Hads is leaving....

These past couple weekends I’ve been busy spending time with Hadley because she’s leaving Korea tomorrow. I’m not too excited about her moving but she’s been here for a year and it’s time for her to move on. I guess I’ll just have to find cool things to do with my weekends now that I can’t bombard her every weekend, haha. A few weeks ago Hadley’s mom was here visiting and I got to spend a day hanging out with her and Hads. It is always good to see a face from home in Korea. Her mom loved Korea; she was fascinated with everything about it. It was awesome. 

A 90 year old man painting fans on the streets in Insa-dong. Clearly I had to buy one from him... he was so cute!

His 75 year old friend writing my name in korean on my new fan.

Out to lunch with Hads and her mom!

Kimchi pancake... delicious!

Some tasty tofu/kimchi dish thing. 

This lady making these tasty treats that have walnuts and sometimes red bean paste in them too. It's like a stuffed donut kinda.

A cool shopping area in Insa-dong. 

We took the river boat cruise on the Han at night.

The crazy highways. 

Yep, it was a live music boat cruise... too bad we couldn't understand anything he was singing about.

Hadley and her mom!

This cost 7 dollars and you got 12 side dishes that were all free refills.. love it! Obviously we took advantage of that... If you know me at all you shouldn't be surprised by that.

The crazy parking ramp contraption.

Last weekend was Hadley’s last weekend here. We did some last minute shopping for her and got to have dinner with Jiho and later hang out with Jinwoo. Sunday we had to end her last weekend the right way… we went to a lg twins game! It was a great way to end her time here. I told her she had to transition her way to get accustomed to MN… what better way then going to a knock off twins game. Haha. We had a good time though; people always get so into baseball here. 

Jinwoo and our matching sweatshirts! 

So Korean couples always wear matching clothes and since Hadley and I always joke about Jinwoo being our Korean boyfriend we figured I'd be a good present for his birthday if we bought him a matching sweatshirt to us!

In the streets of Gangnam.

Twins game! 

Kimbap is the only way to go...

This guy was at one point watching the Twins game which was right in front of him on his phone....

Hads rocking her sweet Korean Twins jersey! And for those of you who are wondering... yes I bought the jersey too! 

What I see every time I come into Seoul!

The subway stop that I come into had a sign for my hometown advertised... clearly I got pumped and had to take a picture!

This weekend I'm going camping. I'm pretty excited to go, it'll be good to get out of the city! I'm going on some islands on the west coast. Other exciting things that are coming up is the field trip to an island in Chuncheon with the kids next Friday! 

Micah's in Korea!

Koreans travel to be with their family during Chuseok. My Chuseok was no exception. I was fortunate enough to be able to spend my time with people who I consider my family: Kalie, her brother Micah who came to visit and Clayton.  It was a great time. We ended up just hanging out in Seoul from Friday night to Tuesday morning when we had to head back to get ready to teach on Wednesday. Friday night we stayed in a hostel in Hongdae where we spent our Friday night hanging out and bar hopping. Saturday morning we woke up and decided to bombard Hadley’s apartment and make ourselves at home (like I do every weekend, Haha). When we got to Guri (where Hadley lives) we saw her walking on the street with her mom and totally surprised her because she had no idea we were going to come to her apartment at all. Our original plan was to go to Seoraksan and hike the mountains there but the weather was very questionable so we decided to play it safe and stay in Seoul where we knew we had a place to stay and there would be plenty for us to do inside. 

We were pretty busy hanging out and wondering through Seoul. Every night we were out exploring and finding fun bars to hang out at. Monday was a nice day so we decided to hike a mountain north of the city. It was a pretty big hike. Kalie and I went up to one of the peaks with the boys but clearly they had to wait for us at the top. We’re both in terrible shape. I haven’t been playing soccer a lot and Kalie, well let’s just say she’s not the most active person you’ll meet. Haha. It was quite a view from the top of the peak we went up though. I’m glad we did it. During our weekend there were times that I forgot I was in Korea because it seemed so normal hanging out with the Danielson’s and going to American establishments. Micah just left Korea today. It was SO GOOD to see him and Kalie was more than thrilled to have him here.  

A pic of us Saturday morning at our Hostel in Hongdae. It was soo nice and clean. It was the best hostel I've stayed at. 

Walking down crazy Korean streets looking for a good place to eat.

Dinner on a rooftop of a department store.

At some bar in Itaewon... the snacks in the middle there are dried noodles salted with some seasonings, they were actually pretty good. 

View of the city from N. Seoul Tower hike up the mountain (which Kalie and I decided was going to be too long for us that night so we walked back down hoping to go on the cable car but were disappointed by the size of the line for it so we ended up getting a taxi to the top of the mountain while Micah and Clayton hiked up it... haha woops!) 

The chained locks that are at the top that couples put there.

The tower

Seoul at night, it's HUGE, it goes on forever....

Now it wasn't bad enough to take a taxi to the top but she had to get a piggy back ride part way down the mountain... Kalie is the definition of LAZY!

This was at the start of our hike up Dobongsan mountain that's north of the city.

We told Clayton to go climb some huge pointy rock while we were taking our snack break...

Micah and Clay waiting for us at a turning point... little did we (kalie and i) know that they could hear our conversation up the mountain. At one point I was laughing and Kalie told me to stop laughing because it wastes too much energy. There were also so many koreans just sitting laughing at us while we were struggling to climb up the mountain. It was quite comical watching us apparently. 

If you can't tell by this picture, one of Kalie's glass lenses is fogged up, part of her shirt is a different color and she can't breathe... Haha, almost there.

We finally made it! 

View from the top!

We thought the struggle up the mountain was hard enough but the hike down sucked just as much, it was really scary at some points... Kalie actually managed to fall down this little part (don't worry she's alive still and isn't hurt too bad). As a best friend I clearly had to take a picture instead of help her up! 

These two ahead of us were our hiking pacers, they had a good pace (slow and steady) going and Kalie and I followed them all the way down. Meanwhile, Micah and Clayton were off to hike a few more peaks.

The little village at the bottom of the mountain was so cute, it reminded us of some streets Colorado.

I think the peak we hiked was the rock looking one way in the back.