boys

today is a government holiday (den rossii, whatever that is supposed to imply) so no one is working and guys are trotting about in military uniform. i think this holiday used to have another name, but i cnat remember what. maybe it was independance day? they are always renaming the holidays around here, and i get confused. but as long as i dont have to go to work, i wont complain.
caitlin and i went out with the chos yesterday for lunch, and then for coffee. i hadnt seen the boys since february of last year, and i barely recognised hyan soo. when i saw him 15 months ago, he was still a little boy....now he has suddenly grown several centimeters, grown his hair longer, and his voice has changed. astonishing...i remember when he used to roll aroung on the floor like a little kid!
hyun ho has not changed so much, however. he is still a little comedian, as he always was. he treated us to a round of knock-knock jokes in the restaurant.
we went to the korean restaurant on frunzenskaia naberezhnaia. i love that place. the food is truely incredible. they brought tons of little plates with different vegetable dishes, and there was one with these great tofu slices. then we had rice and leafy greens, with a sauce i have had before, but cant identify. afterwards we went for coffee near mgy. it pissed rain and we were seated next to some odd fellows. they had ordered each a bottle of cheap soviet champagne, with they were consuming with beer and shashlik! only in russia could you see such a sight! at one point they asked me to take their foto, and they posed, each holding up his champagne glass and looking very serious. afterwards caitlin and i make a procession through tsum, and we each ended up buying a pair of jeans (not that i needed yet another pair....but they were on sale....) we then had a coffee before going our separate ways. the weather has been bloody miserable. they keep promising it will warm up, but i dont yet see evidence of that. so i bought some dvds on the way home and curled up on my mongo-bed with them. i have been buying about a dvd a day since i got back here. given the price, it seems a crime not to take advantage of russia's pirating skills. the dvds at my metro station are 80 rubles, which is to say about 1.50 pounds (51 rubles is a pound) i highly recommend Tsotsi to all who have not seen it, it is a south african film, and i thought it was quite good. flight 93 was better than i expected it to be, as was v for vendetta....memories of a geisha was not nearly as good as the book, and lemming just sucked. it managed to combine every french film cliche available. i think i will go for a classic tonight...maybe casablanca.