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?