Kalie comes to Seoul

            You will all be happy to know that my early birthday package from my parents has arrived! I got a camera, birthday cake mix, and a package of mini pepperoni. Haha. I will soon be getting a stove oven then I can make my cake (since Korean’s don’t believe in ovens I have to make due with what I can get) Thanks Mom and Dad. I put the new camera to use this weekend!

Last weekend Kalie came to Seoul. She got in around 10pm Friday night at Seoul Station where Hadley and I met her. It was so good to see her. I hadn’t seen her since my trip to Daegu, which was a couple months ago. We had a grand old time. Friday night we just went out to have a beer and chat.

Outside of Seoul Station... It's huge! 

KTX lines... these are the fast trains, Kalie's ride to Daegu was an hour and 45 mins about. Regularly it'd take 4 hours or so. 

 Saturday when we woke up we weren’t in any hurry getting out the door. Whenever Kalie and I get together as my mom would say, we become big slugs. haha. We watched a couple episodes of TV and hung out. We eventually made our way over to Konkuk University area for some delicious Dakgalbi. It was so good. I had been to that restaurant once before with Elizabeth and Hadley and loved it! The rest of our day was spent wondering around the area eventually meeting up with Addie. Later that night we headed to Gangnam to go to Rainbow to go enjoy some live music. A few more people met us there including Clayton. It was good to see him again. I don’t get to see him often either. It was Addie’s last weekend in Seoul, which is pretty sad. She leaves on Friday heading back to the states. I’m going to miss hanging out with her for sure.

Walking to lunch in Konkuk University

The dakgalbi restaurant!

Hanging outside some restaurant enjoying some Makkoli (korean rice wine) in a bowl and Korean pancakes

Kalie and Hadley drinking out of our bowl at Rainbow

The stage is right behind them.

This bar is really cool. The seating is so random here...

Kalie, Clay and I meet again! Kalie's smile is so ridiculous in this pic I had to share it! Haha

At Woodstock... A foreigner bar Kalie, Clayton and I played some darts... Kalie let these two koreans be on her team. It was their first time playing for sure... somehow they ended up winning one of the games.

            Sunday morning we hung out watching some more TV while Hadley made us pancakes… Can we get any lazier? I don’t think so. Poor Hadley had to deal with us Sunday morning. We then proceeded to head to Seoul Station where Kalie’s ktx was leaving from and hung out people watched and ate a ton of food American style… pizza hut and coldstone ice cream. It was much needed and very delicious. Before I hopped on my hour bus ride home, I met up with Addie for one last time and Jiho. We hung out for about an hour and chatted while they ate some Korean bbq. The waitress at the restaurant asked Jiho if we were Russian. That is the fourth or fifth time that I’ve been asked if I was Russian. The waitress was from North China so she knows Russians fairly well. I mean I think I look pretty Scandinavian but the Korean’s seem to think otherwise… it’s very bazaar. 

Dog Café

Two weekends ago was Elizabeth’s last weekend here in Seoul (Not my co-teacher Elizabeth but my friend I met here through Hadley). Hadley and I hung out with her this weekend as much as we could. We met her on Saturday and spent the day hanging out in Hongdae at a dog café…. Yes a dog café. It was really interesting and fun. It is exactly what it sounds like, a café that has a bunch of dogs in it. Apparently there are dogs that live there and you can also bring your own dog. There was grooming going on there too in a backroom. The dogs were really clean in this café unlike most the dogs you’ll see in Korea. Being with the dogs made me really miss Mocha. There was a golden there too that took your bill and brought it to the front, SO CUTE! After the dog café we ventured off to Ewha Women’s University to wonder the streets and have some delicious Korean bbq for dinner. After dinner we met up with some more of our friends at a really cool hookah bar called Rainbow in Gangnam that has live music on Saturday nights. It was really fun. Jinwoo, Addie, her boyfriend Jiho, Hadley, Elizabeth and I all hung out there for a while. Jinwoo took Hadley and I out for Korean pancakes after because we were hungry, haha. He is so nice!

The adorable golden that delivers the bill! 

wiener dog sleeping in the box

Hadley's favorite rat dog... haha

            Sunday Hadley, Addie and I spent most of the day hanging out in Insa-dong; which is a pretty touristy area that has a lot of shops selling traditional Korean things. While we were walking down Insa-dong Street there were riots going through the streets getting crazy and knocking down street food vendors stands. It was nuts. We heard that they were college students protesting against the rising price of tuition. Whenever they came by we played it safe and ran into the nearest store.

            Monday was Independence Day here in Korea so I hung out for a while in Seoul before heading home. Hadley and I met Elizabeth for brunch at a restaurant in Itaewon. I was planning on eating breakfast food because I love breakfast but I saw chicken fingers on the menu and couldn’t pass that up. It has been way too long since I’ve had some of those. They were delicious! I’m pretty sad to see Elizabeth go but am excited for her because her next adventure is going to teach in Thailand. I may go there for my winter vacation to visit her and her fiancé Eric who I’ve met over here as well. 

Philippines!

I've been waiting to post this in hopes that my friend Clayton who I took this trip with would finally send me some of the pictures he took from the trip but he still hasn't yet. I will post some pictures once I get them but for now here is a summary of my trip... 

My trip to the Philippines was short and eventful. I went with my friend Clayton. Both of our breaks overlapped so we were able to travel somewhere together for part of it. We left Seoul on Wednesday night and arrived in Manila very late/early Thursday morning. We had a hostel booked ahead of time for that night. Our hostel wasn’t the nicest but it was cheap. It didn’t really matter to us where we stayed; we were only going to be there for the night. 

Our packs

            Clayton and I got up around 9am the next morning ready to explore the city. We woke up kind of in the ghetto. The taxi driver the night before said “why are you guys staying here? Go to a nicer area.” Haha. Oh well, you live and you learn. We made due with what we had. We headed towards an area called Market Market after checking out of our hostel. It was quite an adventure getting there riding on their “buses” called jeepney’s. They are crazy old military jeeps transformed into buses where you get on through the back where one would think there should be a door. None of them have a dashboard and any sense of pay system. Some people handed the driver money and some didn’t. I couldn’t figure it out. Quite a different world that they live in that’s for sure. I enjoyed my ride through town on it. We had to transfer once to a different jeepney heading towards where we were going. The jeepney we were on barely stopped for us to hop off and jump in the next one while we were in the middle of an intersection. It was crazy! We ended up making it to Market Market safely. We walked around a bit and explored the area while drinking a nice fresh fruit smoothie. It was fun to have a look around. All the people in the Philippines were very nice. We would hear good morning ma’am and hello sir everywhere we went. I was really impressed with their manners overall. I was telling Clay how refreshing it was to hear English spoken! I didn’t realize how much I missed that comfort. After walking around we decided to head towards the area where we wanted to spend the night since we were tired of carrying our packs with us everywhere. We ended up checking into Hotel Camelot, the thing looked like a castle. It was actually really nice, the bellboy insisted on carrying my backpack to my room for me.

A jeepney... they are usually painted ridiculous colors and all super random. 

Me inside a jeepney

The dashboard or lack there of....

Fruit! 

Hotel Camelot Lobby.

            After getting rid of our packs we were ready to wonder the city. The weather however did not agree with us. It started to get wicked windy as Clayton would say and rain shortly followed. We decided it was time to get lunch at that point. The weather calmed down enough for us to go find a taxi and head towards the venue where Incubus was playing that night. We got tickets right at the booth; it only cost us 18 US dollars too! So awesome. We wondered the markets nearby to kill some time. They had meat and fish market as well as fruit market. In the meat market they had pigs for sale and had dead pig heads displayed… I took a picture for my sister Beth but unfortunately I lost my camera so I no longer have the pictures. Before the concert we got some dinner at a kind of fancy restaurant. We split some nachos and a bucket of local San Miguel beer. It was refreshing to drink some actual beer since we’ve gotten so used to drinking the crap beer here in Korea. While we were in line for entering the concert a girl came up to Clayton and asked, “are you Clayton?” Her name was Alice. Clayton had posted on Couchsurfers that we were going to the concert and Alice had read on the concert blog his post and said “you’re the only white male with a white girl that I’ve seen so I figured it was a safe bet to assume you were Clayton”.  We met up with her and some other of her friends she’s met in Manila after the concert for some ice cream. The concert was amazing. It was honestly one of the best concerts I’ve been to. Brandon Boyd is really a phenomenal performer; Kalie, really missed out on a good concert especially considering Incubus is her favorite band.

Look at the sign and you can tell how windy it got outside... 

Just super normal for the man to be riding on the back of the truck with glass holding an umbrella. 

Having a san miguel at dinner.

Clayton and I at dinner, really dark picture.

            Friday, Clayton and I told Alice (the couchsurfing girl we met randomly the night before) in Intramuros, which is the “old town” of Manila. Intramuros is still protected by a brick wall; it’s really cool. We had a great day exploring the town and talking to random people. We ended up eating at some café that doubled as a recording studio… pretty sketchy if you ask me. The food was good though, haha. At the end of our venture in Intramuros we found ourselves relaxing on part of the old wall watching out for flying golf balls… literally. There was a golf course just on the other side of the wall. It was a great view from the top of the wall though; I really enjoyed hanging out there. Before dinner time Clay and I found a hostel to stay at “Friendlies” and dropped our stuff off. We went to eat a really good Italian place. We treated ourselves to a really nice dinner. We had pita bread and hummus for an appetizer, pasta dishes for our main course, and for desert we had ice cream and cake. It was the best meal we ate there by far. After dinner we had a few drinks in a local bar tent type of place across from our hostel where there were a bunch of travelers.

The glorious river! Haha

A really cool catholic church that we went and checked out. (the girl in the stripped shirt is Alice)

Clayton found a job! 

A random car... it's decorated more like most the jeepney's are decorated. 

Inside of some run down abandoned bank.

On top of the wall surrounding Intramuros 

Alice and I hanging out on the wall... it was a great view of the city! 

Clayton and I took a taxi around a lot because it was easy and cheap too. It was actually really fun to see all the different parts of town. It’s so crazy how rich some areas are and then the next block over how much poverty people are in. I haven’t seen so much poverty in my life as I did in certain parts of Manila. It was crazy. There were constantly little skin and bone kids wearing raggedy dirty clothes walking barefoot asking you for money or food. It was really sad. There was one point where we were in the taxi and drove by a slum area that I couldn’t even imagine living in. I turned to Clayton and told him that I am so grateful to have grown up in Minnetonka.

The next day wasn’t too exciting. We didn’t do a whole lot. We went to Starbucks and hung out at the coffee shop for a while and lounged around. By the time we got to the airport and boarded our flight they announced that the flight was going to be delayed 4 hours so we had to hang out in the airport for most of the night. It was very frustrating especially considering Manila airport is really lame. It has nothing in it. All the food places were closed too, which was convenient. Oh well, that’s just the joys of traveling I guess. My trip to the Philippines was great though. I had a really good time and met some really cool people. I can’t get enough of traveling...

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.

mudfest

Last week was my spring break here at Wonderland. For the first weekend of it I went and enjoyed it Korean style by attending mudfest. It is exactly what it sounds like, a festival to go run around and play in the mud. I went with a group of my friends. The festival was on the western coast of Korea in a town called Boryeong. We arrived there on Saturday afternoon, put our stuff in our room and then headed for the festival where we spent the majority of our day running around exploring the festival area and playing in the ocean. 

Crazy mudfest area

They had the option to get painted in colored mud...

Elizabeth, Hadley, Addie and I washing off in the ocean! 

Some people in the mudfest area.

For dinner Addie and Jiho made us some tasty Korean BBQ outside of our hotel. It was delicious! That night after taking showers of course we went to see what was going on in town. The town is very small and there isn’t much happening. There was a concert area but it ended by the time we got to it, bummer! 

Addie and Jiho

Hadley, Elizabeth and I enjoying a drink in a bag... Korean's love drinks in a bag!

The next day we didn’t leave Boryeong till 3pm so we had some time to kill. A group of us just walked down the shore and ate some lunch at a little Korean restaurant. Overall it was a good experience. There were two weekend of the mudfest and we went to the second one, which is when all the Koreans attend - go figure. Needless to say we got the full on Korean experience. 

The beach area

Jiho with his long arms capturing a pic of all of us!

We went to eat at a korean bbq place after we got back to Seoul... the name of it was G-ho farm! Although he spells his name differently we had to take a picture of Jiho next to his restaurant! 

Our delicious Korean dinner!