Batman and Kitty

It's animal month at my school and Panda Class has adopted two pet hamsters. Their names, chosen in a democratic vote, are Batman and Kitty and Kitty may or may not be knocked up. Do hamsters eat their young? Their interests so far include chewing on wood, nuts, their cage and the children's fingers. What we do with them at the end of the month is still being considered, but we do have a cooking class coming up in August.

Feel free to predict their life spans in the comments box below.

A Temple, Some Guns and a Museum

On Saturday afternoon we went to Insadong, a traditional area and popular sightseeing place in Seoul. We'd visited the area briefly a few years ago but we were new to Korea at the time and had trouble navigating our way around the sights, despite all the sights being mainly located on a single street.
The bus ride was only about 25 minutes from our apartment and it let us off in front of Jogyesa Temple, one of Korea's most famous Buddhist temples. The temple has three giant golden Buddha statues inside that are definitely worth checking out. There were dozens of people inside praying and saying hi to Buddha.

There were colorful lanterns hung all over the grounds.

We crossed the street onto the main sightseeing street, Insadong-gil, which is full of galleries, souvenirs shops, and antique stores. If you're looking for traditional-looking souvenirs in Korea, this is the place to go. It seemed like every shop has the same supplier, though, because all the shops we checked out had the same selection of carved masks, traditional paper and beaded jewelery. More interesting is the Ssamzie Market, an open-concept 5 story building full of artisan shops selling clothes, jewelery, food and art.

I always find something random to pose with and this s-line robot did the trick for the day.

There was a demonstration about North Korea taking place with this guy dressed like a soldier doing mean business to a hooded prisoner.

We turned off Insadong-gil and walked 15 minutes to the Bukcheon Hanok Villaqe. We'd really enjoyed our trip to the Jeonju Hanok Village, but this place was just a traditional-looking residential area, which isn't quite as interesting as the cafes and souvenir shops we found in Jeonju. It was a nice area to stroll around but I wouldn't make a special trip to go there again.

We relaxed at a nice cafe near Insadong for a while and then carried on to Tapgol Park since it was right next to Jonggak Station, which we were headed to anyway. There's a pretty cool pagoda in the park, which was labeled as being Korean national treasure #2. It was built in 1467 and looks to be holding up about as well as you would expect something from that era to be.

Next we went to Myeongdong to shoot guns. We got this really good tourist guide from Big Rock last week and it suggested a bunch of things to do that sounded interesting, including this shooting range. Neither of us had ever shot a proper gun, and I don't know what this says about us, but we both instantly wanted to do it. When we found the place we were each given a catalog with pages and pages of guns to choose from. Mel chose a Walther PPK, which was described as being ideal for 007 and women, and I chose a 9mm Beretta INOX because I thought I recalled hearing of the name "Beretta" before.

For 40,000 won we were permitted to shoot 10 bullets at a piece of paper. This was, of course, stupidly expensive but we decided to do it anyway since we we already had our hearts set of shooting stuff. We geared up with bulletproof vests, goggles and ear muffs (neither of us can think of a better word for this equipment) and met our guides, who stood with us the whole time. Mine spoke a little English but Mel's didn't, so she was basically given a loaded gun with no instruction as to how to use it. I could hear her start to shoot immediately.

My guide was quite chatty, and he was very curious about my job. It made for a strange conversation as I shot my gun:

"What do you do?"
BANG
"I'm a teacher."
BANG BANG *the smell of gunfire*
"How old are your students?"
BOOM
"They're 7." BAAAAANG "They're really cute."
BOOM *bullet casing flies in face*

We were pretty good shots. Watch yo' self.

After a disappointing night of soccer watching, we got up on Sunday and went to Itaewon to visit the Leeum- the Samsung Museum of Art. It's a very, very nice building and one of the best museums I've visited in Korea.

There are 3 museums to visit: one is full of old vases and boring artifacts, one is full of contemporary art, and one is a mix of sexy video art and an interactive children's play area. Which makes a lot of sense. When we visited the first 2 floors of the BORING VASE museum we started to second guess our $10 admission but then we moved on and decided the art museum was pretty cool.

If my kids did this to my white board I'd be pissed. In a museum it's art. I kind of like it.

I'd put this up over my bed, no problem.

Mel hates this style of painting, but I thought it looked pretty cool.

This exhibit was called "I Must Learn English" and each tile has an English word painted on it. I might copy this idea for my next Panda Class art project.

Next we went to the Children's Museum. On the first floor no cameras were allowed but the exhibits were quite interesting, including a wall of a dozen TV screens showing an image of a naked woman in various stages of hatching from an egg. It's always the most interesting stuff that you're NOT allowed to photograph. Also, this is for children? There were a few running around.

In the basement level of the Children's museum there were some cool exhibits to play around with including this screen that projected your image onto a the wall for everyone to see. You could play with the colors and display and it was fun to tinker with.

Then we visited a corn field.

And just when we thought we would leave, the security gate began to close on us as if we were trying to smuggle out a Warhol in Mel's purse or something. After freeing ourselves, we met some friends for a misleading all-you-can-drink meal at a shitty Indian place, Chakkra before going home for the night. And then it was Monday again- funny how that happens every week.

Booze cruise next weekend!

Get 'Em While They're Hot

Vintage T-shits for sale at A-Land in Myeongdong. Maybe my favorite Engrish sign yet.

A Lazy Friday on Garosu-gil

Friday after work Mel and I decided to take a walk down Garosu-gil, a ginko tree-lined street just a short walk from Sinsa Station exit 8. Get this: this street- in Seoul- has trees! Trees are certainly one way to get noticed in a city that can sometimes feel like an endless concrete jungle. We've actually walked past the entrance of Garosu-gil several times before because our favorite Thai restaurant (Yum Thai) is located close by, but we'd never really taken a good look up the street. At first glance it looks just like any other street in Seoul. That's the great thing about this city- it's a very diverse area that sometimes changes in tone street by street.



My assistant teacher Mindy told me that Garosu-gil was a favorite "date street" for Korean couples and I can see why. The street is full of cozy restaurants, cafes, galleries and unique shops. I guess I'd say the vibe is kind of artsy-European if I were to but a label to it.



There was a few interesting restaurants to choose from but we decided to eat at a place called Oriental Spoon. The restaurant was small but comfortable, and the food was really good. We ordered noodles and apricot chicken.



I made a new friend outside of the restaurant at a cosmetics store that didn't quite fit in with the streets still-evolving artistic theme.



I've always liked the MMMG line of products at Hot Tracks and Kosney and was pleased to see a stand-alone store on the street.



One of the galleries on the gil.



We went to a toy store that was selling some very used, very Value Village-esque toys. Who's buying these?



At the end of Garosu-gil we found ourselves just a short 10 minute walk from the Han River, so we walked down to the riverfront 7-Eleven for a draft and some people-watching.



The people-watching never disappoints by the Han. The cyclists all wear spandex from head to toe, as well as goggles and a bandana across their faces. Exercising ajummas wear a visor (sun or no sun), sleeves and bandannas to cover their faces too. Why can no part of any of these peoples' bodies be exposed to the elements and should I be cloaking my skin as well?? It was dusk so the sun can't be their excuse!



We'd been to most parts of Hangang Park but we walked to an area that was new to us, close to Banpo Bridge, and were surprised to see the walking trails lined with 7-foot tall grass. And bugs. Millions and millions of bugs. Maybe that's what the bandannas were for.

There was some kind of water and lights show off the Banpo Bridge at 8pm (set to the music of Josh Groban's needs-to-be-retired "You Raise Me Up"), so we walked down to the water to get a better look (due to the tall grass obscuring our view). Turns out the waterfront in this area is lined with white sand. It looked quite nice and felt a bit like a proper beach! Except for the part where parts of your body would probably start to mutate should they come into contact with any of the Han River's water.



Mel's nosebleed on the beach. Seoul <3

dogs that look like zoo animals-yes please!

looks better than i thought!

An Indecisive Weekend in Incheon and, then, Jeonju

We've been itching to spend some time at the beach, so on Friday after work we took the subway to Incheon so we could visit Deokjeokdo for the weekend. Deokjeokdo is an island on the west coast of Korea, and it only takes about an hour to get there by ferry. We figured we could pick up our ferry tickets and sightsee around Incheon on Friday night, take the ferry Saturday morning, and then hit the beach Saturday afternoon. We planned to do this all last weekend but it was too rainy. The forecast looked a bit better this weekend, so we went for it.

Incheon's at the end of the subway line so by the time we got there we had the subway all to ourselves.

There's something like 2 million people living in Incheon, but I'm guessing they don't live anywhere near Dong Incheon Station, which was the closest stop to the ferry terminal. The place was foggy, stunk and looked kind of run down. It reminded me quite a bit of Taipei's lovely Yonging area.

By the time we got there it had already started to pour, but we were confident that this would just be a passing rain, so we (eventually) got on a bus toward the ferry terminal to buy our tickets. We hadn't been able to find a ferry schedule online so buying the tickets was actually less important than finding out when the ferry actually ran. However, as my Dad would say, we probably should have dug the shit out our ears, because we heard the bus stop:"blahblahblahyo wharf" announced, thought it was our stop, and got off the bus way too early. We were close enough to walk the rest of the way to the terminal, but we wasted a lot of time and it wasn't the nicest area to walk through. Not that it was dangerous or anything, but I saw some rats scurrying around and there was nothing much around besides loads of seafood restaurants with tanks outside full of creatures far more likely to eat me than vice versa.

When we finally got to the ferry terminal to get our tickets, it was closed. *insert cursing here* We decided to salvage the night with a trip to Wolmido. Wolmido is a pleasant promenade parallel to the bridge which takes you to Incheon Airport. This strip along the harbor is lined with seafood restaurants, cafes and an amusement park.

However, maybe it was the rain (which had since passed) keeping people away, but the place was deserted and there's nothing quite as haunting as an abandoned amusement park and old ladies sitting in the darkness whispering "fishee" as you walk by, hoping that you'll dine in their restaurant. We didn't really spend a whole lot of time at Wolmido.

I did have a chance to meet a new hamburger friend, at least. Mmmmm, friends with benefits.

During our taxi ride to Wolmido we passed by Incheon's Chinatown, which we had planned to visit the next day but we figured it might make for a better way to spend the rest of the evening than Wolmido. So we flagged down another taxi and took a cheap two or three dollar ride to Chinatown, right across from Incheon Subway Station.

The Chinatown is basically a bunch of Korean restaurants inside of Chinese-looking buildings, featuring loads of Chinese-style lanterns hanging on the streets. There wasn't a sweet and sour chicken ball to be found!

What Incheon basically looks and feels like.

In Chinatown we went to a galbi place (how Chinese!) and had samgyupsal and mul naengmyon (cold vinegary noodles). I had never understood the appeal of cold noodles, but recently I've become a fan, especially when paired with BBQ. All this and two beers for around ten dollars each. Hot.

We've decided that half of the fun of traveling around Korea is finding a place to stay. We always spend the night in Love Motels. These places rent by the hour or night, but they are usually pimped right out and are super cheap. Lately we've been pretty savvy with our motel choices, refusing the room if it doesn't have a personal jacuzzi, but Incheon didn't have much to choose from and we wound up at this place called the Hong Kong Hotel that was pretty disappointing. I mean, it was only thirty dollars a night, but it didn't even have a bathtub. I've never stayed in a love motel without a bathtub. The pillows were also about 6 inches taller than they should have been so it was like sleeping on the street with the curb as your pillow. Cozy. Oy, my neck!

However, even the crappiest love motel has its perks, and the plasma screen TV was a good one during World Cup season. We watched the Meegoo-Sulohvakeeuh game, downloaded some BBUK and hit the hay; heads firmly rested on the curb.

When I woke up the first thing I did was call 1330. 1330 is a bilingual help line that will pretty much answer any travel question you have about Korea. I wanted to know when the GD ferry to Deokjeokdo left and the guy told me there had been one at 9:30 (missed it!) and there would be another one at 3:30. He offered to call the terminal to make sure there were still tickets available, which I thought was great, so he took my number and called me back. Apparently, "due to the condition of the sea", the 9:30 ferry never left and might go at 12. Or maybe 1. Or maybe 2. Either way, I should go directly to the terminal, buy my ticket and wait. If there was no ferry crossing I could get a refund no problem. Sure enough, I looked outside and it seemed kind of stormy and windy. I checked the weather online and it now said something along the lines of "THERE WILL BE MUCH RAIN AND MAYBE LIGHTNINGS". We thought about how much fun this island might potentially be under these conditions and called the whole thing off. I want the beach, but I want a sunny beach, dammit.

We decided to visit Jeonju instead. This might seem a little random, since it's three hours south of Incheon, but we had already been debating between Deokjeokdo and Jeonju for the weekend, so why not?

Before leaving scummy Incheon we walked past a bunch of netting and chain stores and hiked up a crapload of stairs through Chinatown to see the statue of US General Douglas MacArthur in Freedom Park. He did some business pushing the North Koreans out of Incheon during the Korean War and is honored with this (somewhat controversial) statue.

Even if it was fake and small, I'm still a sucker for the sights and colors of Chinatown. And we did have fun making fun of Incheon.

Even though Baghdad is soooo famous for their coffee, we skipped this cafe and got on a train to the Incheon bus terminal, about 40 minutes away.

We bought our tickets and got some lunch at the terminal before getting on our bus. The bus was really comfortable because the chairs were basically like laz-e-boys... I actually fell asleep for awhile and Mel even reported dreaming. We were woken by the sound of the bus telling us that it was time to have a rest stop and I dazzled the driver with my Korean skills by asking how long the stop would be.

I was told that I would only have 15 minutes to enjoy the lactation room.

An hour later we were in Jeonju and were very pleased by the abundance of love motels around the bus terminal.There must have been 20 or more. Really, how many people are visiting Jeonju? I'm pretty sure the whole city could fit in these 20 love motels. Anyway, we tried about 5 of them before finding one with an in-room jacuzzi to our liking and we were very happy when we got to the room!

A round bed! And the butterflies on the wall have blinking neon eyes if you (for some reason) choose that setting on the light switch.

After checking-in. our first stop was Jeonju Hanok Village, which looks like what most people at home probably think all of Korea looks like.

The Hanok Village was massive, with loads of charming little streets to explore. The little buildings we full of cafes, restaurants and souvenir shops. It was so nice walking around there- we really loved it.

A man encouraged us to walk through with collection of kimchi urns, so we did. I reckon there's nothing more thrilling than a good kimchi jar.

Random palace grounds.

Random Suwon-looking gate... on Paldal-ro no less.

We got some directions from a man who held our map upside down but still assured us we were going the right way to the main shopping market area in Gosa-dong. We wanted to have a look around and get some supper before heading back to the hotel for the night. The shopping area was pretty much like any of the ones in Seoul, but it was nice. We were enjoying our supper of Mr. Pizza when that storm that had been toying with us all day finally hit, complete with lightning and everything. Of course, we'd been cocky and left our umbrellas at the hotel so we ran to a store to buy some cheap ones and then headed back to our hotel.

On the way there we passed by a Telephone, coffee AND can drinks machine, truly the multi-tasking machine of the future.

One of the charming things about love motels is the ads you see in the elevators.

We hit the jacuzzi, watched some more BBUK and got some sleep. When we woke up we dived into the jacuzzi one more time before catching a bus to Jinan. In Jinan we hoped to get some lunch but there weren't any non-fried chicken restaurants open in the area where the bus terminal was so we improvised by having a convenience store lunch of bulgogi, rice cakes and ice cream. It was pretty good. After lunch I browsed through the new issue of "Nude Story" magazine before we left.

I read online that there was a quick 5-minute bus ride available between Jinan and Maisan Provincial Park (our destination for the day) but neither of us could be assed to figure out the local bus system (Jinan is very smallness). A $10 taxi ride got us to the park and right from the start we could see the unique stone-faced mountains and we knew we were in a cool spot. We followed a path through loads of food vendors and souvenir shops blaring Justin Bieber music (is there no escape??) as we approached the base of the trail. A few employees at the visitors center were happy to hold our heavy backpacks for us while we hiked around.

Some of the souvenir shops were selling carved wooden penises... what is with Korean parks and giant penises?



A few minutes into the trail is this cool temple pumping traditional music (no Bieber?) with loads of interesting statues and pagodas surrounding it.

Next we passed by this lake with lots of gigantic hungry fish jumping in it. It was quite scenic with the mountains in the background. At the far end of the lake a man was renting swan paddleboats and we made a mental note to stop back here if we had time.

Another 15 minutes of walking and we arrived at Tapsa temple, easily one of the coolest places I've seen in Korea.

Tapsa is surrounded by 80 stone pagodas that are famous because they've never fallen. They aren't cemented together or anything, and regardless of the weather they never move. Pretty cool.


The were lots of other statues, temples and monuments around this area and it was just a chill place to take in. The steep stone cliff to the left of the temple somehow had little statues and pagodas places in its caves as well.

We continued on and thought we could hear thunder as we walked on the trail. We were cursing ourselves for leaving our umbrellas in our backpacks back at the Visitors Center but then we saw this giant drum and realized what was making that thunderous noise. I'd be lying if I said I only banged it once.

We reached the bottom of the mountain that we'd hoped to hike but it was closed for some reason that was only explained on a Korean-language sign. I think Mel might have been slightly happy that she didn't have to hike it.

As we headed back down there were some posters giving more information about the park. For some reason in the winter if you set out a bucket of water the ice will freeze in a pagoda shape, sort of like the way the stone pagodas around Tapsa were built. The mountains have also grown in this shape and nobody knows why.

We bought a beer and rented one of those paddleboats we'd seen earlier. The adjoshi working gave us a few paper cups and sent us on our way at a $2 discount. Sweet! It was sunny and relaxing on the water and we were so happy that we made the trip to Maisan Park.

We had another hour to kill before the bus arrived to take us back to Jeonju (it only runs like 3 times a day) so we got a light supper at a BBQ place that we'd passed by earlier. We ordered some sort of galbi and it was delicious. The guy working there BBQed everything fresh over an open fire and the smokey taste of the meat tasted so good. After we were done he told us we'd eaten "black pig" which sounds normal enough, I'm just glad that we didn't wind up ordering this by mistake:

I have no idea what kind of little birds these guys are but they still have their heads and feet!!! BARF!

And with that, we were on our way back to Seoul for the night. Maybe, MAYBE we'll finally get to Deokjeokdo next weekend?? I won't hold my breath! It couldn't have been as fun as Jeonju anyway :)