On Fridays, I only teach one class in the afternoon. Another teacher has that same class on Wednesdays for their first weekly session. This was only my second time meeting with this class, and they were by far my most well-behaved and enjoyable class! After work, Danny and I met up with 2 of my coworkers and 1 of his coworkers from CDI April. We went into Hongdae, which is Seoul's college neighborhood. So there's lots going on there every night. I saw the most foreigners that I've ever seen in South Korea so far on the streets of Hongdae. Most of them were American, Canadian, and British English teachers like myself. We had such a large group, because we met up with my coworkers other friends, Danny's roommate from college and his friends, and even these guys from Switzerland, Sweden, and England. At least 20 of us went to this place called Ho Bar (it means "nice" bar in Chinese). It was just like a western-style bar, except the drinks were only like $2 and I don't think you have to tip the bartenders (you are not supposed to tip anywhere in this country...it's considered offensive). Afterwards we went out to 2 clubs for dancing. One club that we went had lots of American music and strobe lights, so we stayed there awhile.
On Saturday, Danny, myself, and his coworker Scott went to a Korean baseball game. Baseball is really popular here like in America. We took a subway to Jamsil Stadium, which was built for the 1988 Olympics in Seoul. The stadium was really small and intimate feeling though. They definitely sold too many tickets, because hundreds of people were sitting on steps and anywhere else they could find. The most expensive tickets for Korean baseball games are about $30! It's such a crazy experience, because both teams' fans sit on separate sides of the stadium and EVERYONE has those annoying thunder sticks. Well the fans for each team all seem to know these different chants, songs, and thunder stick routines. It's almost like the fans are choreographed. During breaks between innings, these cheerleaders dance on a stage to KPop (it's crazy Korean pop music....look below for links to hear some songs). It was fun, but we left after the 6th inning because we were hungry and the game isn't as exciting when your not a fan of the teams playing. I was craving Indian food from my experience Thursday night, so I brough Danny and Scott to Sinchon to try the same restaurant after the game.
On Sunday, Danny and I took the subway to Ilsan (it's only about 10 minutes from us). We live in Goyang City, and Ilsan is just a smaller city within Goyang. I actually just read yesterday that in 2006, Newsweek named Goyang City as the TOP Most Dynamic City in the world (in a list of 10 cities picked, it ranked #1 and beat out London and Las Vegas!) Well the main reasoning for that is the city of Ilsan, which is only about 15 years old. It was designed to be like a perfect city for young, upper-middle class families. In Ilsan, we went to Lake Park. It is a huge park that is really beautiful and has so many activities. On Sunday, it was packed with families. Danny and I spent 2 and a half hours walking the 3 mile perimeter of the lake. I stopped so often to take pictures though. Also, every few meters there are different gardens and displays. They even had a great saxophone band playing in the park, so we stopped to listen for a bit. After the park, we went in search of food for dinner. The main shopping and entertainment area in Ilsan is called "La Festa," and the dining choices were overwhelming. It's all mainly the same types of Korean cuisine everywhere, but there are just soo many restaurants. We finally decided on galbi, which I had for the first time last week. It's the famous Korean barbecued pork. You cook the pork yourself over a grill built into the table, and it comes with dozens of little side dishes. I'm not a huge pork fan, but it is delicious. And for two people, a galbi dinner usually costs between $5-$10 a person!
So I posted TONS of new pictures from this weekend: http://picasaweb.google.com/lauralipari87
And here are the KPop videos I mentioned:
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