Vacation: Part I

Ahh, summer vacation. I had a week off from work last week and tried to put it to good use. Had a good friend fly in to visit so I tried especially hard to make the most of it. There are still so many areas in Seoul I haven't been to, and each time I find a new place it just leads to more cool locations. Bottom line: this city is BIG.

I finally got around to going through my photos. There's a lot to post and write about so I'll break this into two parts. Part I:



My friend and co-worker offered to drive to the airport and pick my buddy up with me. After picking up my friend from Incheon we headed straight out to dinner. Tonight's main course was dak galbi. Everyone at work wanted to meet my friend so we had close to 10 people at dinner. This is the restaurant we ate at. Very good.



Soju turns Clark Kent into Superman. After dinner and drinks we went walking to the second place and saw this. You basically pay $5 to crush plastic plates with your fist. I've tried it a few weeks ago and got through about 7 plates. If you get over 10 you win a stuffed animal, or some other random thing.



The street right by my house in Sincheon. It basically looks like this every night. This is also where my co-workers and I eat lunch each day. If you don't feel like taking the subway anywhere and are in this area, this is where you come to enjoy the evenings.



Inside the ubiquitous noraebang. I've written about this many times before so, yeah. This is the inside. Some of the more ambitious non-Koreans attempt to read/sing in Korean but is often hard to keep up.




The spread at my favorite galbi restaurant near my house. My friend really enjoyed it, too. The two ladies that always work there are sooooo nice. I try and converse in my kindergarten Korean and they love it. They tell me to call them 'e-mo', which means aunt.


Same restaurant. I probably eat here once or twice a week.



On Sunday we headed to Jamsil Stadium to watch some KBO. There are few Seoul teams but some of them share the stadiums and trade off games. Which team you cheer for decides which side of the stadium you sit in.



Doosan Bears section. Fans here are rabid and cheer after every pitch as if they had just won the World Series.

After a 30 minute rain delay (still monsoon season) it was back to ball.



My co-worker's daughter, Hae-bin. This is her first baseball game and she had a good time. So cute.




Seoul Tower sits on the top of a large hill/mountain thing right downtown. You take a cable car to the top and then enjoy the view. It's similar to the Space Needle in Seattle. They have a restaurant, gift shop, teddy bear museum, bench presses (not kidding) up near the tower.


About a billion locks with notes attached to them. It's a tradition with the youngsters to write a love note and then lock it to the fence by the tower.



A shot of the city from one of the decks. I guess you can see most of Seoul from up here.



There is a light show at the tower that runs nightly. I thought this was a cool effect.



After the tower it was back down to the city for some drinks. This area is called Myeon-dong and is one of the better-known shopping districts. It gets very busy during the day but thins out at night because most of the places here are clothes shops.

The next day we headed down to Haeundae for a few nights. I will post those pictures in the next few days.

I heard it was 107 F in Portland right now. I will gladly trade that for this sticky, hot, humidity that makes you sweat buckets within 2 seconds outside. Deal?

Sights and Sounds

Tomorrow is the first day of my vacation. My good friend will be visiting me in Seoul. I have TONS of stuff planned, such as:

• a trip back down to Hauendae, Busan for a few nights
• gambling at the largest mall in Korea
• baseball game in Jamsil (eating squid instead of hot dogs)
• a visit to a bar completely made of ice
• hookah bar in Gangnam
• Namsan Tower and Insa-dong
• in addition to the usual Korean BBQ, soju, noraebang, jjimjilbang,
  

It's going to be a good week. Good stories and photos will likely follow.

Here's a pretty cool video I watched about somebody's trip here. Nice editing, etc.

Korea: Fighting!

One of my favorite Konglish words in Korean is "fighting!" It's not usually used in the context that native-speakers are used to. Rather, it means something more along the lines of "cheer up!" or "stay strong!" Usually, a clenched fist is pointing skyward when saying this. It's also acceptable to use it as a substitute to "cheers!", or at least I like to use it that way.

A big fight broke out yesterday in the National Assembly. Apparently, they were trying to pass a new media reform bill when all hell broke loose. Pure mayhem and awesome desk-jumping ensued.

Click here for the video.

Total Eclipse of the Heart

I didn't even hear about this beforehand, but, yesterday was apparently the longest solar eclipse of the century. The last total solar eclipse was back in August of 1887.

I was walking to work and I saw tons of people with their phones out pointed at the sky. I didn't pay too much mind to it and forgot about it for a short time. 30 minutes later, though, I noticed a very surreal light outside that looked odd considering it was a very sunny day 10 minutes beforehand. Over 90% of the sun was blocked out for about 5 minutes. I almost blinded myself staring at it... smart, I know.

Korea's next total solar eclipse will be in Pyongyang, North Korea in 2035 but will be impossible to observe because it will occur after sunset.

Thank you, Mrs. Tyler, for being the visionary artist that you were.

My Name is Mud

One of the biggest annual festivals in Korea (for expats) is the Boreyong Mud Festival. The festivities just jumped off last Friday, and I want to make it down. It's about 2.5 hours south of Seoul. Apparently, it's CRAZY.

Mud wrestling, mud slip-and-slides, mud dancing, etc. It gets live, to say the least. Given Korea's tolerance for open container laws, it's a breeding ground for public drunkenness and dirty mud fun. Sounds rad.

Check out this article for the full report. Hopefully I can make it down there next weekend.

Cats and Dogs

It's officially monsoon season.

25 years of Oregon weather has not prepared me for this brand of torrential downfall. I'm watching umbrellas break one after another outside. The crazy thing is, it's HOT outside... like hot as hell. I'm used to rain and cold weather. I haven't experienced humidity like this since Miami, either.

If it wasn't so wet my shirt would be sticking to my back within 10 steps of walking outside.

5 things I like about Korea: Part 1

It's funny, when you live somewhere for long enough it begins to feel like home. Small things that used to shock or amaze you on a daily basis begin to feel fairly routine. Oh, there's a guy driving his motorcycle down the sidewalk (sometimes cars, too)? No big deal. What's that, we're having octopus, squid, and seaweed for lunch? Just a typical Wednesday meal.

Here's a quick list of 5 random observations, or things that I've gotten used to that I rather like.

1- Ridiculously cheap yet high quality food. For any given meal, you can expect to pay around or under $4-5 at a restaurant. This may not seem like a big deal, but, when you consider the 4-8 side dishes that accompany every meal (banchan) it's a great bargain. These side dishes are refillable, too. The servers wait on your beck and call and are more than happy to fill these back up ASAP.

2- This kind of ties into #1 and the low cost of dining. No tipping. Anywhere. Ever. They won't accept it so don't even try. This includes taxis, delivery men, and every other service-related thing you'll pay for.

3- The subway. Seoul has one of the best public transportation systems in the world. Buses run everywhere and the subway is usually only a 10-15 minute walk away from wherever you are. Oh, and it's dirt cheap. I can take a 45 minute subway ride from one side of the city to the other for around $1. They can get very crowded, though. You usually only get a seat if you're an older person and it's common courtesy to give yours up if one gets on. See the map below.


4- Cheap movies, sports, museums, etc. Being away from the land of Stars and Stripes on our nation's birthday left me with one option; engage in our national pastime. I went and saw the Doosan Bears take on the LG Twins at the Jamsil stadium (KBO). Admission was 6,000 KRW which is about $4.50. You can bring food and drink in, too. They had vendors outside selling Hite tallboys' for $2. Also, had a Burger King vendor so yeah... baseball, beer, burgers is about as close as one can get to the 4th without being on US soil.

5- Anything that ends in -bang. In Korean, 'bang' means 'room'. So, on any given street you'll find a number of -bangs.

First, the PC Bang. It's essentially an internet cafe where hordes of young kids come play internet games. You can also check your email or do whatever for around $1.50 an hour.

Next, the jjimjilbang. I wrote about this before but I'm a huge fan of the bath house.

And last but defintely not least, the noraebang. Usually a night out goes as follows: dinner first, usually lasts 1-2 hours. Once everybody eats we go to another place for drinks. But, it's not custom to drink without eating (most places, hofs, won't even serve you without ordering a snack of some kind) so we'll then take a 2nd dinner of light snacking and soju. After a time there it's usually off to go the noraebang to go belt out some hot tunes. They use some kind of software there that processes your voice to make it sound better (studio magic?). Also, at the end of each song they rate your performance. Here's a good video of said noraebang. The English song selection is quite comprehensive, I might add.

So that's it. The first 5 things that came to mind about about things I do and see everyday that might be different for those not living here. I've got tons more I'll probably write about but this will be a nice little bite of kimchi.