Nathalie Beaulieu

January 11, 2008

Next's Nathalie Beaulieu Oh, how I love Seoul. All I do, all day and every day, is sit there and be driven around, try on some clothes at castings, have my own bodyguard. The list goes on...

I was completely exhausted 'cause I only slept four hours one night. I could not sleep. However, I did make my bed more comfortable by taping my parka to my matress along with three towels underneath (fucking pathetic). Hey, it worked... I slept well!

Yesterday I had about seven castings to go to. It is very quick in Korea, as opposed to Toronto. It's never more than five or ten minutes at most. All I do is smile and look nice and it's been working... so far, out of the six castings, I got four jobs. which is insanely good for me (yay!!).

They really like me here because apparently the "it" thing here is blonde hair. And yeah, need I say more?

It really is go-go-go here, though. I am working my ass off, and I go to sleep so early every night. Oh, and before I forget, THE AMBULANCES HAVE TO WAIT IN TRAFFIC! This baffled me. The traffic is completely ridiculous here... it is definitely not just a rumour. We'll drive an hour to go somewhere we could easily walk faster than driving. It's weird though, 'cause everyone is so patient in their cars! Hardly anyone honks their horn. The guy who drives me around is called Jimbok, and he's such a nice guy. He's very young and very rich (Audi!). He tells me about his city as we drive all day.

He bought me this street food called "red fishy" or something like that. It's dough with red bean paste... sounds gross, but very very good. Street food is so cheap, as are groceries. Restaurants are fairly expensive, especially in my part of the city. It really makes me sad that there is no way I am going to orient myself here... I will never take the subway or go anywhere by myself. If I did, I would get lost. There are so many places I want to go that I see driving in the car... like the olympic park, the theme park (Lotte World), The Galleria (Holt Renfrew times twenty).

No one lives in a house here, or I have not seen one yet. The apartments are about 60 stories high and they are everywhere... they're even numbered on the sides so you know which one you're going to.

Anyway, today I had my first job! I was really nervous, but everyone was really nice. However, it's completely different than Toronto photoshoots... there are about 20 people watching you do everything and staring at you and stuff. It was a catalogue job, but the catalogue pictures look like editorial one's here!! The pictures were so nice, very Nylon Magazine. I ate some very nice food... they kept feeding me and bringing me juice. They were so damn cute. The photographer was INSANE. Honestly, he did not speak much english, but he had a translator. He would change his mind every second, "Okay hold okay gogo move okay smile ohnokdontsmileoknowsmile" and the first ten minutes I wanted to cry. But he told me I was doing super well and he was happy with the pictures.. I guess Koreans always sound angry.

There was a guy model from Brazil, and he, obviously, did not speak English. I really have no one to talk to here, it kind of makes me sad. I always have to talk very slowly and pretend I understand what the hell they're saying. Anyhow, it was very happy-go-lucky looking shoot. Typical. The good part is that I was supposed to work five hours, but instead it ended up being eight hours. In Asia, you get payed every hour of overtime. Then I went to three more castings, and now I am home. I want to go grocery shopping but I'm soo tired and it's only 8:00.

Tomorrow I booked a really good magazine job, so I'm excited about that. And I get to sleep in! I can't believe I've only been here four days... it seems like I've been here weeks.

I am still currently: not homesick.

Nathalie Beaulieu is a Next model, currently in Seoul.