So this past weekend was Chuseok - Korean thanksgiving - and as you know we decided to head up to Seoul to visit some friends from our TESL course in Peterborough, Brandon and Jess.
Let me start off by saying that the trip was a blast. We had loads of fun and saw some neat places. We didn't see a whole lot of Seoul, since we stayed almost exclusively in Itaewon, which is the international section of the city, where foreigners from various countries (they have an inexplicably large Nigerian population, for instance) seem to outnumber actual Koreans.
The fact that there is a lot of English (in addition to Russian, Nigerian, and a number of other languages) spoken in Itaewon, didn't necessarily have any impact on the accuracy of the local signage. We found our way to Itaewon without trouble, since the Seoul subway system is ridiculously helpful (all the announcements for stops are made in Korean, Chinese and English, which displays above the doorways in the three languages, and the maps all have English on them too), and then just had to walk up the street from our stop to find a phone to get Brandon and Jess to come and collect us.
As a side note, this is what the subway stop near their place looks like on the inside (for some reason):
Anyway, back to the story. They had to come get us because (helpfully) there are no street names in Korea, so directing through the narrow alleyways of inner city Seoul is as close to impossible as you can get. As we were trying to find a payphone, we happened to stop in front of a Lingerie shop. I looked up at the sign above the store, and, barely holding back laughter, had to get a picture to share with all of you:
This kicked off Saturday night. What a way to start. Anyway, from there, we went back to their apartment to drop our stuff off before dinner which was at an amazing Thai restaurant, which we will most certainly be visiting again. So delicious.
After dinner, we thought that since we were in the area, we would take Brandon up on his offer to show us "some of the filthiest bars in Seoul." How could we pass that up? So we went to The Loft first, which was a dirty, but surprisingly well-behaved, bar that claims to be a "German-style pub" despite the fact that the most german thing about it was that they serve Jagermeister. From there, we went to a disturbingly gross hip-hop type club called Polly's Kettle. For Peterborough folks, picture the Rooster, but dirtier, and with lesser-known music. The feature of this place was their specialty drink, called a Kettle. A kettle is basically Tang mixed with soju (Korean liquor made from fermented sweet potato - and tastes as good as it sounds), but served in the bottom two thirds of a 2-litre plastic pop bottle that's been cut with scissors. I thought it'd be hard to describe, so I got a picture:
As mentioned before, alcohol is cheap here, as long as it's not imported. Those monstrosities (which I shared with Becca) only cost 5000 won each.
The next place we went was a little western-style pub called Scrooges, and wasn't really anything specacular either way, but it was quieter so we could actually converse while sitting. They also served Molson Canadian, which in Canada I don't ever drink, but thought I would this once for the sake of the cliche. I found out that the Canadian they serve here in Korea is WAY better. It has to be, it says it's imported!
Seriously, it's as gross as it is back home.
The second last place we went that night (the very last was a noraebong - Korean karaoke, and I didn't bother to get pics of it) was the most incredible concept I've ever seen. Observe:
Yeah, that's right, the floor is covered in AMAZING white beach sand, and there's a raised wooden boardwalk running in between the sections. It's just the most unspeakably good bar-related idea since serving alcoholic beverages. The drinks were a bit pricy, but they were delicious fruity-type cocktails. Again for Peterborough folks, picture the Sapphire Room, only with that atmosphere. Same type of relaxed music, only a little quieter.
So that was Saturday. A good evening all around.
Sunday we went to an big Chuseok celebration at a Korean folk village in another part of Seoul. The school where Brandon and Jess work has about 40 Canadian teachers, and one of the other ones has a student who volunteers at this folk village, so that's how we came to know about this event in the first place.
The thing that is still taking some getting used to is the Buddhist symbol adorning all the temples around here. I got a shot of one on the way into the folk village, and I think you'll see what I mean.
For the record, the German swastika was a mirror image of that, and was rotated 45 degrees, but it's a testament to the lasting effect of WWII that you don't even register that (if you know it at all) until a couple seconds of astonishment pass by.
We all got dressed up in traditional Korean outfits called hanboks, and then after standing around being stared at by the Koreans, we all were ushered under a tent-like covering and were taught how to make Songpyeon (Korean steamed rice cakes), which turned out to, in my opinion, not be very good, but were entertaining to make. They're kind of like perogies where the shell is a rice dough-y stuff and the filling is either sesame seeds or sweet red bean stuff. The peculiar part of this was all the Korean jockeying for position to get the best shot of us. I think I had my picture taken more over the course of that 45 minutes than I ever have before.
Anyway, here are some shots of us in the hanboks. The Korean-looking girl is Angela, the one whose student set us up with the info. She's from Winnipeg. The other couple is Brandon and Jess.
After that was over, we went and ate dinner at another awesome restaurant (I don't remember the name -- it was a bistro-type place) and then went to Angela's apartment and played a cutthroat game of Monopoly until 12:30am. We called the game short and just counted our assets (I came in second) since we'd been out at the noraebong until 5:30am the previous night, and we were all pretty tired.
Monday we hopped on the bus back to Cheongju.
The next time we take an intercity bus, I'll have to be sure to get a picture, because they're absolutely astounding. They seriously make taking the Greyhound look like travelling on a livestock freight truck. The seats are leather, and they're huge. They look like they've been taken out of the highest-class section of a REALLY nice airline, and they recline to a ridiculous degree and have an insane amount of legroom. They're also impeccably on time, which is nice. I'll have to get a picture.
Anyway, that was our long weekend. Now it's back to the grindstone, but for a shorter week, which is nice. This coming weekend there's a KOTESOL (a professional organization for ESL teachers in Korea) conference in Daejon (a city of about 1.5 million around 30 minutes from Cheongju) on Saturday that we're going to. Should prove to be interesting.
Anyway, more later.
One more question, should I be putting fewer pictures on these things? The posts seem really long, and if anyone's having trouble with loading the pictures or anything, or would just like me to talk less, just let me know.
Okay, I'm actually done now. Bye.