Out and About in Suwon

We enjoyed some really nice weather this weekend, as the thermostat reached about 15 degrees yesterday and looks to do the same today. Mel and I spent our weekend eating, shopping and being generally lazy- which was all we wanted to do after working the last 10 days with only one day off. Our school gave us gift certificates for the New Core Department store for the Chinese New Year holiday, so we decided to go cash them in on Saturday. I picked up a new spring jacket (a slightly different black jacket than my other 3 black jackets) and Mel bought herself a new top. Above is a picture of Mel with our favorite statues on the way to New Core.

After shopping at the New Core we headed to Suwon station, which is where we catch the subway to and from Seoul. There are a lot of shops and businesses located around the station, so we finally decided to explore them. Down some of the side streets there are a lot of mom and pop food vendors, and lots of places to buy fresh food.

Some of the food is really fresh; check out the video.

And some of the food was less than fresh. Dried seafood seems to be very popular here... like you can buy a whole dried fish (complete with dried teeth- see above) or dried octopus tentacle just for a snack. You won't catch me walking down the street munching on dried tentacle, but I'm sure it's yummy like beef jerkey.

Here's a typical food vendor. Why go to the Home Plus when you can scoop your own seeds or kimchi right off the side of the road!

After picking up some new shoes we stopped to eat at Two Two Fried Chicken, a fried chicken restaraunt we'd never been to before. The menu was entirely in Hangul (imagine that in Korea lol) so we didn't have a clue what to order. The employees didn't speak a word of english other than "chicken", so we just mimed actions for 'you bring us chicken... we eat it' and it worked! We were served a plate of fried chicken and salad with kiwi dressing and ketchup. The chicken was tasty, but could have been plucked a little better! We ordered Cokes, and they came in funny bottles.

Here's Mel inside Suwon station at the end of the day.

And now, I'd like to take the time to spend a special shout-out to all of the Suyu English Village teachers that have no students and a free vacation for the next 2 weeks: "Screw You!!" We have more students than ever next week and are eternally jealous! It's not easy being green :P