spring break in seoul

The first half of my spring break week I invited myself to go stay with Hadley in Seoul. Haha. She said, “I don’t know when I can actually call you my roommate rather than a visitor but we are bordering that line”. Woops! She then added that she was going to start making honey-do lists for me. I will say though that I did help her do some laundry and I vacuumed her apartment last week during my prolonged stay so I wasn’t totally useless. I’m just thankful that Hadley keeps letting me come bug her every weekend! I don’t know what I’m going to do when she leaves in October. I’ll have to find a new friend to go bother. I had a bunch of pictures from my daily adventures in Seoul but unfortunately I lost my camera so I don’t have any of the pictures to show you guys :(

            Monday I went to go visit my Korean friend Hyemin “Claire” for lunch with her sister. I met Claire while I was interning at Disney World so I’ve known her since fall 2008. I always told her I’d go visit her in Korea and when I actually told her I was going to come she was shocked! She loves having me here but I haven’t been able to see her too much. She’s busy with grad school and working. It was nice to have time to meet with her. She took me to a restaurant where her professors take her to get this hot soup thing. After lunch we walked back to her campus and her and her sister gave me a tour of the campus. She goes to Seoul National University of Technology. It is a small campus but is pretty. It was interesting to talk to her sister as well. She was telling me how two of the buildings were built by the Japanese and are in the shape of a Chinese lettering for Japan so many Koreans don’t like going into those two buildings. Her sister was also in the military in Korea for 3 years and 4 months. She was an officer trainer; she said that there are only 2 or 3% of women in the Korean army. Here in Korea all men have to enroll in the army once they reach a certain age. My friend Jinwoo came back to Korea after graduating from San Diego because he has to enroll in the army. He’s trying to delay that more now by going to grad school. Haha. His father, however, won’t consider him a man until he fulfills his military service. It’s crazy. Claire’s sister also mentioned that this year is the first year that universities in Korea are allowing women to participate in ROTC. The rest of Monday I hung out with Addie and her friend Holly who was visiting. Hadley joined us after she was done with work. Addie had half days so I was able to go see her after I ate lunch with Claire.

            Tuesday, I ventured off by myself and headed to Seoul Forrest. It is basically a huge park in the middle of Seoul. It was really cool. I walked around the whole park and it took me all morning. There was a butterfly and green house that you could walk through. They also had deer all around the park; they were gated of course. They were extremely tame though. I saw some man feeding them deer food that you must have been able to buy close by and took a picture of him petting and feeding the deer. He saw me and came over to me and gave me the rest of the food he had to feed the deer. It was really cool.  I fed and pet the deer. It made me miss Mocha; the deer were petite like Mocha (For those of you who don’t know Mocha is my English springer spaniel puppy at home in MN). Tuesday night Hadley and I were planning on going to a LG Twins game (baseball) but it got rained out. That didn’t stop us from still going and buying twins jerseys and hats though! Haha. We met up with a few people after that to get dinner, Korean BBQ of course!

            Wednesday I met up with Addie’s friend Holly to go to N Seoul Tower. It was raining a lot Wednesday but we still went. It was fun. We took the cable car up to the top and hung out for a bit. We couldn’t’ really see much from the top because it was foggy out. After our venture we went back to Hadley’s so I could get my bag ready to head to the Philippines. My flight was Wednesday night. We went to eat and got delicious dumplings and noodle soup before I left for the airport. It was a fun week just hanging out at Hadley’s. I found plenty of things to do to entertain me. I wish I had my pictures to share with you all! 

Here are some pictures that Holly just gave me from seoul tower!

These are all locks...

The view from the top

We could go up higher but didn't want to pay. It wasn't clear that day anyways.

Some little statue right outside, haha.