Namsan Tower & Cheonggyecheon

(Namsan Tower surrounded by the beautiful autumn leaves)

Today started off pretty rocky. After a long hike with absolutely no sleep the night before, I went out and watched some of my friends participate in a beer mile. In case you don't know, this event consists of drinking a can of beer, running 400 meters, drinking a can of beer, running 400 meters, drinking a can of beer, running 400 meters, drinking a can of beer, and running yet another 400 meters. Yep, that means drinking four beers while running a mile. I passed due to the fact that I was really tired, and also, I really didn't feel like vomiting. That was the result for a couple of them. Yikes.

The plan was to wake up and goto a coworkers wedding, but this didn't quite go as planned. I woke up at 8:30 to three of the other wedding guests banging on my door. I slept right through four different alarms. I told them to go ahead and meet the bus that was to take all of us Suwon folk to the wedding in Yangpyeong (about 2 hours away), while I take a shower and cab it out to Suwon Station. I got ready quicker than I ever imagined I could and jumped in a taxi. I actually managed to beat the three of them to Suwon Station, but this did us no good. Upon arrival, we realized that our directions were less than helpful. Either the bus wasn't where we were told it was going to be, or the bus didn't show up at all. After our time was up, we jumped on a bus and headed towards Seoul to take a subway. After a number of calculations, we realized that we were going to be considerably late, so JC and I decided not to make the long journey, just to miss the ceremony, we hopped off the bus and headed towards home.

The two of us stopped at our favorite cheap restaurant Hansot (AKA the guy: he really is one of the nicest men in Korea), where I enjoyed some BIG치킨도시락. On the walk home, I decided to finally check out the Coop that is a few blocks from my apartment. It was less than I imagined, but I may pick up some goods from that place at some time. We walked home and parted ways.

Namsan Tower

After a great deal of relaxation, I decided it was time to make the most of my Sunday. I looked up directions to Namsan Tower and made my way into town. When I found the cable car that takes you to the top of the mountain, I found a giant line that took me about an hour to get through. I thought about hiking up to the top of the mountain, because it is a mere 200m, but I was feeling lazy after my hike yesterday and waited it out. Sadly, it was very foggy today, and I didn't get the greatest of views. Therefore, I decided not to pay the 7000 to go up to the observation deck of the tower. I will save that for another day; a clearer day. Even though I didn't get the best view ever, I still enjoyed the visit. The autumn colors in the trees were beautiful, and there was this really neat area with many many love locks. One of the observation areas is lined with fences, and the fences are completely covered in locks and hearts. They each represent a couples love. It was kind of wonderful, but it also make me realize that I had visited a coupley location, and I didn't exactly fit in with the mobs of people; well, the mobs of couples. Meh, still a fun sight seeing location.

(The cable car line)

(A view from the cable car)

(Lounging area atop the mountain)

With the G20 coming up next weekend, there was an exhibit with drawings of leaders from each of the countries that will be represented at the G20

(Myself and Mr. Obama)

(Posing with a caricature of Lee Myeong Bak)

(The drawing of the Indian Prime Minister Monmohan Singh: I thought that the flying carpet was kind of a ridiculous addition.)

(Love Trees?)

(Love Trees 2?)

(Love Fence?)

(Some great English translations)

When I reached the bottom of the mountain, I stopped into a small restaurant for a steaming bowl of Kimchi Chigae. As it gets colder, I seem to crave this any time I've been outside longer than thirty minutes. Even though it is spicy enough to make me sweat, I eat it at least three times a week.

(My delicious meal)

Seoul Lantern Festival (Cheonggyecheon)

While I was preparing to subway it over to Cheonggyecheon stream to catch a glimpse of the Seoul Lantern Festival, I was thinking that I was going to be spending my evening in Seoul alone, but I was pleasantly surprised as my group gradually increased and became 8 people. I received a call from Amarisse, whom I had texted earlier to proposition for dinner, and she asked if I'd like to meet herself, Jill, and Rob over in Gwanghwamun to see the Lantern Festival. So obviously, I accepted her proposition. Not one minute later, I got a call from Justin, who was also in Myeong-dong (a huge shopping district right next to Namsan) with Calvin. We coordinated a meetup and headed over towards the festival. Once we arrived, Justin and Calvin sat down to eat some McDonald's, while I stayed outside to observe the hordes of police officers that were amassed for the G20. It was unbelievable. I don't even think that it is exaggerating to say that there were well over a thousand cops in this area.

(A video of some of police marching down the street)

Shortly after this, Calvin's girlfriend, Ji-seon, and her friend, Eun-jung met up with us. This brought our group total to five. Then, after the arrival of the rest of the group, we were finally up to eight. We were all separated in the masses surrounding the stream, but eventually made our way down to the festival of lanterns. Amarisse and Jill decided to avoid the crowds and get some ice cream, so the group of six ventured into the sea of people and saw a whole bunch of lanterns. They were more like fancy parade floats that were illuminated like lanterns, but it was still pretty damn cool. I took about a hundred pictures, but I will only post a handful of my favorites. Seeing as though we live in Suwon, we had to depart from the rest around 10 or 10:30. But before leaving, we all got a snack and a beer and did some dancing on one of the side streets nearby. I'm not sure why, but nobody wanted to join in on our dance party. They really don't know what they were missing out on.

(At the entrance)

(Apparently, this little guy is the Seoul mascot. He is some kind of cute dragon.)

(First set of lanterns)

(Justin, myself & a lantern deer)

(Light up lantern)

(Bonzai!)

(A lantern couple)

(Rob, Justin, Eun-jung, Ji-seon, Calvin & myself)

(Same friends as before, but under a bridge and without me)

(Rotating lanterns)

(Eun-jung, Ji-seon & Calvin)

(A photo of us doing what everyone was doing; Taking Photos!)

(Kobukson [turtle boat] lantern)

(Cute Japanese cartoon lanterns)

(Me, enjoying a beer and some squid jerky. mmmmmm)

[Directions]

Namsan Tower: Exit 3 Myeongdong Station, Line 4. When you exit from the station, turn left and walk up the hill. Every time the road forks, follow it to the left. After about 7 minutes, you will see a set of stairs on the right side of the road. Walk up those stairs, and you will find yourself in the parking lot of the Namsan cable car (station?).

Cheonggyecheon Stream: Exit 3 Gwangwamun Station, Line 5. When you exit from the station, just keep walking straight (this is left, if you are thinking in terms of the street), you will cross a busy intersection and see a really tall seashell sculpture on the left. That is the beginning of the stream.

Halloween at Avalon & Naejangsan

(The beautiful leaves on the way out of Naejangsan)

This week has been quick and fun. Monday and Tuesday at work were term tests, so I spend my first two days of the week proctoring tests. It was great, because I was able to get all of my essays marked in a timely fashion. Wednesday was newspaper day, and on Thursday and Friday, we had event days. For the foreign teachers, event day means Halloween Day. We basically created Halloween themed lesson plan, played games with the kids, and ate lots of candy. I urged all of the kids to wear costumes; I told them that if they wore costumes, I would give them 2 stamps (incentives for being good students: they can be used to get out of detention and other things). I was lucky enough to have about 8 or 9 students dress up. I don't have much to tell about this day, but I figured it would be fun to put up some photographs.

(I know they're not wearing costumes, but this was a fun Halloween Day class. -Rianna, Alice, & Amy)

(Jenny)

(Luna)

(Yep, I'm wearing Lewis's hat and holding his strange cat paw wand.)

My Little Nokjiwan class is too cool for costumes, but the three of them are some of my favorite students, so I snapped some photos of them playing Pictionary.

(Sam)

(Sarah)

(Sam & Jim)

My last class of the week was fantastic. There are only nine students, but five of them dressed up. Four of the girls coordinated as a group of witches and Sebastian was some sort of wizard. We had a lot of fun playing games.

(Eric is being slightly inappropriate, and Jonathan was pretending to have a costume)

(The witches were trying to look mean)

(Rachel drawing a vampire)

(Sebastian with witch fingers)

(Johnathan, Eric, & Rebecca)

(Rebecca, Jenny, Rachel, & Emily / The Witches)

As soon as class was finished on Friday night, I went out for a five minute beer with Jen & the guys, because it was her birthday. I drank the beer very fast and cycled Ciaran's bike home as fast I could. I changed, did some last minute packing, and hopped a bus to head into Seoul to meet up with the hikers at Sinsa Station. Chelsea beat me there. By the way, it seems like I may have passed the hiking bug to her. This was two weekends in a row that Chelsea came out to hike with SHITY. This trip was sort of strange. The SHITY hikers were going out to Naejansan on Sunday, so I was planning on missing it for Mindy's wedding, but due to some of the super hardcore hikers that wanted to hike Naejangsan on Saturday and Backyangsan on Sunday, everything became possible. The super hikers let myself, Chelsea, and a few others tag along with them. Jin-young organized for us to ride out with a middle-aged singles hiking group, called Sunshine. After the hike, the Saturday only hikers just went back with them, while to others hitch hiked out to Backyansan.

Blah blah blah, everything worked out, and I was able to have one hell of a hike. We were on a bus from midnight to about five and began hiking in the dark, once again. It really is something else to hike in the dark, and all of the sudden, see the sunrise in the mountains. It feels good to be up that early, doing something that feels so epic. We hiked for about eight hours, and during those eight hours, we hiked over eight different peaks. It really makes the journey fly by, because as soon as you hit a peak, you know that just around the corner, you'll find another one. Because it was a circle of peaks, we did most of our hiking along ridges, which were gorgeous. There were a lot of stretches of this hike, where you were just walking on rocks, and you could look down huge drop offs on both sides.

Another nice thing about this hike was getting to know a few of the hikers a lot better. The group of us that was hiking together was quite small, and we pretty much stuck together for the whole hike. They really are incredible people, and I can't wait to get back into the mountains with them. I never thought that I could get this into an outdoor activity. Seriously, who would have guess that this would be my new favorite type of weekend outings? Not me.

(One of the many ridges)

(Chelsea)

(Julian)

(Chris, Meg, Jin-young, & Andrea)

(Myself at one of the many peaks)

(Andrea, Jin-young, & the orange suit guy [똥팬티])

Yongsan, Namdaemun, & Dobongsan

(One of the temples on Dobongsan)

This weekend was something else. I would have never expected Saturday night to turn out the way it did in a million years.

To begin the weekend, JC and I decided to do some camera hunting in Yongsan. There is a massive electronics mart right by the subway station. We both had come prepared with information on our desired products. JC couldn't seem to find what he was looking for, but every single vendor had the camera I was seeking (Canon T1i). Each shop had a very different price they were quoting me for the camera kit. This price ranged anywhere from 700,000 - 970,000 won. Eventually, I found a mildly sketchy guy that took me behind his display and let me mess around with the camera I wanted to buy. We settled on a price of 650,000 won, which was better than anything I'd seen at any other store. I've never really been in a position where it was acceptable to haggle, but it really make the shopping experience completely different. I liked it. Right before leaving, we stopped by another electronics store that looked slightly more legitimate. I thought that this browsing location was going to turn out to be pretty pointless, but boy, was I wrong. I asked a few vendors for prices, and finally I came across one man that didn't just tell me a price. He pulled out his calculator to type in the price, like all of the shop merchants do, but instead of typing, he asked, "Best price?" I figured what the hell, and told him 600,000. He seemed very hesitant, but eventually said, "Okay! 600,000 won." I felt very accomplished at that moment, but I didn't actually have any money, so I plan to go back and make the purchase once I get paid.

While JC was contemplating his possible purchase, we took a step outside to find that there was a snowboard hill constructed on the sidewalk outside Yongsan Station. It was so random, but we sat down on the steps and watched snowboarders for at least an hour. It was very entertaining, even though 4 out of every 5 runs down the slope were pretty pathetic. I say this as though I am some sort of snowboard god or something; I'm not. There were just a number of disappointing attempts.

(Snowboard park at Yongsan)

After this, we decided to take the subway out to Namdaemun, because I had read about some grey market shops that sold canons extra cheap: illegally imported from Japan. We went searching for camera, which turned out to be considerably more expensive than my haggled canon in Yongsan, but found so much more. Who would have guessed that Namdaemun Market on a Saturday night could be so much fun? Not me. We learned that Koreans are baffled by white guys walking around with Mokguli (Korean rice wine). They just ask in a surprised voice, "Mokguli?!" This happened at least ten times. I was pretty hungry, so we settled in to a little street food vender and met these three great people: an older woman, and to men in their thirties. We sat down, drank, and talked with them for at least an hour and a half. They were feeding us all sorts of food and teaching us about Korean people and their "one heart." Apparently people from China and Japan have two hearts. They will be nice to your face and walk away saying that they don't like you, but in Korea, they have only one heart. The talk to you and if they like you, they really like you. When they walk away, they feel the same way they did before. Interesting point of view. I like it. Eventually, we made our way home, because I had to be up for a hike pretty early in the morning.

(JC at the entrance to Namdaemun Market)

(Refill on Mokguli)

(JC and our new friend, Ham)

(Myself and Do-ming)

The next morning started off a little rocky. Let's just say that I woke up way too late. I was supposed to meet up with Chelsea at Pyeongchon Station at 8:15. I didn't arrive until 8:45. Just to be safe, I still got off the subway and waited to make sure that she wasn't late like me. She wasn't. I got on the subways and was supposed to meet the SHITY group at 10:00am at Dobongsan Station. I arrived at 10:30ish and couldn't find Chelsea or the SHITY group. At this point, I had submitted to a solo hike. After purchasing a kimbap and two apples, I departed on my hike, alone. This turned out to be pretty nice, except for the fact that there were a billion people on the mountain yesterday. Because this trail is so close to Seoul, everybody goes out there.

(The first 1.5 hours was spent walking in a line like this.)

Shortly after this photo was taken, I happened to find Chelsea on the mountain. This was a pleasant surprise. I then had company for the remainder of the hike. Once we started really hiking up into the mountain, towards the peak, the crowds thinned out, and it was very fun. We actually ran into the SHITY hikers about an hour after our meet up. In the end, I saw everybody I was planning on seeing. SUCCESS! They also talked me into hiking next weekend. I think I'll be able to make it back for Mindy's, one of our Korean teacher's, wedding on Sunday. The hike took about 6 hours or so. I'm far less sore after this one. When we reached the base, we ordered up a big pan full of Kimchi Chigae and a bottle of mokguli: a well-deserved treat. After the meal, we headed home. This weekend was definitely one to remember. I feel like I've been making the most of things recently.

(Posing at the peak)

(Statues at one of the temples on the mountain)

(Victory Chigae)

(A video from the peak)

[Directions]

Yongsan Electronics Mart: Yongsan Station, Line 1 / Jungang. When you exit the subway, you will find yourself in a building housing a subway station, train station, and a mall. After walking up the subway stairs, walk away from the train station. Take your first right through the card scanners. You will find yourself in an area that is sort of outside and sort of inside, then turn right and walk all the way down to the HUGE glass windows. Turn right down a sketchy looking hallway, and about 20 meters down, you will find an even sketchier looking skywalk to crosses over a train yard into the Electronics Mart.

Namdaemun Market: Hoehyeon Station, Line 4

Dobongsan: Exit 1 Dobongsan Station, Line 1 / Line 7. After you exit, follow the side walk to a bridge that takes you out to the road. Cross the road and walk up the stairs; you will find yourself in a very busy area with lots of food and hiking shops. Simply follow the sea of people, and you will find yourself at the entrance to the hiking trails.