Something funny happened on the way to the stag party.....

After beign called out by a drunken buffoon about my lack of writing on the blog (just kidding B, I know you weren't too drunk, ha!), I figured it was time for me to sit down again and crank one out for you guys. This particular post is a short one but I like it regardless. It's not particularly insightful on Korea or anything like that but it does highlight the fact that it's the small things that make life and that sometimes the journey can be as much fun as the actual destination. Enjoy!

So a friend of mine from the football (soccer) team I play on is getting married in late August, so that means 2 things my friends, bridal showers and dress shopping....errr, I mean one thing, stag party!! As a group, we decided to head to some place called Geoje, some small city which has to be better than Ulsan by default.

Saturday afternoon rolls around and I lazily walk to the meeting spot to cram into a 9 person van with 6 other guys from the team. Most of the people got there on Friday but the rest of us get out late in the evening on Fridays so it made more sense to leave on Saturday. So we roll out on our 4-5 hour trek somewhere around 1:00 and everything seems to be going well.

At one point we stop for at a truck stop for a bathroom break, get some snacks and stretch out. My friend Donal and I step inside and come across one of those once in a lifetime decisions, you know the ones where you make a bold move which could be seen as a heroic move or a complete utter move? Yeah, one of those moves. So there we are in the truck stop, looking at the vast cds and cassettes (yes they still sell them somewhere) where our eyes come across the only western one, and quite frankly the only one we recognized. ABBA Gold, on cassette!! Now, the decision was a tough one, as the cassette costed 5,000 won, or about 4 dollars. After looking at each other we knew there was no option, no guts no glory!

With our split purchase in our hand, we walked back into the van with grinning and giggling like school girls. The moment JK started the van, we popped in the tape, anxiously waiting the response or boos. The first song that came on, to no surprise, was "Dancing Queen". Within seconds, all seven of us were singing along to the song, quite a feat considering that there were two koreans in the van, one who hadn't said a word in English in the 3 hours up to that point. The sound wasn't great, but oh what a sight, 7 grown men singing "Dancing Queen". We listened to the rest of the tape, but I don't think anything could've topped the initial rendition of "Dancing Queen".

Now the rest of the weekend was good, had some good laughs, blah blah blah, but I know that the ABBA experience will always stay with me. Like I said before, sometimes it's those small moments that make a good time great, a great night an excellent, etc. And really, that's what it's all about..................

Who needs a bunch of mud anyway, right?

Well let me start with my token apology about being a poor blogger, been busy but been really lazy as well. What can you do? Anyways, last weekend, the 11th and 12th of July, was the kickoff to a weeklong fest appropriately named "Mudfest" in Boryeong, a coastal city on the west coast of Korea. They apparently ship in some mud which is supposed to be healthy (although some people reported that they had a bad reaction to the mud) and have it on the beach, and people spend the weekend on the beach, in the mud and get drunk all weekend. The event is pretty big amongst the foreigner community, and something like 90% of the people that attend are foreigners.

I was unable to attend but to be honest I wasn't sure if I wanted to go as it seemed like a spring break type event, but at the same time I wanted to see what it was like because it was so hyped up. No mudfest, but fun was still to be had in Ulsan, right? So Saturday evening I met up with my good friends Mal and Lu, the dog they were dogsitting (her owner was at mudfest surprise, surprise) at one of the beaches here in Ulsan. I started off the evening by passing by a cart on the boardwalk area of the beach that sold Italian treats and sangria. Sangria, in Korea, who would've thought you would be able to sangria here? So I picked up some cups for Mal, Lu and I. The verdict, better than I thought it would've been and the couple that served it to me was super nice and seemed super cool, so definitely a plus and a recommendation if you find yourself on Ilsan Beach in Ulsan.

From there, we met up with our Korean friend Martin and headed to a hof (beerhouse, they took the name from the German word) for some beers and fried bar food. Since it was raining and it seemed like there was no end in sight, we decided to head to a restaurant and get some proper food. With Martin being our master of Korean culture and making sure that we get as much as possible, he took us to try a new Korean food, 족 발 (jok bal) or pig's leg. Just think of them taking a piggy's leg and then slicing the leg into slices that look like silver dollar pancakes. Presented in a big pile with some bones and a knee cap in there, and you're good to go. And just like a lot of Korean cuisine, it was served with doenjang (soy bean paste), garlic, and leaves to wrap the meat up and eat like tacos! The jok bal was pretty good, very fatty and wasn't my overall favorite Korean meal, but definitely worth trying.

After our meal and one doggie wee incident in the entrance of the restaurant, the 5 of us (including our canine friend), got into a taxi and head across town to where Mal and Lu live. We then went to a bar to continue our festivities, but unfortunately the bar had other plans by serving us some of the weakest drinks I had ever drank in my life. Congratulations Wa Bar for actually making people sober up in a bar, well played. Weak drinks aside, it was a good time as our friend Mike was able to meet up with us there as we were just able to enjoy some good company.

The next day I woke up for a soccer game which we ended up forfeiting after a nasty injury decimated our squad of 9 people down to 8 (normal squads have 11 plus substitutes. Another casualty of mudfest). While I was unhappy that we lost, I was content that I got to go home and get some much needed rest.

Later on that day, I met up with my friend JK at Munsu Soccer Stadium (a site for the 2002 World Cup) to watch the Ulsan Hyundai Tigers take on FC Daegu in a K-League match up. It was pretty cool because we sat with the comissioner of the Korean Amateur Soccer League, which was probably more exciting for JK as I couldn't really have a conversation with them due to the language barrier. Still, I think it was good for them to see a foreigner that was interested in the local football team.

From there, the comissioner dropped me off near my home so I could get some dinner and cap off the weekend. All in all it was a good weekend, despite missing out on the most talked about party in Korea........

The Big Guy's Birthday

The Big Guy, the big, fat, bald one that is, had a birthday in the beginning of May. That's right, I'm talking about Buddha! The following are the tales of my weekend celebrating his birth with soccer, lanterns and merriment.

For those of you that aren't in the know, 25% of the Korean population claims to be Buddhist, thus making it one of the main religions of Korea. Consequently, 25% of the population claims to be Christian as well. But much like Christian Holidays, Buddha's Birthday is celebrated by everyone, regardless of their beliefs. What that means is everyoen heads to the temples, but I'm getting ahead of myself so let's start from the beginning........

So after a morning Saturday practice on May 2, I rushed back to my home to take a quick shower and pack my school bag with all the necessities for a one day trip. I refueled with some quick little snacks at the local grocery store and then went over to the Ulsan Bus Station.

Seeing as how Ulsan isn't exactly the hub of Korean Culture nor Buddhism, I decided to take a trip to Busan and check out some temples there. One of the best things about living in Ulsan is that Busan, Korea's 2nd biggest city, is a 40 minute bus ride away, making it perfect for weekend trips. Another good point is due to the clsoe proximity to Busan, buses leaving for Busan from Ulsan leave every 7 minutes. I was literally en route to Busan within 5 minutes of getting to the station. A-SSSAAAHHH!!!

As previously noted, it took me maybe 40 minutes to get to Busan. From the bus station I was able to navigate the subway to find the station I needed to get to my destination, Samgwansa Temple, a modern temple located inthe heart of the metropolis. While looking at the subway map, I realize that Beomeosa Station, the stop which leads to Beomeosa Temple, is one stop over from the bus station and is still on the way to my final destination. 왜 안돼 (way- an dway), or "why not?" Hooray for sponteanity!

After getting off the subway, I decided to follow the signs pointing to the temple and walk the 3 kilometers to the temple as opposed to taking the bus. I came to this decision as I figured I would not be able to figure out Lonely Planet's directions, only to find the bus station that services the temple by accident. A-SSAH! So I paid the 1,000 won (about .75 U.S.) fare and crammed into the bus full of people itching to taste some of that sweet, sweet Buddha B-Day cake.

So for the first kilometer, everything was going well, we were moving fine along fine, and then boom, we hit the traffic of half the city of Busan in this hill. Finally, after some minutes of waiting there, these older Korean ladies got the same idea that I had, which was to get off and walk it and get there in half the time. I took advantage of their abilities to ask the driver to let them off and got off as well and continued my trek to see the birthday boy. On my trek, not only did I pass the bus that left the station prior to the bus that I was on, but I past 2 other buses, which is to say the 3 buses that left before my bus had left.

Considering the amount of cars waiting to arrive to the temple, it was no surprise that the temple was crammed even from the bottom gate. The steps leading up to the temple were adorned with paper lamps in the shades of green, red, yellow and blue. Totally Asian and totally cool.

So I walked around a bit, took some pictures of the pagoda and the all the lanterns. One thing about Beomeosa is that it is supposed to be one of the most famous temples of Busan. While the actual temple itself didn't seem to impress, the surroundings were pretty cool as there were lush green mountain/hilltops in the background. The lonely planet book noted how you almost forget that you're in a city of a couple million people which I could see, minus the whole fact that half of those couple of million people were at the same temple as me.

I continued to meander around the temple and saw some more prayer halls but was unable to get close as there was some type of ceremony going on. Beatened down by the vast amount of people at the park, I decided to take a few more pictures of the pagoda and go on my way.

From Beomeosa, I took the subway to Samgwansa Temple. I had gone to Samgwansa with Mal, Lu and Mike in my first trip to Busan and remembered them having tons of poles meant for the lanterns. Surely, they would have a great set up for festivities, i thought.

Samgwansa is totally different from Beomeosa. Samgwansa is right off of semi-main street where as Beomeosa is a bit more hidden in the mountains and forest. Beomeosa is an odler temple while Samgwansa is a newer temple. With that said, don't let Samgwansa's youthful age (I believe it was built in the 80's, of the 20th century) fool you about it's importance. Apparently, or so a woman told Mal on our last visit, Samgwansa is the hub of a certain sect of Buddhism for a large part of Korea, making it a rather important temple.

Walking up to the temple gate, as the taxi couldn't take me to the temple gate due to the people traffic, you could see all the people selling traditional buddhist garb and everything buddhist. As I got closer to the temple, the items became more frivolous and irrelevant to the actual celebration. Starting with some slushees then moving to random t-shirts and finishing with street vendors selling q-tips and band-aids. Really? Not sure what that was all about, but it just goes to show that nothing is sacred anymore, not Christmas, not Buddha's Birthday and definitely not Presidents Day......err, well forget the last one.

As predicted, the decorations at Samgwansa was quite impressive. There were large dragons and a roof of lanterns covering the grounds of the temple. I meandered through the masses of people and tried my best to capture the moment without offending the religious attending. With that said, a lot of the decorations were similar to those of Beomeosa so I did not stay there too long.

Finished with Samgwansa, I went back to Haeundae to meet up with a my former coworker and his girlfriend. From there we went to his new apartment and started up the night with some Andong Soju, which is 40% alcohol. We then packed up some homemade soju fruit juice cocktails and went over to the Busan sports complex to watch the Ulsan Hyundai Tigers, the professional soccer team of Ulsan, face off against Busan L'Park.

Being my first in-person professional event in Korea, the differences between Korean and American sporting events were clear even before I entered the stadium. For one, the most expensive ticket was 8,000 won, or approximately 6 dollars. Not even for MLS games in America are tickets that cheap. Furthermore, there were few people at the stadium, definitely under 5,000, which is shocking because soccer is most definitely in the top 3 in the world of Korean sport.

After getting past the shock of the prices and lack of attendance, it then hit me that we totally walked in with quart size jugs of homemade soju cocktail. Not only did they not detain us for the alcohol but they also sold cans of beer, at ridiculously reasonable prices. It's almost as if they encourage you to get drunk at the games. They obviously haven't had many people from Cleveland attend their sporting events here. Now back in the states, I usually like to have a beer in one hand with some nachos in the other and enjoy a good contest. Korea does things a little differently, with packages of dried squid or ramyeon (the Korean pronunciation of ramen). It's actually quite a sight to see a giant thermos of hot water next to the snack stand so you can prepare you ramyeon.

Well, my mood was lightened with a 2-1 win for the visiting Ulsan Club and by my soju cocktail. The celebrations continued as the 3 of us went to the Haeundae Beach area where we hit up several bars. At that point everything pretty much got blurry and basically all I remember was getting some gimchi jjigae (gimchi stew) before heading back to my friends place where I would crash on his floor.

The next day came early, as I had set my alarm for 10 till 9 so I could get back to Ulsan to catch the soccer bus to take us to our match in Daegu. With my stomach feeling like it had just been on the scrambler ride at an amusement park, I snuck out of my friends apartment and navigated my way back to the bus station to catch the bus back to Ulsan. Ah, this is the life I lead...........

Oh, Korea....

I was originally going to write a post about why I suck at being a blogger, but to be honest I just couldn't be bothered. Look, I get busy at times, and others I get distracted and don't get around to doing the blog. What can you do? So instead of lyign to myself and saying that I will write that post, I've decided to write about some interesting little stories that have occurred here in Korea.

Just a typical Saturday morning, I stopped in MacDonalds and got some breakfast before heading off to soccer practice. As I climbed into the taxi, I heard two words that I hadn't heard in a while, "Good Morning". For the most part, the cab drivers here are reluctant to start up a convo with me, or most foreigners, mostly for the communication barrier but I just so happened to stumble across one that could speak some English, and wanted to have a Saturday morning chat.

We start chatting about the typical stuff, why I'm in Korea, what's teaching like, etc. Then, the driver asks me if I like pop. At first I didn't quite understand what he was saying,I thought he was saying "Park", but then he explained by saying "Beatles? do you like pop?"

Ohhhhhhh, pop music, I think to myself. "Yeah, I like the Beatles. I like pop". So the driver puts in his cd and we start rocking out to some Beatles. And by rocking out, I mean him and I singing "Let It Be" together. Dare I say the most awesome version of "Let It Be"? Korean taxi driver and his Korean accent with my out of tune singing which is heightened at 8:45 in the morning. Brilliant!

Now the story would be good if it ended there, but unfortunately, my newly found friend dared for something greater. "Simon and Garfunkel, do you like?" he asked me. Why yes, yes I do. So after destroying some Beatles, we made our own rendition of "Bridge Over Troubled Water", a version just as awesome as our Beatles cover.

After the Simon and Garfunkel, we arrived at my destination so the merriment came to a tearful end. I will say that I don't think I've ever been in such a cheerful mood after stepping out of a taxi, so well played Korean taxi driver. These are the moments that make my experience in Korea. This is my life.......

Busan Trip

Continuing with my trend of being really behind on the blog, I am going to write about a trip to Busan that occurred in the middle of March.

So for my friend Lu's Birthday, we decided to take a little weekend trip to Busan, Korea's second biggest city and also a 30-40 minute ride from Ulsan. We being, Mal and Lu, and Mike, the Canadian engineer. We get to Haeundae, a district in Busan, shortly before noon. From there we go in search for our accommodation for the evening, to the love motels!!!

In Korea, they have motels that are called "love motels" which are motels basically built for their name. How can one tell? Good question. Let's see they have little curtains in their entrance so people can't see who is getting in and out of the cars and they have condoms in the rooms. They are cheaper than hotels and usually are pretty comfortable and not as sleezy as one would think with their name. Keep in mind, I think the moniker "love motel" comes from foreigners and the koreans just differentiate by calling them "hotels" and "motels".

After searching around and checking out a handful of different motels, we finally came to agree on one that had a room with two beds so Mike and I could split the cost without partaking in the love. We drop our stuff in the hotel and then go wandering about Haeundae.

The motel that we checked into, and all the motels we checked out, were all a 5 minute walk to Haeundae Beach, so after Mike and Mal got some Starbucks, we headed off to the beach. Lu and I were both excited to be on the beach so we promptly took off our shoes and walked around barefoot. Soon, we were taking the token "jumping picture" right on the edge of water. On a sidenote, Haeundae beach is Korea's most popular beach and is one of the top 8 sceneries of Korea. It definitely did not disappoint, although let's keep in mind that it's not Thailand, Hawaii, the Caribbean, etc.

After trying in vain to get the sand off of us, we decided it was time to get some lunch, b.b.q style. From there we headed on over to the Busan Metro and with the help of the Lonely Planet Guidebook, we just picked some area and went on our way. After getting to our unplanned destination, we stumbled across a decent sized book sotre. Now, I'm always keen to checking out bookstores because I'm always on the hunt for expanding my Spanish library here in Korea and surprisingly, there isn't a lot of Spanish materials here. Basically, anytime I'm in Seoul or Busan, the two largest cities, any bookstore of significant size is considered a must stop for me. Sure enough, they did have some books, mostly reference books, but I was able to find a book about Modern Spanish History for 7 bucks, AHH-SSSAH!!!

Upon exiting the bookstore we notice a little waffle stand in the street. This day just keeps getting better and better! Now, we have just eaten a short time ago but I am never one to back down from eating more. The waffle did not dissapoint as I picked the waffle with blueberry ice cream, ass-aah!

After getting my waffle fix, we moved on and were able to find an open air market. This wasn't the first market I had been to in Korea, as a matter of fact, I walk by one pretty much on a daily basis, but this had to be the best one I had seen so far. They had everything from your everyday fruits and vegetables, to the more exciting random parts of pig and dried stingray. Seeing how we didn't really need any of the forementioned items, we decided to move forward and consult some local maps to try and find somewhere else to visit. To the temples!!

We arrived to some temple whose name wasn't important to remember, and kicked it around there for a bit. A lot of the same from what I've seen in Korea with some minor changes. For one it had a really cool pagoda where people were walking around it and then doing prayers. Around the pagoda they had some wall with these really cool images, like some monkey, tiger and dragon soldiers, the stuff you'd expect to see in Asia. It was kind of difficult to take pictures of the whole temple because they had all these gray poles going up to hold these lanterns for when they hold Buddha's Birthday, which is coming up in May. Hands down, the best part of the temple is that right next to the temple they have an atm. I can just imagine the monks passing around the collection basket during a service and someone running to the cash machine to take out some money........

As mentioned, the temple wasn't really anything new so we moved on and headed back to the motel. Lu and Mal have a friend who is living in Hong Kong that was going to meet up with us so we decided to kill some time by picking up some soju and starting the party in the motel. Hooray for soju and pineapple fanta!

So Vic, the friend from Hong Kong showed up, so we went out to one of the university districts in Busan to celebrate Lu's existence. We first went to a hof (pronounced ho-peh) which comes from German, and had some beers and some fried appetizers as a snack. From there, we went to a foreigner bar to keep the festivities going. On a total random note, we ran into some friends from Ulsan at this bar, who just so happened to be celebating one of the girls' b-days as well. After everyoen got their fill of liquid fun and Madonna, we went back to the motel to get some much needed sleep.

The next day we wake up fairly early as Mal, Lu and Mike had booked a scuba dive with sharks at the Busan Aquarium. I, being the procastinator that I am, never got around to booking mine, so after seeing them off i decided to kick it in Haeundae for a bit. After strolling the beach for a 2nd time, I came across a map that showed some park on the other side of the beach and off I went. The park was a good walk and it was really a nice day to be out and about. They had some wallkways where you coudl take pictures of yourself with this famous bridge in the background. Another highlight of this park is that it has the APEC building from the 2005 APEC conference held in Busan (APEC stands for Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation, or something along those lines). The building itself is pretty cool because it's all futuristic looking, kind of like something you would see at Epcot Center. Then I got to enter the building where I was promptly greeted by a robot, awesome! From there I got to see the boardroom and where all the countries sat.

From there soem time had passed and I thought maybe the three musketeers might be close to being done but Lu called to confirm that they would be in the second group of swimmers so I still had some time. With my handy dandy map I saw there was some park with some waterfalls, a hiking trail and some temples. Why not? So I got in the first taxi and was off in search of some waterfalls. I hiked for a bit and saw a running stream but no waterfall. Hiked a little more and saw the temple. A little further and saw a waterfall but not a very big one, definitely not something worth putting on a tourist map. So I decide to continue walking and see if I come across a waterfall that was worth stopping for.

Now, when I was planning this trek I thought it was going to be a simple breeze in the park, maybe a 1 km walk to the waterfall and 1 km back, nothing too grand. Now I'm walking hiking up this hill and I begin to realize that a. I am the only non-korean on the mountain and b. that I'm the only one not decked out in North Face gear or Korean imitation North Face. As a matter of fact, I was pretty much in my clothes that I had worn the night before, i.e. jeans, t-shirt and tennis shoes. So I continue hiking and come across a slight clearing in the trees where you can see all of Haeundae. The sky rise apartments, the ocean, everything. I think hey this is a pretty awesome view but what would it be like from the top and besides I wasn't really in the mood for stopping yet.

So I continue my hike and must have gone close to 4 km (from the beginning of the park) and still haven't gotten to a peak or even a better clearing. Uggh! To top things, I hadn't planned to go for an extensive hike which means I didn't have any water, hadn't eaten anything since the night before. Not one of the best ideas. But I was feeling fine so I continue hiking and it appears that I am getting closer to the top of the peak and will complete my mission. Nope, I was dead wrong as I wasn't even close to any kind of clearing and the frustration kept building up. I will note though that the highlight of this point was that I was walking by an old mine field, or so the fence and barbed wire fence indicated.

My frustration gets the best of me and I decide that it's not going to happen, I'm not going to see the top and I really don't want to be stranded on a mountain due to dehydration/exhaustion, etc. I pack it in and start heading back only to get to a clearing I had passed on the way up. At this clearing they had a sign that said I was 1.4 km from the top of the peak. Now I think to myself that I definitely hiked close to 1.4 from this clearing before and that it really isn't too much to hike, less than a mile, so it was definitely do-able. Move over frustration, determination is coming through. But, I wasn't going to be able to do the trek alone, I would need nourishment. So i stopped by the only food vendor in sight, (there were actually restaurants on the hill/mountain, but they were a little bit of a hike away) which was some guy selling melon flavored popsicles on the side of the trail. Ok, maybe not the first choice of most hikers but my body could probably use the sugar at the point.

I've got my popsicle and my determination so it's to the top or bust. So I continue my hike but this time take a different trail to see if it will maybe take me to the top. I continue on and go what feels like a km and the peak is not in sight, not good. I continue on and on until I finally get to a clearing which has some rocks and enough of a clearing where you can see all of Haeundae. Ok, not the ultimate goal but it wasn't going to have to do, much like a tie in a sporting event. I sit down for a bit, have some korean take a picture of me and then decide to pack it in and head down the trail.

As I descended I came across one of the small outdoor restaurant/food stands and think to myself that I might as well, get some protein/carbs in me. So after taking a look at the menu I see a plate called 김치 두부 (or kimchi dubu- kimchi tofu). Now in my tired, semi hungover and dehydrated state, I thought it was going to be kimchi dubu jjigae, which is a stew with all of the forementioned ingredients, something I've eaten before and know that I like it. Well, you can imagine my surprise when the waiter brings me out a plate of about 12 2x2x1 (in inches) blocks of tofu topped with kimchi. Being in Korea, I've developed a little bit of thing for tofu, especially when prepared well, same goes for kimchi, but the two of them in mass quantities......? And the kimchi wasn't even good...ick. So I forced myself to eat as much as I could thinking to myself that my body could use the protein and vitamins, leaving at least half of the plate for the staff to clear.

I finally got to the bottom of the hill and walked aways until I was able to hail a cab back to the motel/aquarium area. Coincidently, right aboutthe time when I was getting back to the aquarium, Mal, Lu and Mike had just finished with their dive. After meeting up we headed back to Mal and Lu's room as Mike and I had already checked out, and just lounged around for a bit. After taking our much needed break, we took a walk down to this building right across from Haeundae Beach to get some Indian for Lu's B-Day dinner. And from there, Mike and I packed into the car and came back to Ulsan, thus concluding our trip to Busan.......

Seoul, take 3

The next day was our last day to be in Seoul so Mal and Lu were thinking of doing some shopping while Alick was thinking of doing some walking tours. Since Alick was thinking of covering some areas that I had already seen and there was a book market I wanted to check out, so I decided to go with Mal and Lu, as said book market is near the clothes markets they were going to. So we looked at some of the outdoor markets which were pretty cool, with their "adidas" hoody sweatshirts and tracksuits for $10 and all the shoes that probably don't fit me for $10 as well. After looking around, Mal and Lu head into the stores we were at a couple days ago and I go heading off to the used book markets.

After some investigation at the tourist center, I was able to find the book market which was just the side of one street with these tiny closets packed with books with no rhyme or reason. To give a little background information, my main reason for going to the book market was to find something in Spanish because I had already read most of the materials I brought with me and if there is a place that will have a book in Spanish it would be Seoul, right? Another side note, this is a used book market, so it's really like going down a street with churches or libraries doing a book sale. I looked in various ones and saw some of the most random stuff, some books in French, German and English, dictionaries from korean to almost any language, and then some. After a diligent search, I found a Spanish text book and a religious book from Nicaragua and bought them along with an English-Korean/Korean-English dictionary.

Having spent my last won (I only had like $12 on me), I decided it was time to meet up with Mal and Lu. We started our trek back to InsaDong and decided to do the scenic route by walking along this stream that is in the middle of the city. I don't remember the name of this stream but I think it's pretty famous because I've seen it in a couple of k-pop videos. From there, we take some pictures, I make a fool of myself and draw more attention to ourselves, and all in all we have a good time.

Getting back to Insa-Dong in the middle afternoon, we decided to make a dash to this dumpling restaurant. Now we could get dumplings in Ulsan, but this restaurant had something we hadn't seen before, pizza dumplings. We passed by this place on Saturday and talked about going there everyday but just never got around to it, so the build-up for these dumplings was quite big. When we finally get there on Tuesday, we first find out that they don't have the pizza dumplings. What a crushing blow that was! Then the ones we got were good, but it wasn't anything spectacular and definitely not worth the 4 day build-up. Lame!

So we're still in Insa-Dong and we have some time to kill before we were going to try and meet up with Alick so we decide to go to another teahouse. This time though, Mal seemed intent on getting us to a teahouse with actual finches (like the bird) in it. After a couple of bad turns here and there, we finally find the magical finch tea house, which did not disappoint. The actual atmosphere of the teahouse was a lot better than the first one went we to. The previous one was pretty modern but kind of plain, where as this one had all sorts of funky korean decorations and trinkets all over the place. Way cool. Plus, it did have actual live finches flying around in the place, how cool is that? So there we were, sitting on the floor, sipping our tea while finches were flying around us. The actual tea wasn't that good but I think that was due to a poor personal selection more so than them having bad tea. Lu enjoyed hers very much, so it wasn't all bad. On a sidenote, each of these places had probably 15 different flavors of tea so it's quite feasible to get one that may have a different taste, one that you might not enjoy.

We finished our tea, collected our things and then met up with Alick to grab some dinner. From there, Mal, Lu and I booked it to the Metro station to get to the train station on time. In full out rush mode, I go through the first turnstile without much thought, only to realize 1.4 seconds later that I was on the wrong side of the metro. Sugar! Of course, it was just my luck that it was the only metro station that didn't have access to both sides of the metro, which took me a couple of minutes or so to figure out. I finally came to my senses and bit the bullet, exiting the one side of the metro and paying the $1.00 for a new ticket.

I get on the next train and speak with Mal and Lu, who at this point are at the train station to go to Ulsan, and everything was fine, I was 2 stops over and had some 20 minutes to spare or so. Then, with 2 stops to go, the train shuts it down for a bit. They were having some malfunction as the light in one of the cars went out and they said something over the loud speaker, which of course was in Korean so I didn't know what was going down. Now, I'm back into panicking. Please start up, please start up. Time is going by and I'm sitting there thinking to myself, one more minute and I am getting off here to get a taxi. After what seemed like an eternity, the lights finally came back on and we were on our way. In an anti-climatic fashion, I book it to the train station and meet up with Mal and Lu with some time to spare. From there, it was just a 5 hour train ride back to Ulsan, only to have to work the next day......

After much anticipation

Ok, so some 2 months later, 3 trips to noraebang, 1 league soccer game and about 13 pounds of Korean B.B.Q. later, I am finally getting down to writing the second half of the Seoul Trip. I am awesome.........

Picking up where we left off, Mal, Lu and I whad just finished our excursion to N. Seoul Tower and were on our way back to the guest house. Alick arrived to the guest house while we were out and about, so we had a short break and then moved on for dinner in Insa Dong.

With a couple of friends in town and kicking it in Itaewon, a district in Seoul, we decided to meet up with them there after dinner. Itaewon is known for being the foreigner district in Seoul which became evident as soon as we left the metro station. Literally, the area looked like a western area that had a few Korean restaurants/establisments in it. We saw restaurants that can't be found in Ulsan, like a Saudi Arabian restaurant, French cuisine, various American chains that aren't in Ulsan, some that are in Ulsan, and even Cold Stone Creamery.

After getting over the initial culture shock of being in our respective countries again, we catch up with our friends in Gecko Terrace and Bar. The Gecko furthered the attempt to make us feel at home by carding us to get into the bar. Seriously, what countries i.d. apart from the U.S. and maybe Canada and England? Another note about the place was that apart from the staff, all who could speak perfect English, I could count the Koreans that were in the bar on my two hands. This is saying a lot for a relatively large bar which was so packed that we literally had to pounce on the first chair that became available. So we imbibe some beers there, and decide to move on the next bar after the Gecko. There's not much to be said about the second bar because I was pretty much gone at this point, but I will point out that a few of my friends decided to get in on a poker game with what seemed like some of the sketchiest people in Korea. I swear there were at least 4 potential bond villains in there, or so it appeared in my impaired vision. That, my friends, is Itaewon....

Despite planning on starting day 3 at an earlier time, we pull ourselves out of bed soemwhere around midday, wah-wah. All right, half the day is complete, we need to cram some culture for the rest of the time. So we show Alick around Insa-Dong and it's main cultural street, get to this park, Tapgol park, just by chance and then finally get to our main site for the day, Changgyeongung Palace and Jongmyo Shrine.

We first walked around a park that surrounds Changgyeongung, which was literally a trail and a manmade lake. We also stopped in the "botanical garden" at the park, or as we call it in the U.S., a "greenhouse". There are florists in my neighborhood that have a more impressive selection of plants than this so called botanical garden. So Shortster, if you're reading this, you'll be happy to know that the DBG is still the most impressive botanical garden I've seen. The actual palace part of Changgyeongung was ok, more of the same from the day before (Gyeongbokgung), but not nearly as impressive. The best part of the palace was seeing handfuls of Korean children in 한복 (han-bok), which is the traditional garb. We also saw these Korean playing these carnival type games like kicking up some hankerchief type thing, throwing some sticks in some game and many more. Alick and I tried our foot at the kick-up game but we were nowhere near as good as the Koreans.

We finish with the palace and move onto the shrine across the street. We get into the park, get up close to the shrine only to be completely unimpressed. It definitely was not as cool as the previous palace, which wasn't as cool as the palace from the day before. Moving forward, we decide to get out of there and head towards the downtown area and maybe see some government buildings.

We get off at the metro station with the hopes that we might see some of the municipal buildings but the first thing we see when we get on ground level is an outdoor ice rink. Yes, Yes and Yes! To backtrack this a bit, Lu Mal and I had talked about how cool it would be to good ice skating but it seemed very unlikely. Who would've guessed that it would actually happen, right? So after waiting some 20 minutes for them to resurface the ice, we got to hit the ice, and it was awesome! I was in 7th heaven and there is photographic proof of me jumping up and down with the thought of ice skating. Unfortunately, I couldn't express my satisfaction with the ice skating after the fact because my knees were so sore, but it was worth it regardless.

With ice skating finished we were looking at dinner time, so we decided to make a break for Itaewon and see if we could get some western food that we might not be able to find in Ulsan. Within 5 minutes we found a Mexican restaurant, which was pretty much a consensus number 1 pick for the 4 of us. Now the food wasn't as good as you'd find in most places stateside, but it was still pretty ridiculous. And yes, mom, you can get fajitas. As a matter of fact, I not only got fajitas, but got a mojito as well. Not only did we have good food but we were served by a really friendly, outgoing filipino guy that was wearing an afro wig (not really sure why), which just heightened the experience.

We finish dinner and decide to stay in Itaewon for some drinks, why not right? We head over to the Gecko but it was so crowded we couldn't get a table or a place to sit. We move on to another bar, which is really packed as well but we jockey ourselves into a table next to these Moroccan guys. So Lu and I find ourselves talking to the two guys and watching people play pool, which was rather intense, while Mal and Alick routinely beat these Korean guys in darts. After being there for a while, some guy pulls Alick aside because a Korean female friend of his thought he was cute, and this is where the night gets crazy.

So Alick is over at this table talking it up with this girl and I somehow get coerced into sitting over there (I say coerced but it probably didn't take much at all). And the guy who got Alick over there, let's call him random middle aged dude from Florida, decides that he needs to find some girl for me, despite me telling him that I was cool just hanging out. So the guy comes back some 5 minutes later with some girl who claims to be Indonesian-Australian (turns out that she was born in Australia to Indonesian parents and never lived there) so we talk, blah blah blah, she goes away and then comes back and suggest that Alick, myself and Korean girl that Alick was talking to, go to some night club. So we say our goodbyes to Mal and Lu as they head home and Alick and I get ourself into some fun, Itaewon style.

Shortly after treating the Indonesian-Australian girl for the cover fee of the club, she is off on her own. And by shortly, I mean with-in 1 step of entering the club. That was sign #1 that this was not a good idea. #2 was realizing the clientele of the place was the shadiest group of people in Seoul. If the people at the bar from the previous night were villains from a Bond movie, these guys were the henchmen, the butlers with the killer top hats. And to top it off, Indonesian girl knew all of them, on a first, middle and last name basis. Why did anyone think this was a good idea. So after kicking it there for a bit, Alick and I decided it was a good idea to probably leave that place, which included bringing back the Korean girl Alick was talking to. Horrible idea #2 of the evening, as it turned out that this girl was a lot more drunk than we had thought, and a lot more instable than anyone outside of an institution should be. The 3 of us were in the cab and she would be fine one minute, only for her to go crazy the next, sobbing and asking us what we were doing. We tried to let her get out and have the cabbie pull over, but she would magically pull it together only to fall apart some 2 minutes later. And it went on like this for the whole 15 minute cab ride. Thank you Itaewon!!

So I was writing some more to this post and realized that it was going on for too long, so I'm going to wrap up part two and add a short third segment. Don't worry, I've already started it so it will be up in no time flat.