In Which The Author Has A Little Rant, Goes Hiking and Then Becomes A VIP For 1/6 of The Day

Surely the morning was a test. Mel's pay came in at 500,000 won lower than it should have. Why? The explanation came via phone call at 9am: her security deposit was taken out. Wait a minute, security deposit for what? It's certainly not in her contract so what. the. hell? Can't do much about this over the weekend, but it was not a good way to start the day.

So we decide to get brunch at Smoothie King before we start our day. We're just about to the store when we hear a mocking "hello". Now, you might think this is nice: locals are saying hello to the foreign visitors. It's not really like that. Usually this only happens when a group of teenagers are together and one of them wants to show off to his friend by saying hello to the foreigners and then the whole group laughs in awe of this hilarious word. Still, we're Canadians and we're nice, so we say "hello" back. In an even more mocking voice he replies "niiiice to meeeeeeet youuuuu". Ignoring this we carry on, and then, in the distance we hear it: "motherfuckers". MOTHERFUCKERS? What? Oh the things I could have said about his penis size, but we just went for our smoothies instead.

At Smoothie King all of the smoothie flavours are Konglish. For example, the Strawberry Kiss smoothie is pronounced "stah-ro-beh-lee kees-uh" when you order, even though "strawberry" is "dalki" in Korean and "kiss" is presumably something else as well. So, basically, when you order at Smoothie King, you order in English. We ordered our smoothies and the table next to the cash, which had been awkwardly staring at us anyway, cracked up laughing. They were in tears. It was hilarious. Mel gave them the look of death (I get this from her all the time) and they stopped (it works on me too). But still, isn't that so rude? Can you imagine laughing at a French Canadian accent in Canada? You'd probably be arrested. Yeah, we ordered with an accent but have you ever heard a Korean try to speak English? It's the most accented accent you'll ever hear. We could laugh all day long at it if we wanted to.

After we finish our meal, we walked towards the subway station and it happened again. A group of bratty kids: "HELLO *laugh laugh laugh*" as if we're parrots who will say funny things to them if provoked. I'm going to go ahead and make a huge generalization: Korea is a little bit ignorant. Melodie showed her students a video about table manners for a restaurant-themed lesson a few weeks ago, and every single class- 24 in total- cracked up laughing when the video featured *gasp* a BLACK woman. Nearly every class shouted out "monkey". It's a big problem in this country... and they should be ashamed of the reputation they're making for themselves.

Our morning had already been so annoying- and it was only noon by this point- so we kind of thought maybe this had all been a sign to stay home today, but we had plans so we went on and we're glad we did.

We wanted to hike Daemosan mountain, which is not really easy to research online. I figured out that it is at Irwon Station, which was only 12 minutes away, but didn't really know where to go from there. Luckily, most subway stations now have these interactive touch-screen maps that you can use to get your bearings. They're all in Korean, but we can actually read that shiz now (!!) so we were able to locate the trail entrance pretty easily.

When we go hiking, things usually end pretty badly: we've wound up penniless two towns over, gotten lost as night fell, and been chased by wild dogs, but Saturday was a great success. After record low temperatures all week, it was about 18 degrees and lovely. The hike only lasted about 45 minutes (our ideal length) and there were nice, colorful lanterns leading the way up the trail.

Buddhist temples are everywhere in Taiwan, but you don't see too many in Seoul. There's one on the Daemosan trail, but don't try to visit it... it's surrounded in not-very-welcoming barbed wire.

There was some kind of trench and a bunker near the top for unknown reasons.

The reason we thought it would be cool to hike Daemosan is because, at the peak, the view is of our hood. We could see Yangjae, the COEX, Seoul Tower and the 63 Building. It's strange that all my pictures turned out looking smoggy, because it seemed like a really clear day. It's funny what we've accepted as "clear" air after being in Asia for so long.

Some hikers enjoying the view. It was a really worthwhile hike because you could see quite a bit of the city. I'd say it's a better view than going up Seoul Tower.

We brought a can of Cass and some snacks to munch on at the top, so we sat on a bench next to a couple of old tires in the ground. I thought the tires were just there to be sat on if the benches were full, but turns out they're great for stretching out your back. The lady in the picture seems to like it, anyway.

After all that exercise the only thing we wanted to do was to get some supper and then relax in a hot tub or go for a swim. We got some good Mexican food at a place called The Tacos, but as far as the hot tubbing... unfortunately, Koreans don't really have places like Saint John's Aquatic Center, where you can just go pay your five bucks and sit in a hot tub with a bunch of fat old men. Koreans don't even really have bathtubs (in officetels like mine, anyway). If you'd like such a luxury you either have to go to a sauna or a hotel. The saunas are divided by gender and you have to be nude. Being the odd one out in a naked Asian hot tub while people say "hello" and laugh at me does not sound relaxing to me at all. Hotel, it is.

We decided to check out a love motel not too far up the road from our place. We've stayed at quite a few of these places in our travels... they're the kind of places that rent by the hour, which doesn't really sound very nice but some of the nicest hotels I've ever ever stayed in have been love motels (some of the worst have been love motels too lol). So we went to this place called IMT Hotel behind the Prugio building between Yangjae and Gangnam Stations. The guy who worked there told us the VIP room had a whirlpool and we could have it for the "rest" rate of 60,000 won for 4 hours. This was less than we would have spent "going out" for the night so... sold! He gave us our package of toothbrushes, razors and lube and off we went.

This was THE nicest hotel room I've ever been in. The jacuzzi had a TV in the room and a disco light flashing a rainbow of colors over the water. Everything was marble. There were 2 giant flat screen TVs and two computers with hi-speed. They gave us free red and white wine, coffee, cookies, orange juice, coke, corn juice and lollipops. I love being a VIP!

The hotel room was huge, as well. We kept finding new rooms to play in. Other than the jacuzzi, the best part of the place was that there was a karaoke machine with 2 mics to use with the big screen TV, just like at the norebangs. We sang and we swam for four full hours and it was awesome.

We wanted some samgyupsal, but it was 11:00pm and almost everything was closed so we went to Pelicana Chicken, a small fried chicken place in the next building over from our apartment. We'd been curious to try it, and it was good. One of my students said it's "Africa chicken" but I'm not sure what makes it African.

So what started out as a bad morning wound up turning into a great day. One of my favorite days so far. When you're living away from home there are going to be things that annoy you from time to time, but then there's going to be VIP hot tubs that make all worthwhile. And vacations. Did I mention that we'll be in Tokyo in less than 3 weeks? The countdown is on like Donkey Kong.