My Great Saturday, October 30th

Hello everyone! I am going to tell you the story of one of my favorite Saturdays.

I am trying a bit of a different format for the photos and descriptions, so let me know which way you prefer. I'm feeling like this larger, centered photos format is going to be better, but I appreciate your opinions on the matter. I am also going to continue to include links to Gowalla spots for places mentioned in the blog, which if you're interested will give you more information on the places, including a map and often more photos. Of course feel free to ignore them if you want! I also hope you enjoy the two videos included towards the end of the post. I hope to shoot more video as time goes on because I think it adds a lot to my ability to share with you what I'm getting up to over here.

So, on to the story. This happens to be the most recent Saturday I've experienced, which was yesterday. I woke up early after falling into a food-coma from all the great Chinese food we ate at China Factory Friday night. I puttered about the apartment for a bit doing things like laundry and dishes. I then wandered out to pick up some groceries.

This was the view back up towards my place as I was heading out to get groceries. 

The sky was a beautiful clear blue, foreshadowing my great Saturday.

I picked up a few essentials at the HomeBase which is pretty close to my apartment. I was toddling back and had just gone into my building when I got a call from a friend. We had aranged to met up and visit the Gansong Art Museum that morning. The museum is pretty close by too, and I had wanted to visit again before the exhibit closes. The museum is only open a couple times a year for limited times. It includes art collected by a man named Gansong, who was attempting to prevent Korean art from being spirited away to other countries. He was a millionaire who spent a lot of money to buy up artworks to protect them. The exhibit we visited was all Korean traditional paintings from the late Chosun dynasty period. It was great to walk around the exhibit for a second time, particularly since I had great company. I went with a couple of women who work at Seoul Global with me, and one of them brought her sister along as well. 

I took this photo of part of the second floor of the gallery, and some of its visitors. This was just before I was informed that pictures weren't allowed. I was a bit miffed because I wasn't taking pictures of the paintings, which I assumed they'd rather weren't photographed, but I can understand they would have a general no-photos policy. There were a lot of visitors, I think partially because if I'm not mistaken the exhibit was to close the next day. 

After we walked around the gallery, we decided to get some food. The four of us went across the street and had Italian food at a little place called Due Cose. I had seen the place before, but I hadn't eaten there until we went. It was good food, and good conversation. After we ate, we decided to visit Insa-dong together. I had planned to go and see some of our students performing on a stage there, because I was invited by one of the teachers at the school. One of the teachers from the school left to visit her boyfriend, but three remaining of us jumped on a bus for Insa-dong. We walked up the main street towards the stage, and it was massive fun to explore the things for sale along the road. We also ate a Korean traditional cookie/candy type thing, and we failed miserably at getting the shapes out without breaking them. It's kinda hard to explain, but the cookies have shapes etched into them, but they are really easily broken. If you're able to break the shapes out of the cookie without damaging them you get a wish or some extra luck. We broke both quite quickly, and lamented at our lost chance for wishes. 

We arrived at the stage just in time to see our students setting up to play instruments for the large crowd gathered. The performance was one of many put on by various student groups, from elementary to high school aged, as part of some kind of Jongno celebration thingy. The students played three short pieces, and they were great as always. I had seen the full orchestra play at the school festival, which was amazing. This smaller subset also did really well.

After a cute set of elementary school students did a yodelling performance, a few more members of our school took the stage. This is a few students with their teacher, who is the woman who informed me about and invited me to this event. They preformed a beautiful traditional Korean drumming dance. You can see the incredibly beautiful and colourful outfits they wear. They did really well, and the crowd was very impressed with the performance. I was very happy to have been able to attend and see both of our school's performances. 

After the performances, I was able to meet with some of the students from both performances and the teacher to congratulate them on their great shows. Then my friends and I walked back along the road towards the subway and bus. On the walk back through Itaewon we found a few nice traditional Korean activities that were quite interesting. One was a man and a woman making rice cake from steamed rice, in the traditional way. I took this video of the man pounding the rice with a big wooden hammer type thing. 

I returned home on the subway, and worked to get all my Halloween stuff ready. I managed to sneak in a short nap, so that I'd be ready to stay out late that night. Around 6:20 I left home with my costume in a bag. I went to the bank quick to get some cash out, and then caught a bus towards Korea University. I went to meet my American student-teacher friends, because we were going out to Itaewon to party it up. After a small glitch in my navigation (I'd never been to their dorm before, so I got off the bus one stop too soon, and had to do a bit more walking under the guidance of a friend on the phone), I made it to the dorm and met my friends. We had pizza, got our costumes ready, and headed out by cab to Itaewon.

First off we went to the Wolfhound, which was alright, though the music was tremendously repetitive house music. We were a bit disappointed, and we ended up leaving after a while. We wandered the streets crowded with costumed strangers, and met some costumed friends. I met with a number of people from EPIK orientation. It was great to see them again. We headed up to another club called Queen, which was a lot of fun. They played a mix of Western and Korean pop, and we danced it up for a while. 

Me in my mask with a beer at the Wolfhound. 

Party people celebrating Halloween at the Wolfhound.

And here's a pretty crappy video I shot of the party going on at the pub. It might give you some idea of what was going on though.

Party people at Queen, dancing it up! There's talk of coming back to 

visit this club in the future; it was a good time.

After a bit we headed out again, and we went back to the Wolfhound to check out the costume contest judging. At this point we got a little separated, with Wonder Woman and I ending up in the pub, and the Nurses being outside the club. We weren't apart for long though. The judging was not a lot of fun, since we couldn't see anything, or hear anything really. We ended up leaving pretty quick, and meeting back together outside the pub. 

After this we headed up towards the main road, and Wonder Woman left to head home. The rest of us hit Taco Bell (though I didn't have anything), and not long after we decided to head home too. We spent a while trying to find a cab that would take us, and saw some pretty interesting sights, including an almost-fight, and an actual-fight, both revolving around cabs. The actual fight involved a cabbie fighting an obnoxious guy who was banging his fists on his cab. 

This was the scene on the main street running through Iteawon just before our TacoBell visit. There were people and vehicles everywhere. This was definitely the busiest I've ever seen Itaewon, though keep in mind I rarely visit. 

Our cabbie was a really friendly guy, who took us to Korea University to drop off the girls, and then took me to Hanseong Uni Station so I could walk home. The station is about 5 minutes from my house. The subways had long stopped running by the time we left Itaewon, so cab was the only option to get home at that hour.

All in all I had a great night out for Halloween, and a great day in general. I got to hang out with and see a lot of friends, I made a new friend, and I got to do and see some interesting things. I hope you enjoy the photos and videos. As I mention at the start, do let me know whether you prefer this new format for photos or the old way. I will be making a decision on which to use from here on out pretty soon.

Talk to you all soon! 

Catch Up Post

Hello all. This is going to be a randomness catch up post. I will also be doing a "My Great Saturday October 30th" post sometime soon which will be much more organized. Here I've just got some photos to share.

Here's another photo from the hiking in the previous post. I'm not
sure how this didn't end up in with that other set. I loved the scenery.

So I volunteered to be part of a "Quiz Show" that our school put
on as part of the 2010 Good Schools Expo. It was held near a
bunch of TV stations' buildings, and included a number of events.
Schools put up booths to try to advertise. The stage here was where
I sat during the quiz, which ended poorly for my team. Good news
is that because we lost I got to sing in front of the crowd that had
gathered! Was good times. I took this photo a while before we
actually did the quiz thing, while they were setting up. If I get
ahold of any photos of the actual quiz I'll post them.

So this is the largest ginkgo tree I've ever seen. It
was on the campus of Sungkyunkwan University.
I was there visiting with a couple of the teachers
from my school. It's really close to the school. It is
one of the oldest university campuses in the country,
and if I'm not mistaken the oldest remaining Uni
campus in East Asia. It was great to find, because
ginkgo are my favorite trees of all time! I've been
collecting leaves from the walk to work to keep at
my desk.

These calligraphy works were on display while we visited the university.
I imagine they are student works. They were really well done and very
beautiful. There were some in a variety of styles of hangul, chinese, and
I think japanese. There were many of them; the photos here are only a
small sample.

I wanted to share this photo mainly to show some
of what's possible with the iPhone 4 camera. I took
this from a subway car as it was speeding across a
bridge. I was really impressed with the quality of
the photo overall, but particularly the fact that it
managed to capture the individual spikes of the fence
in the foreground. At the speed we were going I don't
think I could distinguish the individual spikes with my
eyes, but the camera did. The shutter speed must be
pretty decent. I took a few pictures to make sure I got
a good one, and they were consistently good. The phone
is definitely replacing my point-and-shoot for most uses.

Here's another entry for my sign collection. This one isn't so much
funny because of invented replacement messages, as it's funny/shocking
that they are using cutesy emoticon-esque images to advertise for plastic
surgery. See if you can figure out what procedure each before and after
image is referring to.

This is just a night shot I took while in Dongdaemun recently. It
worked out pretty well, considering. The lights aren't quite as sharp
as I'd like, but still not too bad, particularly for a phone camera.

This is the alcohol section and a table at the Chinese
restaurant I visited with some friends on Friday night
(see facebook for some more photos of this night if
you've got access). It was a pretty nice place, and the
food was really good. The place is called China
Factory, and its in Hyehwa, pretty near my place.

Dumplings at the China Factory. I especially liked the one
decorated as a cute kitty. I'm confident there was no actual kitty
in the dumpling itself. I preferred the triangle ones taste-wise though.

This was my favorite part of the meal at the China Factory.
Peking / Beijing duck with tortillas, veggies, and sauces.
Dip the duck in sauce, wrap in tortilla with veggies, and devour.
Was deliciousness incarnate.

I'm not usually an overly skeptical person, but I
think that "delicious processed cheese in beef"
might be partly advertising hype. I found this at
the local grocery shop. I didn't buy any, so I guess
we'll never know for sure, but I'm pretty
confident these wouldn't be all that delicious.

All right, those were a few highlights from the past little while. Like I said, I hope to put together another post ASAP with the tale of my great Saturday (yesterday). I hope you're all doing well wherever you're calling home at the moment! I love you guys!

What did I do today?

I had a good Saturday, and I thought I'd share it with you all! Along with the pictures here, I'm also going to start adding links to the Gowalla spots for some locations I talk about, which may also include photos. Feel free to visit the links or ignore them at your discretion!



























So Seongbuk has a cute little friendship park
that I stumbled on near the start of our hiking
today. They had flags from a number of countries,
and I took a photo of myself with my favorite one.

This was behind someone's house on the path up to the mountain.
They had a beautiful garden including a dog and fish swimming
in a little pond. You can see the woman's growing rice here. It
was approximately my dream house.

This place was another interesting spot we passed on the way up.
It used to be the place where the Korean version of geishas worked.
They were very intelligent and very beautiful, and rich men would
come to enjoy their company. It's been turned into some sort of
museum and event space since the profession is no longer practiced
in Korea (the fancy geisha-esque version anyway). Oh BTW, there's
another name for these women in Korean, but I don't remember
what it is. It sounds sort of like geisha, but a little different.

This is me with my access pass. The route we hiked
is really well guarded because it was through this
area that a group of close to 30 North Korean
infiltrators attempted to reach and kill the president
of South Korea in 1968. There was a battle in the
mountains here and the attackers were almost all killed,
though with large losses on the South Korean side.
We were required to bring ID and fill out a form in
order to get the passes. They use them to keep track
of everyone going in and out of the area. These hiking
routes were just recently reopened to the public.

A lot of the route was along the Seoul fortress wall. As I was hiking
with an expert in Korean history, I learned that the wall was damaged
and repaired a number of times over the course of its history, and that
you can tell the age of sections based on the appearance and size of
the rock used. The old looking large rocks are the oldest, followed by
the smaller ones, and more recently by the large, but less ancient
looking stones. You can also see some fencing with barbed wire
running along the length of the wall here.

This is a famous tree, because it has bullet holes
in it from the aforementioned battle. They've been
 filled with cork to help keep the tree healthy.
Many people were interested in seeing and touching
the corked spots because of the history connected to it.

A couple of deer that live in the area. The soldiers that guard the
area feed them. There were others close by too. These were definitely
the first deer I've seen in the country outside of the zoo.

I returned home after the hiking and had a bit of a nap.
I puttered about my place for a while, and watched some
TV (loving my cable!) before heading out to find food.
I didn't get really far though, because there was a big
crowd at the Seongbukdong Gallery that's just a minute
away from my place. The artists sell works including
pottery and ceramics. I stopped in and looked around,
and I asked to see some bowls since I only had one in
my apartment. I was introduced to a massively cute artist
(check out her webpage!), who showed me around at the
things that were for sale. She showed me all the bowls
they had, including some she made which were massively
cute as well. They reminded me of some little cereal bowls
we used to have when I was a kid. I wasn't really interested
in them though, because I saw a really nice plain bowl. I
couldn't help but buy one of the teacups she made though,
because it was so cute! It has a teabag painted on the inside,
with a cord leading out of the cup to a tag on the outside with
her nickname on it. I also met a cute little dog that someone
brought to the gallery, whose name means "bean dog" in
Korean, because he was so tiny.

The outside of the teacup described above.

The inside of the teacup. So cute.

The bowl I bought, it's a nice plain green and brown. I'm glad to 

have doubled the bowl count of my place.

So I brought the dishes back to my apartment, and then headed back
out to find food. I went down to Hyehwa, and wandered through some
of the smaller streets. I found a little (and I mean really little, like 5
tables and a mini-kitchen little) place called 88 Deokbokki. I ordered
sundae bokeum, which is blood sausage fried with veggies, noodles
and liver. It was pretty good, though not something I'd eat often.

After supper, I wandered the area for a while in the hopes of finding
a quiet coffe shop. I was dismayed but not overly surprised that
almost all the shops I passed were filled with people. I decided to
head home instead of having coffee, but then I passed this place. It's
called Sally Salon I believe. It is quite a bit off the beaten path, but I
pass it a lot because it's on my way back from Hyehwa. I decided
to stop in and I was glad I did. It is a really nice little place, and they
make a good cappuccino. I got free raisin and nut bread that was pretty
good along with it too. The woman was super friendly. I sat and drank
and read for a while. It was a nice end to a good day.

So that was my Saturday. I returned home after all that and I've spent the rest of my evening fixing Gowalla name spots (when you make a spot while out in the field with korean letters, they seem to consistently mess up, moving final consonants into their own syllable blocks in a way that is illegal and nonsensical in the language) and blogging. I hope you all enjoy/enjoyed your Saturday as much as I did!

Bye for now!

New Phone and Phone Photos!

Hello all! I hope you're all doing well. I finally got my phone, after a good 6 week wait. The iPhone 4 has only been out here about 6 weeks, and they're dealing with quite a backlog. I found out that I could have had my phone a bit earlier, as I was waiting for an e-mail notification that wasn't likely coming. Most people are replacing their handphones, so they leave a cell number in order to be notified that their iPhone is ready to be picked up. Since I had no phone I left my e-mail address, and the very helpful, very cute girl who helped me left a note to make sure someone e-mailed me, but it didn't happen. I was getting impatient, so I went down to the KT building in Gwanghwamun where I ordered the phone, and I was happy to learn that I could take my phone home that day.

Other than the obvious calling and texting, I think my favorite thing about it is the camera. I've been taking quite a few photos with it, and I'm going to share some of them with you here!

The first photo I took with my phone.You can see
the KT Olleh building where I got the phone.

This was the subway ride back from
Gwanghwamun just after.

The "Best Photo Zone" in a building with a pizza
and pasta place near work. I had to get a photo of
myself at this spot, because of the sign. I used the
front-facing camera, which is useful for making
photos of myself less horrible. :)

This shot I took from the Art Room at the school. This faces south
towards Namsan and the downtown.

This is another shot from the same place, but shifted left a bit. It's
probably my favorite photo from the iPhone so far. I was amazed
at the detail it was able to get.

This is a truck filled with various stuff that pulled through Hyehwa
while I was there eating with some peeps. Another great thing
about the phone is it's always acessible, so if something neat like
this goes by it's easier to get a photo.

And this one I took tonight in Hyehwa (which is
becoming my favorite place in the world) when I was
on my way to food. I had sundae bokeum, which
was pretty good for blood sausage fried with veggies,
noodles, and liver. It's not something I'd eat often,
but it was decent.

Yah, so I'm loving the phone so far, and I can already see that I was right about it increasing my blogging. With the ease of photo taking and photos being the driving force behind my blogging, it only makes sense.

I hope you enjoy the pictures, and I look forward to hearing from you all soon!

Hiking Gear and Book Shelves!

Just a short post about some new stuff I've bought. Yesterday I went and got a couple of bookshelves from the E-Mart at Miasamgeori (a few stations north of my place). It was a bit of a pain to get them back on the subway, but it wasn't that bad. I had to make another trip out soon after to get a screwdriver so I could put them together.  I quite love them. I'm using one to hold the xbox and games, plus books and some other tech stuff. The other is a shoe rack. It's nice to have an entranceway clear of shoes.

Then today I went back to get sweat pants. I quickly found nice sweats and put them in my basket. Then I went to look at hiking gear. I found a nice red shirt, some hiking pants, two hiking poles, and a water bottle. I was super excited as a bound down the escalators towards the cashiers.  Unfortunately there was some issue with my sweats. Seemed like something about it not being marked properly, and so I wasn't able to get them. That was pretty disappointing, but I still got all my hiking stuff. I'm so very ready for hiking next weekend.

I might wander about around Hanseong Uni station or Hyehwa tonight to see if I can find sweats somewhere else. I don't want to have to go back to the E-Mart if I can avoid it.

Here's me in my awesome new hiking gear. I got most of it on sale,
and it's awesomesauce. One of my new bookshelves is also visible
on the left near my tv.

Hiking with Korean Friends

Hello All. I have been really bad about posting. I am still waiting eagerly for my iPhone. I know that it'll be a lot easier to put posts together once I have it, because I expect I'll be taking a lot more photos. For example, I walked around a neat little area between the school and Hyehwa station today. There were lots of neat little shops and cafes, that would have made a nice little post, but I didn't take any photos. I'm not sure I'm getting my point across, but anyway, the point is that I hope to do better with my sharing in the future.

For this post though, I'm just going to share a few photos from a hiking trip I took with some of my Korean friends. I went for brunch at my friends' place for 10 am on a Saturday. I took the subway up a couple stops to Gireum station and then took a bus to where the apartment is. I had been there before, so it was easy to get back on my own. I went a little early, so I walked around near Gireum station and found Gireum market. It's likely the closest market of its kind to my place. I wandered around it for a bit, but most of the shops were closed at that hour (land of the morning calm and all). I then bought a little cake to give to my friends, and headed over to their place.

Brunch was good. I was served a lot more spaghetti than I would normally be able to eat, but I knew I'd need energy for mountain climbing, so I ate it all. It wasn't long before we headed out for the mountain. Only two of the four in the family were able to come. The eldest daughter and son were both busy, so it was just my friend and her daughter (I have to say I didn't mind the chance to spend more time with my young artist friend).

We took a bus to Sookmin University, where we started our climb. It was not all that difficult a climb again. It was definitely more work than the Chuseok climb I made with friends from orientation, but still easily manageable. I took some photos on the way up, and I'm going to show you them right now! It was quite a cloudy and rainy day, so the pictures could have turned out better. I feel they're quite good considering the conditions. You can see quite far in the scenic ones. I was surprised that I could even see to the 63 building at one point. So yah, enjoy the photos!

This is a view of the city from a nice rock-rest-stop type spot we
found not too long after starting our hike. I was frankly giddy
with the view. Views from heights are definitely one of my favorite
things, and this was one of the better I'd seen to this point. I love
how you can see the city and the many mountains weaving
together into the distance.

One of my friends took this photo of me standing on my photo-taking
rock. You can see the city in the distance, and trees and other hikers
closer to us. This was before any rain fell.

I like this photo of where we were heading next. We continued up
the mountain after a short rest. Try to find the temple in the photo!
That is where we ended our upward climb. It may not be easy to
see, as it's a tiny spot and we're still quite a distance from it at this
point.

This is a photo of the temple from the same spot as the above
photo, but zoomed it. This might make finding it in the photo above
easier.

This is the view from the temple I've been mentioning. The view
from this point stands as my #1 most favorite view of Seoul from
above, even given the rain. It was an amazing view, again
including both city and mountains.

And finally, a photo of the temple which turned out to be our point
of turning back. It was very quiet, and pretty small. I always enjoy
temples, so I was glad that we decided to go at least this far up.
One of the gates in the old city walls was further up, but we didn't
make it that far. My younger friend is less into hiking than either I
or her mother is. :)

It was a good hike, and we had delicious food when we got back. We ended up going to a duck restaurant near my friends' place. Both of my friends who missed the hike were able to join us for dinner, but my young artist friend had an appointment, so she left us before we went to eat. We had plain duck meat grilled with garlic, onion, mushrooms, and other veggies.  The food was really delicious. Duck meat is a lot more greasy than I would have expected, though the grill was designed to drain most of the fat. We wrapped the meat in lettuce and sesame leaves, with other foods, and it was great! I really enjoyed it. After supper, I headed back to the bus stop and headed on my way home. It was a great day, and I am looking forward to seeing my friends again. I will be seeing them on October 23rd, if not before.

I hope everyone is doing well at home, in Korea, and wherever else you happen to be in the world! I'll talk to you all soon!

Chuseok - Well Spent Time Off

Hello All! I hope everything is going well for everyone. I should have done this post just after my Chuseok holidays ended, because I can't remember every little thing that I did over the time off. I'll just hit some of the high points and show some pictures.

Chuseok is one of the two most important holidays in Korea. It is a time to return to one's hometown and pay respects to ancestors, as well as to spend time with family. I was informed by a coworker that I sort of returned to my hometown with my little Bucheon trip, which I described in an earlier post. I went out early on during my time off. I was surprised when he mentioned that I was following the meaning of Chuseok, because that wasn't what I meant to do with my trip. My return to Bucheon did turn into quite a nostalgia-fest, so I suppose it does sort of fit with the idea of Chuseok.

The Bucheon trip was on Sunday, and I had the the whole next work week off to do stuff. Among the things I did were visiting Gyeongbokgung yet again, touring Ewha Uni with a couple of Ewha student friends of mine, hiking, visiting Myeongdong (and Dongdaemun briefly), spending a couple nights in Hyehwa, and eating with people a few times.

I am realizing I should have taken more pictures over the course of the holiday, both to help me remember specifics now, and to have more to show you! I put a few up on Faceblog that include other people, so those of you with access to those can go check them out if you feel like it. I hope you enjoy these few photos.

The front gate of Gyeongbokgung, already featured in a previous post,
but this time seen from the inside. It was one of the only things I took
photos of in the palace since I've already got many photos covering
it.

Myeongdong.

Stream we crossed a few times during our hike. The resting photos
that can be seen on Faceblog were taken on this stream, but much
further upstream.

Buddha at a temple where we rested on our way up. Not a large
statue, but still neat.

View up through the leaves at the sun. This was also during hiking.

Galbi after the hiking. Twas delicious as usual.

First picture I've ever gotten of myself with Dongdaemun gate.


So yah, That is a slice of my Chuseok anyway. I had a really good time throughout, even during the crazy torrential rains that soaked us at Ewha (seriously, soooo much water!). I will hopefully soon do another post with photos from some hiking I did this weekend with a couple of Korean friends. I got some nice photos of the city and surrounding mountains, even though it was cloudy.

Also, in case I forget to mention then, I ate duck, and it was so delicious. My friend's son kept saying "We're eating Donald Duck," but really for something that tasty it's worth devouring a treasured children's cartoon character.

Everyone in Canada enjoy your Sunday, and I hope to talk to you all soon!