Osan and Seoul Grand Park Zoo

Since we had a 3 day weekend last week we only have Sunday off this week, so we tried to squeeze two days worth of fun into 24 hours. Saturday night after work, and after cleaning our filthy apartment, we went to Osan with Chris, Aaron and Sarah. Osan is closer than I realized-only 6 stops south by subway- and it's where US air force base is located. Because of this, there were scores of Americans with crew cuts wandering the slightly-seedy streets. We went to 2 different bars, played some darts, ate some wings, and watched a competetive game of beer pong, complete with ball-flashing. It was a fun night. Maybe I've been away too long but it's really weird to go into a bar and hear people speaking english everywhere. It makes for much better evesdropping than at the korean bars!

Fuzzy pic of the entrance gate to the Air Force base. The streets all around are lined with bars, even though drinking is so unpopular with the military.

There was even a Century 21 across from the bar we were at, just in case you need to buy some land in Korea after a night of soju and beers. I have a feeling these guys aren't associated with the Century 21 company at home, but may be in cahoots with the guy who runs the fake Tim Hortons in Suwon.



This afternoon we decided to go to Seoul Grand Park Zoo. The zoo is also pretty close- 11 stops north on the subway, and conveniently located on a mountain. Though the entrance fee to the zoo was only 1,500 won ($1.50) the chair lift up the mountain was 9,000 and it took 45 minutes!! The ride on the chair lift was scenic, with Seoul Land (an amusement park) to the left, and an arial view of the whole zoo to the right. This area will look even nicer in the summer when the grass is green, the trees look alive and their huge rose garden in bloom. It was still a nice 10 degree day, definately warmer than any February day I'd experienced at home!


This guy reminded us of our dear Rufus, being lazy in New Brunswick. Mehh!

I like this guy; he looks like he's got something up his sleeve.

You get the idea.

Korean deer, for mom and dad. Play nice!

This friendly elephant walked right up to us as soon as we got to him.

There was a really nice botanical garden on site as well. All of the cactuses got me a little sentimental about my precious cactus, Pokey though. Sidenote: the botanical garden was especially nice because it smelled a lot better than most of the zoo!

By the time we'd gotten to the giraffes they'd been brought inside for the night. I don't know how I feel about keeping half a dozen giraffes in a room the size of my apartment, but it was cool to see them so close up, even if it was through glass.

My favorite fowl, the ostrich was also represented! Now, I thought I knew everything there was to know about ostriches, but today I saw one take a crap... and it was very weird. If you really want to know why, you can e-mail me, I'll save everyone else from the details.

The view on the chair lift ride back down the mountain.

It was a fun day! We both really enjoyed walking around the zoo. The zoo itself was huge, so we definitely got a good workout today. There were lots of animals to see besides the ones we posted about like apes, zebras, tigers, otters, birds, a polar bear and some rhinos too. And if you were hungry, you were never far from a kind lady selling dried fish or silkworm pupa, though we stuck with churros for the day.