Alexis' Adventures in Asialand (but only Korea...was just going for alliteration)

So Alexis was finally in Korea! If you read my last post, you'd know all about our first disaster trip in Seoul, but UMF 2012 was totally worth it and now I can say I was at the first every UMF in Korea. Pretty cool. It's taken me forever to write this because I've been busting my ass finishing my TESOL certification, but now that's (mostly) done, and now you can hear about Alexis and I's adventures in Korea!

Everyone pitches in to cook dinner.

So to pick up where the last post left off, ....well....we honestly don't remember a lot of the normal week. It mostly consisted of taking Alexis out to every kind of Korean restaurant we could think of and making her try everything. One night Casey, Alexis and I went to 10F (probably one of my favorite restaurants) and we got kiwi flavored soju, which happens to be the most delicious flavor of soju ever (and...as Casey and I later found out...also the best flavor of makgeoli). We also went to a Japanese restaurant at one point which was pretty good, but Korean Japanese food honestly isn't much to write home about. We did have some sake in a box that actually wasn't half bad. The rest of the week involved me working while Alexis stayed home and pampered me by being super domestic, and my apartment looked really nice for awhile after that. It was a good thing too, because one night Casey and Caitlin came over and I tried my hand at cooking Korean food for the first time. It was pretty damn good if I say so myself, and the girls made deviled eggs too!

Alexis actually got to come to work with me twice...luckily on days where the kids weren't being terrors. All the kids ran around whispering "yeojachingu, yeojachingu"which means "girlfriend" in Korean. They were all too terrified of her to try talking to her in English though. I showed her how massive Lotte Mart was and we went grocery shopping for actual food since I wasn't living alone for the next week.

Chillin at the office and painting students with gel pens

On Thursday, my director invited Alexis and I out to dinner on Sambok, one of the three hottest days of the summer, for some traditional Sambok Samgyetang! It's boiled chicken with ginsing. It was pretty delicious, but impossible to eat with chopsticks and a spoon. I looked ridiculous. I also got to show off my Korean skills a bit.

Samgyetang! Delicious but impossible to eat...

Felt so good to get it short!

On Friday, I wake up early because I decide my hair is way too long for how hot it is outside. We go to the Franck Provost hair salon in City 7 and I proceed to get treated to the hair cut of my life. I get the most meticulous cut ever (like this lady wanted each strand PERFECT) and then had a cute assistant girl give me a legitimate scalp massage. While this massage is going on I start thinking about how much this is going to cost....$80? The massage was convincing me it was worth it. After getting thoroughly pampered, I go to pay and learn my haircut is only $20! Later, my co-teachers would tell me that's expensive in Korea.... America, sometimes you suck.

...But I still love you!!!!! And I miss your fatty, greasy food....mmmm....I digress....

Most delicious ice cream ever!
And a cute picture Alexis made <3

We grab some ice cream from Baskin Robbins on the way out of City 7 as we waited for the bus to Dogye. Alexis got Vanilla Sky (creamsoda and vanilla I think?) and Shooting Star (raspberry and poprocks) while I got Apple Mint sorbet and Blueberry Aloe ice cream. Apply Mint was a little too minty, but Blueberry Aloe was like the most delicious thing I have ever had in my life.

We went out pretty much every night after work, but we didn't go too hard because we were "saving ourselves for Seoul" (that was Casey's excuse). It was probably a good thing too because at 6 a.m. on Saturday morning we all boarded the bus to Seoul. Per the usual, I slept most of the way.

We met up with Minyoung at the bus terminal and headed to our first destination: Itaewon. We made the smart decision on the way and picked up a T-Money subway card for discounts on the subway fares. It probably saved us a lot considering how much we rode the subway that weekend.

First thing we did when we got to Itaewon? Ate Mexican food! It was damn good too. I still think there are way too many people in Itaewon, but it was inevitable since I had to take Alexis to Namsang Tower and show her the lock I left. Alexis and Casey realized I wasn't lying when we got to the base of Namsang Tower and they saw how ridiculously steep that incline of the hill leading up to the tower was. I still can't believe girls make that walk in heels.

Jump photo!...and other cool shots.

This time we put it INSIDE the heart...

We get to the tower and - would you believe it? - they took my lock off the heart statue. -_-; Apparently there is a sign that says not to put locks on it. Whatever. Alexis and I got another lock and each wrote on it this time. Then we locked it on the inside of the heart. Casey was running around trying to be super nonchalant, but was actually super suspicious. He didn't want us to see what he wrote for his girlfriend OR where he locked it. I respect his privacy. I bet it's something super cute/romantic.

We didn't waste much time, because we had too much to see and do! Caitlin and Minyoung had planned the whole trip out, so we were whisked off to our next destination: Myeongdong!

Got my Binsu bartending license yesterday...body shots!

This place was crazy. We tried shopping, but it was literally like a "where do we start?" sort of shock and awe. And there were thousands of people everywhere. It was pretty difficult just to keep track of the group leaders. We eventually decided to stop at a cafe for a rest and some bingsu (imagine a snowcone mixed with a sundae but...infinitely better. I'm pretty sure I posted about it in my trip to Taejongdae). We had no idea what the drinks were, so we just randomly ordered whatever sounded good. I ordered the "Golden Lighthouse" and it was pretty fantastic. Some sort of wine...beverage. lol. and complimentary cheesecake! Can't beat that!

After a good rest and some inappropriate photos, we marched out of Myeongdong and onto our next destination: Gyeongbokgung Palace. As Caitlin pointed out in her blog, this was mostly just Casey's "artsy photo" time and we were all his models. But it was really cool/crazy to see the magnitude of these palaces. We must have walked for ages and barely covered half of it. It was pretty surreal to see ancient buildings in the foreground and massive cityscapes with giant LCD monitors on the front of buildings in the background. It was like something out of a Samurai Jack cartoon.

I was exhausted from all that walking, so Caitlin suggested we do a little MORE walking and find a Cat Cafe. Well, as expected, Alexis absolutely flipped shit over this idea, so we couldn't say no. We saw some crazy stuff on the way over. A mini Corona parade passed by, blaring music with cute asian girls hanging out of a convertible VW. So Western. We also discovered this confectionary wonder that will blow your mind - ice cream filled waffles. Like -WHAT? So GOOD! And only a dollar?! Casey practically had to drag me away when I wanted seconds.

Ohhhh yes! Ice cream waffles and mexican food!
...and all the other cool stuff we ate along the way.

We then came to the Cat Cafe which, as the name implies, was full of dozens of cats of all sizes and varieties. My favorites were a little flat-faced one that looked like an Ewok and these two cats that, for whatever reason, had one pair of legs shorter than the other. It made them look super adorable! I called one Lil' Lowrider and the other was Scrunchinz. We were probably there for like...forever. So many cats to play with! And Alexis attracted them like a magnet. They began to slowly pile up around her for luvins.

^This cat's front legs are shorter!

After being covered head to toe in cat hair, we cleaned up and decided we were all absolutely famished...so it was off to find some Korean BBQ! We tried a bunch of new kinds including...pig skin, I think it was? Ended up being infinitely more delicious than it sounded and everyone got super full. We decided it was time to kick off the evening right and look for a bar to live it up in. We poked in and out of a few, but none really had the vibe or the crowd we were looking for. As we wandered, we stumbled past a randomly placed Korean shop with cool men's clothes and I was eagerly whisked inside and dressed up like a Korean Barbie Doll (not that I minded). I ended up buying a hat, a shirt and a sweater with some of the money from my first Korean paycheck! I'm not going to lie, I looked pretty studly.

We finally found this bar called Ho Bar (which one? I don't remember. There are like 17 throughout the city) that was pretty awesome and we ended up getting two pitchers of mixers, a bottle of Absolut and a large tra of fruit for like 70,000 KRW? Which is roughly 70  USD. Between the 5 of us, we each only spent like $14? It was a ridiculously good deal. And we all got hammered. I was already a little drunk because I had discovered Family Mart sells flasks of whiskey for $6 and we had been passing that around since early evening. I also discovered Korea has hundreds of flavors of cigarettes, so I bought a pack of Mojito flavored ones and passed the night with a few of those as well.

This is where things got a little fuzzy...

This is the point in the night where we have to find a place to stay. Luckily we had Minyoung with us or we would probably have been wandering the streets of Seoul all night. He tried checking us into a jimjilbang (hold on...I'll explain) nearby but they we're repairing the women's section or something so we had to find another place to stay. Minyoung apparently knew where he was going, so Casey, Alexis and I just kept drunkenly following them. At some point Casey decides to pour water all over me and retaliate tenfold, so we're both drunk and soaking wet, stumbling through Seoul. At some point I think I felt bad and ended up drunkenly begging Casey not to leave Korea...and it came off more like a marriage proposal.

It was beautiful...i don't care what you say.

The hot room. It was pretty gorgeous.

We stopped for some late night food and I had a minute to sober up before we got to the jimjilbang. Now, a jimjilbang is a lot like a resort spa for drunks (not only drunks...but it works out well for us). As long as they aren't full, you can come in without a reservation, pay like ten bucks and spend the night. They give you a wrist band with a key on it and some clothes for the night. You stuff your clothes (that probably smell like alcohol anyway) into a locker and get naked. No one wears like bathing suits or anything. You just get naked and go shower and whatever. The men and women are obviously separate. The bathes for each are on separate floors with the public common/sleeping floor in between.There are three or four public baths of varying temperatures in each bathing area. One is like a cold pool, one is warm, and one is ridiculously hot...but it felt really good. There are also a few saunas the relax in. It was really nice getting some time away from the girls and getting to talk about guy stuff and relax in the hot spas.

Then, whenever you're finished, you put on the clothes they've supplied you with and head to the common area and go to sleep. Apparently the bunkbeds were only for women, and Minyoung and Casey got kicked out in the middle of the night, but I was like "screw it, I don't speak Korean" and just turned over and went back to sleep. The perks of being ignorant =P There were also "hotrooms" and "coldrooms" that you can lay in if you want, but the cold room was too cold for me after the spa and the hot rooms freaked me out because I felt like I would suffocate in an oven, but plenty of people were chilling in both.

P.S. - Random stop at Condomania! Here you can see
condom pops, Anime condoms, and a Pikachu one!

The next morning we get up and go out to the common room where Casey and I grab breakfast and Caitlin treats us to massages from the massage chairs. I observe the common room and there are WAY more people here then their were last night. And I thought WE got in late. It kind of looked like a refuge camp with so many people sleeping everywhere. We showered and changed back into our own clothes and finally headed home. We got lucky and a cafe near the bus station had like 12 different types of massagers: one for feet, one for calves, one for back, etc. It was just what I needed after all that walking!

We grabbed a bus back to Changwon and slept the whole way back (at least I did). There wasn't a whole lot of time for rest, because I had to be back at work on Monday. We woke up early monday because Alexis wanted to try to get in some Korean shopping time, so we went to City 7 again to hunt down some shoes and a bag for her. Finding shoes for Alexis' huge American feet was impossible =P, but Alexis was impressed by my ability to talk to to the clerk (in the most elementary level of Korean ever, but enough to get us what we needed). We stopped for lunch at the Lotte food court and it was the best food court food I'd ever had. Then it was time for work!

At some point in the week we ended up drunk
in front of the Pullman Hotel...this was the result.
...their fault for having an army of white tigers.

We grab the bus to Sangnam, not realizing a string of bad luck seemed to follow from that point on. Alexis and I go to work on Monday and I think "hey! I have an hour off for lunch! I'll take Alexis to this huge department store next to my work!". We went shopping and Alexis bought some cool Korean clothes that the salespeople begged her to wear out of the store so they could show off their wares on an American girl =P. The store was like 6 stories and even had a restaurant and a market inside!

We eventually get back and it's like the school is burning down. Apparently, the two teachers I work for, who each give me their personal half of their schedule, got something mixed up, or I got something mixed up, and I didn't have an hour off after all. So I missed a whole class! Everyone was pretty pissed, but I still had classes to teach, so I just powered through it.

The next day I tried to make up for Sangnam campus blunder at my Dogye campus by cooking for my co-teachers and they really liked my Korean soup! My director didn't deliver my registration card to me herself, so I took that as a bad sign. Then we got chicken with Caitlin and Casey and I got off at the wrong bus stop like 3 times before just taking a taxi to the restaurant. I didn't dwell on it too much since it was Alexis' last night in Korea and we wanted to party hard!

New additions to the crew and some
good ol' fashioned American drinking games.

Party hard we did. We went to Monster Bar and ran into these two awesome guys named Andrew and Jake who have been here for 3-4 years and speak pretty awesome amounts of Korean. We drank quite a bit of makgeoli with them and then headed to IP's for some intense beer pong like true Americans. Everything after that is kind of a blur. We lost Caitlin, Jake and Andrew somewhere, but Casey kept us drinking strong. I remember hitting up a few other joints and getting supremely wasted and deciding just to go home, grab Alexis' suitcase (she left the heavy one here) and get on the bus to the Gimhae Airport. I'm actually surprised I managed all that, because it's really a blur. I just remember getting to the airport, sitting in a chair, and passing out.

I woke up about three hours later, realized Alexis was gone and I was VERY hungover. I stumbled to a bathroom, relieved my stomach of its toxic contents, then went back and passed out again. After about four rounds of this, I was aware enough to realize I had lost my bag somehow/somewhere. I groggily shuffled around the entire airport looking for it and eventually (after composing myself enough) placed a claim at the lost and found before dejectedly boarding the bus back home. I was so bummed the next day at work (I really loved that bag), until Minyoung messaged me and told me he called the airport and they had found my bag! Even all my money was still in it! Koreans are so nice!

Oh...and Alexis made it to Japan safely too =P

For wading through all that, you get bonus pictures!!

Bonus Alexis!!!

Bonus Casey!!

Bonus Caitlin and Minyoung!!!

Bonus Me!!!

And Bonus Me AND Alexis!!!

See you soon!!!!

휴가 - Jinhae and UMF Korea 2012!

On our way to Jinhae!

I'm finally getting somewhat caught up on this blog! I really need to update it more frequently, because I don't even remember what I did the first day of my vacation. Especially because there are no pictures from that day, so let's just assume I did boring stuff like clean and nap and whatnot. I was supposed to meet up with Minyoung for dinner and was planning on probably just being a lazy piece of shit until then (Actually, I was going to work on my TESL certification), but then I get a message from Boram saying she wanted me to come visit her hometown of Jinhae with Kimyn, Irene and her. I was like "Well...that sounds WAY better than what I was originally planning on doing, when do you want to meet up?" and it turns out she wanted me to meet at City 7 in like 20 minutes. Well, shit. I got dressed super quickly and messaged Minyoung that I was heading out to Jinhae but I would still be back at 7 for dinner if that was okay with him. I waited a few minutes for a reply (I only have wifi), but I couldn't wait too long, so I took off without hearing back, determined to be back by 7 pm for dinner.

I got to City 7 and looked around, assuming Boram and crew would be waiting for me on a bench, but I didn't see anyone so I figured that I must have beaten their bus here. Suddenly people in a strangely cube-shaped car start waving at me and I realize, stupidly, that Koreans actually have cars in Korea. They don't have to take the bus everywhere. A little embarrassed, I jumped in Boram's car and we waited for Irene to pull up behind us before caravanning to Jinhae!

Jinhae is...kind of like the Satellite Beach of Korea. It's really pretty and earthy, but I get the feeling that it might be a little on the slow side. Still, it reminded me of home and i was excited to be back by the ocean. Boram took us to her mom's restaurant where we were treated to a feast for kings. I tried talking a bit to her mother, but she spoke about as much English as I speak Korean so I didn't get too far. I was content just hanging out in the kitchen and watching her clean and cut the eel so effortlessly. She had each eel fully cleaned, disemboweled, decapitated and ready for consumption in three strokes of her knife. It was pretty amazing to watch. I wish she could have taught me, but I'm pretty clumsy in the kitchen and I feel like I would have just gotten in the way more than anything else.

I left the kitchen to help Irene and Kimyn set the table with twenty different side dishes and a few bottles of beer and soju. We hardly had room at the table for our own plates with everything we set on it. I pretty much just ate off the side dish plates. Koreans aren't really germaphobes like Americans are.

Boram cooking us eel!

The eel was finally ready and we sat down to eat the easily five pounds of eel Boram's mother prepared for us. Boram cooked most of it while we watched and took shots of soju, but we could only wait so long to eat. It became a perpetual cycle of us eating and Boram cooking more until we forced her to stop and eat some herself. Koreans are way too hospitable. the eel was the most phenomenal thing I have ever eaten in my life. I'll probably never have a meal that good again ever. Until the next time I go back.

After dinner we went down to the seaside and took a ferry out to some unknown local island Boram wanted us to check out. The ride was so relaxing and the view was gorgeous as well. I'll stick in a bunch of pictures of just the scenery. I usually hate scenic pictures, but some of this is just absolutely gorgeous.

We just don't have anything comparable in Florida...

Korean lighthouses look pretty sweet.

Irene just looks absolutely terrified...

We finally got to the island and it was actually a little sad. There was graffiti everywhere on houses because people were being thrown out by the government because they wanted the island for some reason or another. It felt like a ghost town in some places, especially at this elementary school we found. That despondence was immediately remedied by a giant trampoline we found on the playground! We probably wasted a solid hour bouncing on this trampoline, but it was so much fun I can't describe it without sounding crazy. Most of the time, Irene was just curled in a ball trying not to get stepped on. She's so tiny! We realized that we were going to miss our ferry back soon, so we headed back to the boat and enjoyed the peaceful ride back. Obviously, more scenic pictures to follow.

(If you don't think those pictures are breathe-taking, you're a Communist.)

We say our farewells to Boram's mom and head back to Changwon in Boram's car with just enough time for me to make it back for dinner. Boram lets me use her phone's wifi (which is a cool feature on Korean phones I don't think we have in America...) to text Minyoung and let him know I'm on my way. He messages me that he isn't arriving in Changwon from Daegu until 8:30 since I told him I was in Jinhae for the day. I was a little bummed, so I asked the girls if they wanted to get some drinks with me in Sangnam-dong while I waited for Minyoung to come to dinner. They agreed, we stopped by Irene's house to see Tony the cat, and then headed off to beer republic for some overpriced American beers. Yum. At least they only stock stuff like Stella and Hoegaarden and not anything repugnant like Michelob or Icehouse....

Girls going wild at the noraebang...

We drank for awhile until Minyoung came into town, but then he texted me that he was tired and wanted to stay at Katie's. I was quite a few beers in at this point and didn't want to leave so we just agreed to raincheck our dinner date and I headed further down the rabbithole with Kimyn, Boram, and Irene. We went to a few bars/restaurants and then, as expected, we hit the noraebang! I discovered Irene is a phenomenal singer and makes everything everyone else does sound like garbage, but I was really proud of my ability to sing Jason Mraz fairly well while intoxicated, so Boram (also a huge Mr. A-Z fan) and I dueted the 3 or 4 songs of his that were available and even 100% "I'm Yours". That felt like a pretty fantastic accomplishment especially after my epic drunken failure to sing Tenacious D which Katie so graciously recorded. Obviously, there are never any cameras around when I do something awesome.

Lots of Korean army guys at
the rest stop on the way to Seoul.

Soon Boram had to get back to Jinhae, but that didn't stop Kimyn from dragging Irene and I to at least three more bars/restaurants for "one more drink" and we even managed to get denied at a few "No Foreigner" clubs. I managed to haul myself away around 4am and, per the usual, ended up getting onto the bus to Seoul with only an hour of sleep to go pick Alexis up from the airport. The bus ride there was peaceful, but I didn't sleep much, so I was super worried that I would be exhausted for Ultra that night.

I got to Incheon airport an hour and a half early so I spent some time exploring the airport and tracing our route out so that we could hurry on our way to the concert. We would be a little late, but that wasn't a hug deal since I didn't even know the opening acts. I discovered a few cool little treasures the airport had to offer as I waited. On the way to the airport subway, there is a random ice rink set up for kids to skate for fun. There was also a Korean choral group preforming/rehearsing (?) in the airport randomly and they were really good! They also had some funny little bits and I was thoroughly entertained for about 30 minutes. Then I went to go wait for Alexis to get off her plane and, luckily, it came in like 40 minutes early!

Ice skating rink in the Incheon Airport

See what I had to carry?!

Of course, she had all her luggage to move to Japan with her so each bag was roughly 70 pounds. It wasn't so bad on the airport subway, but once we hit the Seoul subway and had to transfer a few times, I was cursing those damn bags and every single stair I had to climb or wrong elevator we went up/down in the unrelenting heat. I was sweating like a far man eating a philly cheesesteak. We finally made it to Jamsil and I couldn't find an elevator to the surface so I had to haul both suitcases up two flights of stairs. From there it took us 15 minutes to hunt down a taxi driver who could take us to our hotel, but we finally got there, dropped our bags and took of for the stadium. After a few wrong directions and taxis driving us to the Olympic Park instead of the Olympic Stadium, we made it to the concert ground and learned that we weren't quite out of the woods yet. Korea was extremely unprepared for it's first Ultra and there were so many superflous and arbitrary lines we had to stand in or didn't have to stand in but thought we did. One line was to claim our tickets, but another line was to trade our tickets in for wristbands....? -_-; Not very well thought out. Plus it was hilarious to see all the Korean girls there in clubbing clothes like long dresses and 5 inch heels. They looked damn good though.

We finally got in for the beginning of Steve Aoki's set and managed to squeeze up toward the middle of the huge crowd of Koreans going absolutely crazy for this Japanese DJ. Steve Aoki alone was enough to make up for all the shit we had to go through to get there. He started at 8 and played for an hour and a half. Then when he called out "last song", he played another 30 minutes. He dropped some new track with Knife Party and a few more UMF exclusives. I've never raged so hard in my life. I have also never seen Koreans go so crazy either...for anything...especially electronic music. Then Skrillex came out and then it was just lights out. People were jumping and screaming and dancing. Skrillex has evolved into an absolutely wild live producer/dj since we saw him last year and his remixes of his own songs were jaw-dropping. We got up to the front at one point, but I had just been going so hard for the past three and a half hours that I had to leave and get some water. I was like 100% drenched in sweat and about 40% of it probably wasn't mine.

After the show we grabbed some Pocar Sweat (Japanese Gatorade) and a kebab before trying to grab a cab. The cabs parked outside the arena were asking 30,000-40,000 Won to take us the four blocks to our hotel. We were like "Hell no". After unsuccessfully trying to grab a cab on the main drag (people were running into the street trying to get cabs and they all just kept driving by...idk why) we just decided to hoof it back to the hotel. We grabbed some bulgogi burgers from a Family Mart and I ate mine in the shower while Alexis just fell straight asleep. We were exhausted. The hotel sucked. There were no plugs in the entire hotel room, so we unplugged the mini fridge to charge our phones, but what can you do? It was a last minute hotel for like 50,000 Won four blocks from the venue and the subway. Not bad.

We left early in the morning fully intending to make the noon bus back to Changwon to get there in time for Caitlin's birthday dinner that night, but we failed to consider that goddamn luggage yet again. We had no idea where we were going and at some point it turned into some old silent movie slap-stick comedy where we ride an escalator down a floor, then see a sign for an exit so we drag the luggage up a flight of stairs only to realize that we're back to where the escalator is that we just rode down. Drenched in sweat yet again and thoroughly fucking sick of Seoul and this 150 pounds of luggage, we finally made it the the bus terminal with minutes left to catch the 1:20 bus back to Changwon and we almost missed that one. It pulled away as soon as we got on.

Caitlin's birthday dinner was awesome. We ate at an Outback...in Korea...and I had a cajun shrimp and rice dish that was a succulent taste of home that I probably wouldn't have the luxury of tasting again any time soon. We all got our own dishes, but ended up eating down of each other's dishes Korean style anyway. It becomes habitual. Caitlin had a wild steak with a gorgonzola cheese topping and a wine sauce on top. It was very rich. Everyone's food was super delicious. We went out a bit after that, but Alexis and I were exhausted so we called it a night soon after that. She's here from the 3rd until the 15th so my nextpost will probably chronicle all that insanity.

Until next time, America! 안녕!

The First Weekend - Seoulsearching (Part 1: Friday-Saturday)

Peeking in on classwork.

Finished my first week of teaching at a Hagwon on Friday. These kids are so damn cute. I actually had to kick one kid out for being insanely uncooperative, but everything after that was smooth sailing. They are generally eager learners and I'm loving my job more every day. My co-teachers invited me out for drinks after work to celebrate my first full week in Korea. I told them I would go, but I would have to meet up with them later. I had promised a random Korean man dinner and I wasn't about to bail on that drunken promise. We had agreed to meet at 9:00pm in front of 7-11. I even emailed him earlier to remind him (I don't know how much he was able to read since it was all in English). So, I show up at 7-11 a few minutes early and I wait...and I wait...and I wait..until past 9:30pm. It was beginning to look like I was the only one of us who had remembered this drunken conversation. I wait another 10 minutes before giving up and heading to meet up with my co-teachers.

We grabbed drinks and dinner at a local bar/restaurant? It's kind of hard to tell the difference sometimes in Korea because you can buy alcohol at most restaurants, and eating is a big deal in Korea so food is always a given. Whenever you buy alcohol, they typically bring out a tray full of snacks to eat with it at minimum. Honestly, the main thing that unnerves me about Korea is how everything is paid "Korean style." Splitting checks is not only unheard of, it's probably impossible for Korean cash registers. It simply just isn't done, so I felt bad that I was basically riding around on someone else's dime all night, but I suppose one weekend will be my turn and my wallet will be the one crying then.

So we had dinner and drinks at this bar/restaurant for a few hours. Many chicken dishes came and went (Koreans LOVE chicken, if I haven't mentioned that yet.) and it was all 맛있어요 (delicious). We also had what I would consider the Korean version of a sake bomb...ish. It's 맥주 (beer) mixed with 소주 (soju [a bit like sake]) and my co-teacher called it 폭탄주(pok-tan-ju), which is pretty much just the Korean word for a boilermaker. It's really delicious because of how sweet and floral the soju is (not to mention the added alcohol content).

After dinner, we headed off to a karaoke bar. I learned very quickly that Koreans have NO idea what the word karaoke means, despite the fact that it's practically their cultural pastime. They call it 노래방 (no-rae-bang) which roughly translates to the same thing. It was pretty cool. I still was floating on my co-teachers dime, but I didn't really know what else to do, so I kept drinking. We then went to a second karaoke bar (why, I cannot remember...I was pretty drunk.) and I sang a few songs, all of which my co-teachers were quick to praise and claim I had a wonderful voice. I'm pretty sure they just don't know what American songs are supposed to sound like... lol. I took some pictures at dinner, but I feel like it would be rude to post pictures of people without their permission? So I'll leave them off.

We are practically dragged out of the "song bar" at 6am and I felt terrible for keeping the staff up all night so I bowed quickly with an apologetic "미안합니다" (mi-an-ham-ni-da), to which my co-teachers drunkenly yelled "no!" at me, so I don't know if I said it wrong, or I'm not supposed to apologize to waitstaff, or I'm just not supposed to apologize for partying hard? lol. Not sure.

I had promised my friend Lais that I would meet her in Seoul tomorrow and I quickly realized tomorrow had already come. The train system is still alien to me and I was too uncomfortable to try that journey while intoxicated, so I asked my co-teachers when the first bus left for Seoul and they said seven. Realizing that was only an hour away, I called a cab, took it to the bus terminal, and purchased a ticket for the 7:30am bus to Seoul. I was hoping I could just sleep on the ~4hr (people say 5-5:30 but both ways to Seoul were 4 hours each so...lucky bus?) bus ride there, but I still needed to stay awake for the next hour in the terminal. I couldn't even ask someone to wake me up if I fell asleep, because no one spoke English -_-; So I powered though and crashed as soon as I boarded the bus.

Some points of Seoul are just sheer cliffs.

Waking up in Seoul, I let Lais know I had arrived and she told me she would be there in an hour (I had estimated my bus arriving at 1 and it arrived at 11:30) so I tried sleeping some more in the terminal, but with little success. Still, by the time Lais called me again, I was pretty alert and we started trying to locate each other using Korean signs, directions, and landmarks we couldn't understand. The problem was, we soon discovered, that the train station was not even remotely in the same area as the express bus station. I attempted to take a taxi to "Seoul Station" and was promptly told "no" by the cab driver and forced out of the cab. I will apparently learn that Seoul is nothing like Changwon and some Koreans there aren't all too fond of foreigners.

Don't let this picture fool you,
it gets ridiculously steep on the hike up to Seoul Tower.

Lais took the subway to me, but we still probably wasted a good hour just trying to find each other. Apparently she had walked into the wrong building and it took forever to realize we weren't even in the same building. Luckily, we found each other and didn't waste any time grabbing a subway train to a tourist section of Seoul with plans to go to Seoul Tower. We walked around a bit to grab lunch, and I soon got this vibe that I didn't like Seoul as much as Changwon. There was certainly much more to do, but there was also this strong foreigner presence that kind of trampled the cultural ambiance of Korea. Everyone was military, military families, or teachers from America and the U.K., and no one really had any intention of trying to fit into Korea. Quite the contrary, they all seemed to be forcing Korea to fit them. Walking down the street, I felt more like I was in a New York City street market than in a foreign country.

Benches at Seoul Tower force you to like the people you sit with.

We ate at a Subway (because nearly every restaurant was American), and this English lady had the most complicated order for a 6-inch sub ever. I swear the employee was looking for his protractor to get some of her specifications right. I made the comment to Lais about how expensive subway is here (6 bucks for a 6-inch sub that's mostly bread) and the lady turns and tells me "I know, isn't everything?" My jaw dropped and I swear I thought about hitting her. Everything is expensive because you demand culinary consistency in a foreign country. I've been eating for maybe a 3-8 dollars A DAY in Korea just by eating Korean food. So we sit down and then I have to listen to her daughter (or whatever) drone on about how cultured she is because she taught in China for awhile before teaching here, even though she's eating at Subway with a bunch of Americans right now in Korea and I suddenly start understanding why that cab driver wanted me the hell out of his cab. I don't like these people either. "Cultured" apparently now means taking your culture wherever you go and remaining wholly ignorant of the beautiful culture permeating the air around you.

Trees covered in "Locks of Love"

Luckily, we soon leave and grab a bus to Seoul Tower which....I can barely find the words to explain. I want to just leave it at "Awesome." Basically, the bus stops 3/4ths of the way up the mountain at a 7-11 type convenience store (where we ran in to get some drinks and ice cream) and you have to walk the rest of the way on foot. This doesn't seem to be a big deal except for the fact that the road slopes up at at least a 40 degree incline (That's a low estimate because I don't want to be hyperbolic....it felt like walking up a wall) and girls were walking up in 4 inch heels! Korean girls are really committed to looking good always. We get to the top and (ironically) there is a mariachi band playing in the square -_-; We take some pictures with the tower and the surrounding area, but what really catches our eyes are trees and fences 100% covered in what seem to be gym locker locks.

People lock everything from phone cases to toys
covered in messages to loved ones

We get closer and find out that is exactly what they are. Seoul Tower has a superstition associated with is that if you write a message to your loved ones and lock it to the area around the tower, you'll have eternal love and happiness (I guess because it's at such a high point...like a beacon? Not really sure how it got started). Lais and I cannot resist taking part in this cultural phenomenon, so we get our own lock and write secret messages to our loved ones. We thought about locking it to a tree, but the trees were so covered in locks, we would never find ours again. Then we tried the fence, but our lock chain wasn't big enough. We finally decided to lock our "Locks of Love"to a giant heart statue erected on the terrace that was impossible to miss. The whole terrace area was cute, with benches built so you slide toward the middle and have to sit extremely close to whoever you are sitting with =3

We picked the perfect spot to put our notes.

We then rode to the top of the tower and committed more acts of cultural love graffiti wherever possible (like everyone else at Seoul Tower), and the view from the top was breathe-taking. It's not even something worth describing, you just have to go. I was not a fan, however, of the digital floor panels that pretended to fall away when you stepped them. Children were obsessed with them, however.

Realizing I didn't bring anything with me to stay overnight anywhere, Lais took me to the bus station and I boarded the last train to Changwon going out the same way I came in - sleeping.

View from the top.