Have you got a cool million or two and a burning desire to live next door to President Barack Obama? You may be in luck.The empty lot next to Obama‘s Chicago home is for sale.“We reached out to the Obamas through his curator and the Secret Service to see if he wanted to purchase it first and they declined,” said @properties agent Anthony Rouches.While it’s not been formally listed, Rouches said his clients are hoping to get $899,000 for the corner lot at 5050 South Greenwood Avenue, which they b

Maria Fertility Hospital is hosting another free English-language lecture on infertility in English on Nov. 24.The talk will go over the basics of pregnancy, causes of infertility and treatments such as intrauterine insemination and in vitro fertilization. There will be a question-and-answer session and hospital tour after the lecture.The lecture takes place at 1 p.m. at the hospital in Sinseol-dong, Seoul.To attend, notify hyejunlee@mariababy.com or call Yoon Ji-yeon at (02) 2250-5577.(paulkerr

Itaewon global center to run makgeolli classThe Itaewon Global Village Center will hold a class Friday on how to make makgeolli, an unfiltered Korean rice wine similar to beer in strength and the way it is made. The class will go over the history and properties of makgeolli, and participants will then make their own brews to take home.The class starts at 10 a.m. at the center, which is in the Hanam building on Itaewon’s main strip opposite Rocky Mountain Tavern.Participation in the class costs 5

Community Korea is holding its annual Expat’s Festival on Nov. 25 with FC Seoul, as the K-League leaders host champions Jeonbuk Hyundai for a league match.As well as the match itself there will be events beforehand, starting at 11 a.m., including pop performances, b-boy dance shows and event booths.Tickets are 10,000 won, which covers a free beer and hot dog, as well as admission to the game, which starts at 2 p.m. Under-12s are free. Tickets can be bought at Community Korea booth at the event,

Gwangju International Center will hold an overnight GIC Tour to the coastal hermitage of Hyangilam on Nov. 24.Accommodation will be at the hermitage, which was founded in the seventh century by the Buddhist monk Wonhyo as a place for meditation.On the way, the tour will stop by at Seonso Shipyard which was used by Admiral Yi Sun-sin to build and repair his famous turtle ships during the Imjin War. The shipyard has an armory, command post, smithy, as well as a circular harbor made for holding and

Two expat writers will hold workshops on self-publishing through e-books in Seoul and Daejeon. The presenters, Chris Backe and Jeffrey Miller, have both published e-books in Korea.“It’s going to focus on the business the technical and the marketing aspects of self publishing your e-book,” said Backe, who is the author of travel blog Chris in South Korea and is also working on his third e-book on unusual Korean travel destinations.Backe said he would cover the technical aspects, while Miller woul

WASHINGTON (Yonhap News) ― The top U.S. military officer, Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, caught some North Korean soldiers off guard earlier this week as he traveled to the Demilitarized Zone that divides the two Koreas, according to the Pentagon.Several stories, carried Monday on the website of the Defense Department, gave detailed accounts of Dempsey’s visits to Seoul and the DMZ along with Army Gen. James D. Thurman, who leads the U.S. Forces Korea.Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of S

Dancing has a positive influence on teenage girls’ mental health, Swedish researchers say. The study, led by Anna Duberg of the Center for Health Care Sciences, conducted an experiment on girls between ages 13 and 18, who had what researchers call “internalizing problems.” The girls had a depressed mood, low self-worth or persistent feelings of tiredness but their symptoms were not severe enough to warrant psychiatric care.Among 112 girls, about half of the girls were assigned to participate in

A New York University student managed to track down a girl he was attracted to by using social media network Reddit.According to NYU’s news blog NYU Local, a student who identified himself as “Tom” posted a request on Reddit saying he needed to find a female student with whom he shared an umbrella with on campus.Tom said they exchanged first names, majors and hometown, but he forgot to ask for her contact details. “She’s about 5’4" from what I could tell, skinny, brunette,” desperate Tom wrote l

Britain's media are in a meltdown and its government is gaffe-prone, so Oxford Dictionaries has chosen an apt Word of the Year: ``omnishambles.''Oxford University Press on Tuesday crowned the word _ defined as ``a situation that has been comprehensively mismanaged, characterized by a string of blunders and miscalculations'' _ its top term of 2012.Each year Oxford University Press tracks how the English language is changing and chooses a word that best reflects the mood of the year. The publisher