Man (which knocked my socks off). Our last night there, we went to a lovely 찜질방(jjimjil bang) and had to have some locals help us call a cab back to our love motel.

Let's see...what else happened in May...oh, yeah! I was arrested! How silly of me to forget!

It started off so innocently...My friend Steve was competing in the Seoul Triathlon very early in the morning so I wanted to spend a fairly quiet Saturday night in the neighborhood so I could cheer the next day. Ha!

It was the night of the Haebangchon street/music festival and a bunch of my friends and I were hanging out at the local bars, taking drinks outside and enjoying the first really warm night of the year. Stef and her bandmates suggested going up to Namsan to a campfire spot they'd been to before and I was down. We hiked up the hill, bringing guitars and lots of beer and started a fire. Now, keep in mind the place had a stone circle, a pile of logs stacked neatly nearby, a brush to sweep the ash, and stumps arranged all around it. Looked perfectly kosher.

So there we were, a bunch of drunkies having a sing-a-long when we notice a bunch of cop cars and fire trucks at the bottom of the hill. Not having the quickest of response times, we sat there until we were surrounded by them. They started yelling at us in Korean and we quickly put out the fire and were escorted down the hill. I thought that would be the end of it but nope. They wanted us to get in the cop cars and go to the station with them. I was all for refusing but cooler heads prevailed and I got in. But! I got in with my large bottle of Cass that I absolutely refused to get rid of. That's right, I finished my damn beer in the police station (and drank some in the patrol car. Because that's how I roll).

We were forced to wait in the station for about 3 hours while they processed us. It was wicked boring and frustrating and I thought I was going to bust a cap in someone's honky ass. We got yelled at for laughing but then an older cop stole Stef's cookies and offered them to us. When we were finally let go, they told us we had to go to freaking court on June 4th.

On the court day, we were all scrubbed to within an inch of our lives. We kept repeating how sorry we were and how back home it would have been fine to start the fire, and we loved Korea, 대한민국! and all. Finally, the judge told us to get the hell out of there and we didn't even have to pay the fine. A little anti-climatic but I'm totally ok with that!

Ok, more later. Maybe we'll get up to mid-June by the next entry.