Tuesday Tourism: Part 1 - The Morning

Another early start on Tuesday. This was our scheduled tourism day planned out by my fiancee. It was jam packed and this will take several posts to go through. First stop was Seoul Tower. I saw it in October, but this was a chance for the others, though Adam did not join us up in the tower, saying it was, "fucking retarded." I think he was just tired from the previous night. This by the way probably marks the first point of the trip where one of us got tired and cranky. Most of us were guilty of this at some point (though Daniel seems the exception). I'm glad I went up though, because I completely forgot that the washrooms there had a big glass wall so that you could look out over the city while you did your business. Hilarious!

The new favourite drink of the trip, Pocari Sweat

The site also has a "Teddy Bear Museum", which is really just a small store of Teddy Bears, but the amusing part was the large bear we saw being shipped in. We had to snap a photo.

Also, there is one fence along the observation deck where couples like to place locks on and the throw away the key to make it permanent. We missed that last time, so my fiancee and I decided to do this. Adam, Daniel, and Branko passed the time with a photoshoot on a nearby bench.

The actual practice is frowned upon by officials

The that hardly seems to stop it.

We ran off to Namdaemun Market to continue Daniel's hunt for Konglish shirts. My fiancee was also looking for cute dog clothing, and Branko was both on a hunt for shirts and a fake Louis Vuitton purse his sister requested. Branko unfortuantely found that no Korean shirt could contain him (he's like a 3XL in Korea)! I ended up grabbing a new pair of glasses as they are just so dirt cheap in Korea as compared to Canada. Like, 1/4 the price cheap! I just got a pair six months back, but figured I could use a backup. Besides, with two pairs, I was comfortable going fairly geeky on the second!

Street food! Also, these Blues Brothers statues are everywhere.

Branko sad that nothing fit him

My new glasses!

Next, we hopped on the bus and took a trip to Changdeokgung, one of the two large palaces in Seoul (here's my visit from October). We walked along with one of the Korean tours (the English one was an hours wait away), and saw the sites. The tour took a slightly different route than the last one I did, so I got to see a few different parts. We didn't really mind the tour being in Korean, as they were super interested in all of the history and there were signs and plaques anyway. At one point Daniel started getting yelled at a little by some older Korean man. We're not sure what it was about exactly, but it seemed to be related to his unshavedness. Not sure if the guy was impressed/amused or scandalized.

The main gate and the grounds

The throne room (outside and in)

A cutie (not the one with the camera, Adam)

Did somebody call the awesome squad?

Daniel causing a stir.

Regardless, it was getting really hot, so we bought some water at the snack bar along the tour and then went off to lunch.

We went to Mulan - Casual Chinese Restaurant, a restaurant we went to on my last trip, and got Jajangmyun (long noodles with black bean sauce). It was tasty and a lot of food. Branko was the only one to completely finish I believe.

Tasty!

Monday: The Short-lived School Trip and Local Wandering

Monday was my fiancee's last day of the semester; a half day of packing up and no classes so she brought us all in to meet the teachers and students. We got to the school and met her two co-teachers, who are new this semester, but I met both of them back in November when they were teaching other classes. We hung around for a few minutes with Daniel, Branko, and Adam making a show for the various students who were helping clean up the office, before heading over to meet the principal. He has a swanky office with a number of comfy leather chairs, and we sat in there for a bit, not really talking much as he doesn't speak much English. We gave him a bottle of Ice Wine before heading back to the English office.

At this point, the vice-principal came in and told us all that there is a quarantine-like rule in effect right now that says we can't come to the school until we've been in the country for a week. I guess I can understand it, considering the whole swine flu scare going on (we had to have our temperatures taken at the airport to enter the country), but it was odd that they told us after we had been hanging out for 45 minutes. Also, we weren't a surprise to them as my fiancee had cleared bringing us with her with her teachers the previous week. Oh well, no real matter, though I'm a little sad I didn't get a chance to say hi to some of the people I met on my last trip.

We left and went to get some breakfast. I introduced Branko to Seoul's ubiquitous bakeries, specifically Paris Baguette, one of the more common chains. It was a huge hit with him. So much so, that we ended up going there for a breakfast snack almost every day of the trip. That man likes what he likes. We also took a trip to the E-mart department store as Adam was equally impressed with their selection and cheapness after his first trip there on Saturday. We hurried back home to meet my fiancee when she finished her half day of school, and then ran off for lunch with her one co-teacher Soo-yeon.
Our constant source of breakfast

These hotdog bun things were delicious

Lunch was some tasty Samgyupsal (bacon) and some Soju. We started talking about the few drinking games we knew, and Soo-yeon filled us in on the sketchy parts and taught us a few others. Our friends were a tad surprised by all the drinking games she knew and kinda thought of her a big party girl, but my fiancee set them straight telling them how pretty much all Koreans know drinking games. Of particular note were "The Game of Death", and another game where you pass around a bottle of Soju and have to each take a turn pouring some into a shot glass floating on beer in a pint. The person who sinks the shot glass has to chug the pint, beer and Soju. After lunch we got some Patbingsu (a shaved ice and ice cream dish) before saying goodbye to Soo-yeon.

Patbingsu

Soo-yeon amused (and scandalized?) by Branko

We went off to the Hyundai department store for some shopping (Daniel wanted to find some Konglish shirts) but didn't turn up much so we wandered back home.

Adam amused at the above sign while shopping

Daniel, Adam, and Branko ran off to a PC Bang to do the very Korean thing of playing Starcraft, so my fiancee and I got some time to hang out. They were inspired after seeing the Starcraft TV channel. Daniel had never played Starcraft, Branko is a beginner, but Adam has A LOT of hours under his belt.

Starcraft Channel. Always on!

Adam clearly dominated the newbs.

For supper we went to a nearby Fried Chicken restaurant for food and beer. The chicken was ok, but the beer came in some massive pitchers. We got some Soju and played our newly acquired games. One table near us had a really drunk guy, who got into an argument with the owner and started dropping glasses and plates on the floor shattering them. This started a fight as the owner had to physically remove him, while a young girl in the restaurant started crying, bringing her mother into the fray (yelling only) against the drunk. It lasted a minute or two, and we were all pretty disgusted with the ass.

It didn't ruin our night though, as we finished our food and drink and went off in search of Noraebang (karaoke)! The first place was too expensive, so we went a few doors down (noraebang is everywhere) and found a place to our liking. When we sat down and started to sing, we discovered that we were in some sort of erotic noraebang room, as the monitors were showing soft core porn. I peaked into another room in the place and it was normal, so I don't know why we had the porn, but it wasn't really a problem. Some of it was pretty weird though. We picked Puff The Magic Dragon for Daniel (as he sings it when he plays guitar), and the screen had a woman stripping while on a swing suspended from a hot air balloon. Weird. Anyway, we all had a good time singing, and Branko rocked it when he did Gold Digger with "authority and exuberance" according to Daniel (and drunkenness). My fiancee got 100% on one of her picks. It was a good night!

My fiancee's Goodbye

My fiancee's last day of class was today (she still has her summer school starting in 2 weeks). I think she is really going to miss the kids. She really quite loves teaching. She got a lot of presents today, including a rather blinged out USB drive. She also got a lots of notes and letters from her students thanking her and wishing her well. She really enjoyed reading them. Some were very short, some longer. The quality of the English varied with some particularly good students and others that were incomprehensible. She loved them all. Here are a few funny ones:

Hellow nice see you my name is [student's name] teacher! How old are you? It is joke. I'm ronaldo haha. Do you want to get my sign? Do you shy kkk oh very sexy. yuho, * have a nic day
good bye~

Hi teacher! My name is [student's name] (6th grade). My favorite food is spaghetti (spelling is right...?) What's your favorite food? I have a very cute younger sister. Her name is [sister's name], and she is 5th grade. We always fight. One day, my younger sister was very angry. So she shout at me. Of course my parents surprised. So they are teach to us "older sister is always love her sister, and younger sister is always respect her sister!" But... We are fight everyday! Ah! Teacher! Very thankyou for you teach. (? I think grammar isn't right... T-T T-T) And...Congratulation for your marry!

There were some others, one where the student misspelled hello as "Hellellow", another with the word "you're's", and another signed by a student calling himself "The Great Woo". Korean students take particular fun in inventing English names for themselves like "The Great Woo", "Small Boy Leader", "BMW", "Genesis", "Glory" and such.

An Explanation

It occurred to me that maybe I haven't given much background for this Asian Adventure. Probably should have been my first post of this series, but you'll just have to read it now.

My fiancee is still in Korea teaching, where I visited her back in October/November. She's coming back soon, but I wanted to come see her again before she left, and I brought some of our friends. We decided on a weeks stay in Seoul, followed by a couple of days on the beach in Busan, and then a flight to Tokyo.

The suspects include:

• Daniel - Best man at our wedding
• Branko - One of the groomsmen
• Adam - One of the bridesmen, he's been living in California a few years so we haven't seen him in a while
• Amber - Who will be joining us for the Busan and Tokyo part of the trip. She's a former co-worker of Daniel's who is also teaching in Seoul.
• Kevin - One of our friends who will be in Japan for a few weeks, so we're meeting up with him and he'll be staying in the same hostel a couple of nights.

I now return you to the trip.

Sunday: Mudfest

5am wake up call (and this after going out drinking in our jet-lagged state). This was because we had a 6:30 train to Boryeong for the mud festival! It was a 2.5 hour trip from Seoul, and we wanted to go early before it got super busy as it was the last day of the festival.

We're on our way...and tired.

The city was pretty nice, what we saw of it anyway. We stuck mostly to the beach. There was mud everywhere. Everywhere! Waterslides, relay races, and wrestling, all in the mud. There was coloured mud for body painting and mud cages where you stood there and they splashed mud at you. The cage was not particularly enjoyable according to Branko and my fiancee, particularly when they whip mud in your face. We went through the rides and stuff before the crowds got huge and then went down and hung out on the beach.

We got a little muddy

Slides and Games

There are no restrictions in Korea about public alcohol consumption, so we picked up some beer and soju from the convenience store and had it on the beach. This resulted in a long run game of "Have I never ever", which got more and more revealing for all as the drink went down.

We met up with a friend for a little bit, and also spoke to a group of five foreigner English teachers, one from Toronto (Scarborough to boot) and the others from South Africa, when they asked us to snap a photo of them. They each had a word painted on themselves with mud and were writing a "Wish You Were Here" message for a friend.

We swam a bit, hung out a lot. Branko had made drunken candid comment about a friend of ours which has gone down with us as an epic quote, but I really shouldn't put it down here. Adam lost his iron ring in one of the mud events, and the ocean claimed his ziplock bag of money and his drivers licence at some point, so that was not so much fun for him. He also, thinking he was in deeper water than he was, struck out his arm and essentially stubbed his forearm on the ocean floor. This twisted elbow has plagued him for days not.

The place really started clearing out by 6:30, and we went back up to the street for a supper of tasty pizza. The train back had all seats full, so we bought standing tickets and sat on the floor of the snack car, where we each took a nap, and on getting back to Seoul, our fun muddy Sunday was concluded.

Coloured mud and the muddy street aftermath