Awesome Weekend

Josh:

Onward we go! Prepare yourself for a long post.

On Friday (4/16/10) we headed to Suwon to get the card process started for Audrey and on the way (when asking if we were on the right train) we randomly met a Korean lady who spoke perfect English. She apparently lived in America for several years and was married to a guy from the military. It seems they had just moved to Pyeongtaek also so we talked with her for most of the ride over to Suwon. She was super nice and even offered to be Costco buddies with us (score!). She said that we should call her if we ever need any help for whatever reason. It seems everyone here is so friendly and willing to help. I love it.

We had made plans to meet up with other teachers in Pyeongtaek at a wine bar right across from Pyeongtaek station. Since we got out of school a little earlier than the time scheduled we headed over there to grab some food (very good pasta with pieces of toast as a side [interesting]). When the time was right we headed over there and saw Mike sitting with everyone else there. We met some really cool people such as another just married couple (super nice), a cool guy from South Africa and another nice girl who has been here for four years (I think). Shortly after we started talking Zack showed up with two others. One was another English teacher and the other was her co-teacher. Both turned out to be really fun and it ended up that we really connected with the English teacher (Her name is Meg. Saturday we would find that we really enjoy her company and now Audrey and I hang out with her several times a week usually along with Zack and Mike. It's good to have another girl in the group, especially one that Audrey seems to connect so well with). After having some beer and wine we decided to head out and hit a Karaoke room (Nore Bang in Korean)

We had a lot of fun singing Karaoke. I sang some Tenacious D and Lonely Island while Audrey sang some Barbie girl. Everyone seemed to have a lot of fun and we even saw the masters of karaoke give it a go a couple of times (Karen and Charles - the couple).
Left is me (obviously). To my upper left is Zack, my immediate left is Mike, to the right of Zack is Charles followed by Karen (the couple) and to Audrey's right is Meg. It was a pretty cool group I must say.
(Note: You can find some of these pictures of Facebook or the photo site I created. As I said, when I get the internet at the house I will be able to upload a lot more images.)

All in all, a very good night. We decided to invite the others that we met to go to Yeouido Flower Festival but Meg was the only one who could go (not a problem though considering how much fun we had with her and the guys).

Saturday (4/17/10):
We had been planning on going to the flower festival for some time so I was pretty excited to see the cherry blossoms and everything in full bloom. After a few weeks of city life one does tend to miss nature. We were going to meet up with a couple of girls from the Teach ESL Korea dinner so we got up early and met up with Zack, Mike and Meg in front of Pyeongtaek station. Audrey decided to be cute and made PB&J sandwiches for everyone (they were all pretty jazzed about that). We purchased our tickets to Seoul and headed over. The train was pretty crowded (as we expected due to several warnings of crowded streets and subways from my co-teachers) but it wasn't Street Fair in San Francisco bad so I was okay with it (thank you San Francisco for that training). We chatted in the snack car for most of the ride (Note: There are arcade machines and Nore bangs in the snack car! How cool is that?) and within an hour we reached Seoul. After a little bit of figuring out which direction we should go (thank you to Mike's iPod) we got on the train and headed to a college where we were supposed to meet the other two girls. When we got there we were greeted with some trees in full blossom. I couldn't help but snap a few pictures.














After wandering around campus for a little bit we learned that the two other girls we were meeting were unable to join us due to different circumstances. We decided to continue our exploration of the campus and wandered around a little longer. The campus was pretty big and even had giant elephants and a statue of Buddha (I think) in front of the main building. As we wound our way around the back there were some stairs leading into a mountain type trail. We figured it wouldn't hurt to explore a little longer so we walked up and went along a little trail lined with trees. This led to a nice walking path that we followed all the way until another intersection where we could go towards a mountain type place or continue the walking path. We chose to go towards the mountain path and walked up and saw a sign saying "Seoul Tower 1.5 Kilometers". We thought, "Oh that's not too far. Let's go check it out." Turns out that the 1.5 kilometers (roughly a mile or so) was on a 45 degree slope uphill. Audrey, needless to say, was not quite happy with all the stairs and climbing. I guess that Koreans like to go hiking a lot but despite this training we saw quite a few of them on the side paths resting. After powering our way up the hill we reached a flat place (finally) with a little work out area (who knows why) and another sign saying "Seoul Tower - 1.1 Kilometers". Just for reference, we had seen signs along the path saying "Seoul Tower - .5 Kilometers" after we had been hiking for some time. For some reason they failed to mention that extra 1.1 kilometers we would have to hike after we finished the 1.5 kilometers. So our accidental hike continued uphill (we took some pictures every now and then. Here is just a sample:
A few of the many stairs we had to climb <--












<-- I don't know why the stairs did that. A cool wall we found with some nice trees and flowers ------->



Audrey climbing a tree and looking all awesome ------->

I forgot to mention that one part of the hill was so steep they put a type of carpet down so your shoes can grip it easier when you are climbing. As we continued our climb we managed to get to a restaurant and snack shop. We dashed into the snack shop, grabbed some drinks and then decided to eat at the restaurant. We were all pretty hungry (Audrey and I only had half of a PB&J sandwich) and the place turned out to be pretty good. I ordered two plates of delicious pot stickers (I was really hungry) and when everyone seemed to be fat and happy we left to continue to Seoul Tower. After we had lunch we unfortunately had to part ways with Zack because he had a wedding to go to. We said our farewells and continued in different directions (credit to him for making it all the way up to the top because he had a broken foot and was wearing a cast). We also saw buses driving up the road and Audrey exclaimed, "We could have taken a bus!?" Clearly we are superior to them because we climbed our way to the top. Mike also had fun being a "nice foreigner" by offering to take a picture of every group that had a camera and discovering one of his new favorite foods: fish ice cream. (Audrey and Meg enjoyed a more traditional snack)














We were greeted by a huge circle being blocked off because it seems they were doing a martial arts demonstration (we didn't see it but we saw some people warming up). We wandered up to the side and saw the place where people put "love locks" on the railing. They put their name and place a lock on the rail as a symbol of their eternal love (crowd goes "aww" here).














After enjoying the locks we wandered down and found the entrance to Seoul Tower. The tickets were super cheap and we got in line to ride the elevator. As we rode to the top our ears (at least mine did) started to get very uncomfortable because of the change in pressure. After a few seconds we reached the top and got a wonderful view of the city of Seoul. The windows had sites all over the world and how far away it was. We took pictures of our favorites and got to enjoy the giant sprawling city that is Seoul. It was lots of fun and I'm glad we managed to survive the hike.














After we finished sight seeing we headed back down (I also got a little Gundam from a quarter machine). On the way out we ran into mascots and we couldn't help but take pictures. I took
a picture of the girls and I wanted to get one of the guys. Right before we went up Mike said, "I'm going to grab his cohones (or some term like that, I don't remember)" and I said, "What?" The ending picture made it quite clear what he meant. As I said before: Representing America, baby!

<-- Aren't they cute?











So are we, right? Right? ---->

The trek back was significantly easier considering 99% of it was downhill. On the way back we decided to start playing a new game based off of a game/story that Mike told us about. In Korea it seems to be very fashionable (for some reason) for couples to match clothing. Not only will they match clothing but you will also find matching lingerie (rrrrrwaarrr). On our way down we found about five different couples with matching clothes (or more appropriately matching clothes but with different color shirts) so Mike came up with a very appropriate name for the game: Player 1 and Player 2. When one sees a couple wearing matching clothing (or the same clothing but slightly different colors) one calls out Player 1, Player 2 and gets to punch a nearby person (similar to slug bug). You would be surprised how many times we saw this just coming down the hill (we see it a lot in the city too). I thought the game was hilarious and super appropriately titled. Another game he wants to play is called "Street Meat" where you have to stop at every street vendor and buy something (no matter how weird it is or how full you are). We decided to not play this game (yet). Here is an example of Player 1/Player 2:




I had Audrey pose so they wouldn't think I was taking a picture of them. You might have to click on it to get a better view. Isn't it fantastic? Almost beautiful in a way.






So after we managed to hike down and backtrack we found our way back to the subway. After a few minutes of confusion deciding what route to take we finally hopped onto the subway and headed towards the place we initially left to go to.

Eyes getting tired yet? I'll post this part of the trip and continue on another post for the second half. Hope you are enjoying yourself. Get some coffee (or if you're cool, an energy drink).

Side note: I finally got paid (4/27/10)! Time for a celebration!

Also, sorry about the wonky format. I'll try to fix it when I get time. Just follow the arrows to see what text belongs to what picture. It looked a lot better in the box where I was posting, trust me.