Birthday Boy!

Happy Birthday, Mark!

Mark's 24th birthday was this past Saturday and it turned out to be really, really great! On Saturday morning, he video chatted with his family while opening his birthday gift, which was a combined effort of his parents, siblings, me and Jamie: the Panasonic Lumix GF1. He's been wanting it for awhile now but hasn't had the extra funds to purchase it. In fact, he was planning on using whatever birthday money he could get to buy the camera, so it worked out perfectly. He had absolutely no idea and his reaction was priceless. Here's the video below:

Mark's Reaction from Elysabeth on Vimeo.

He finished chatting with them around 11, so we headed to Bukcheon-dong for some delicious pizza. We ended up eating, sitting and talking for 2 1/2 hours, bringing me back to my days in France where 4-hour meals were the norm. After that, we walked around the area, looking at all the wonderful hanoks (traditional Korean houses) and then, we headed to Insadong, which is touristy but a great place to walk around and people watch.

[His delicious birthday cake courtesy of Jamie!]

[On the way to lunch, we spotted people playing the Korean traditional game Yut!]




[Mark loves his camera!]




[Our DELICIOUS Gorgonzola cheese pizza served with honey..mmmm!]


[Introducing the new street photographer: Mark Ratto]


[Yep, that's right, that's a poop-shaped red bean pastry]


[Ssamzie-gil in Insadong]


[Marking our territory]

For dinner, we met up with his Korean co-teachers for some delicious Korean BBQ. They were all so sweet and wonderful...it was really neat to see what kind of people Mark works with everyday. There was Sue Teacher, Goldie Teacher, Judy Teacher, Flora Teacher and his vice principal Kay Teacher. They all love Mark so much that even though they had a 9-hour workday on a Saturday no less, they still came out to celebrate :)

When asked why they came out, they said they did it because "Mark is so wonderful" and "we love him." They love him so much they even got him some hand cream, lip balm and face wash from Etude House, a frilly, as-girly-as-you-can-get pink cosmetic store.

[@ Wara Wara with his coworkers]

Although nothing is better than spending a birthday with your friends and family from home, we had a very jam-packed, fun-filled day spent with great people. I think Mark was beyond satisfied with his birthday celebration!

Until next time, bisous xoxo

PS- Here are the rest of the pics from Mark's bday!