Out and About...Enjoying the Wonderful Weekend Weather!

Last weekend we has just gotten back from Everland Saturday night, and we were exhausted. Sunday is usually our day for staying in and relaxing, but the weather was just too nice to be inside. We went to nearby Ilsan for the Goyang International Flower Show. Ilsan Lake Park has a permanent exhibit center on premises that is just for the annual flower show. Goyang city, where we live, is internationally recognized for its flower production, especially its roses. Like most other events we've been in Korea, the Goyang show had impressive displays of flowers in every shape and color. The indoor portion featured local and international merchants advertising different flower products and flower art. My favorite was the "pressed flower art" competition exhibition. When I first approached the area, I thought I was looking at beautiful paintings on display. But, looking more closely, I realized that the "paint" was really made of delicately arranged pressed flowers, plants, fruit, and vegetables. The artists used pressed flowers to decorate everything from furniture to jewelry and clothing. After images of flowers were burned into our eyes, we went to our new favorite vegetarian buffet in northern Ilsan.

We were constantly on the move this past weekend as well. Saturday we went to Gyeonghuigung, which is the 5th of the largest palaces in Seoul that we've been to. Every Wednesday and Saturday there is a free Taekwondo exhibition on the palace grounds. The exhibition featured the internationally recognized "Korea Tigers," a large group of mostly university students (including 3 girls!) The show was arranged so that it told a story and presented Korean culture. Taekwondo is really graceful and it's almost like a dance, so it fit perfectly with the music. After the show we explored the palace grounds a bit, but Gyeonghuigung is the smallest of the 5 palaces, so it didn't take us long. We walked over towards Gwanghwamun Square after in hopes of spotting Cheongwadae, which is known as the "blue house" and is the president's residence. On our way, we came across a street stand selling "hotteok", which is a type of pancake made with a filling of hot gooey honey, cinnamon, and black sesame seeds. We've never tasted it before even though it's one of the most famous street foods in Seoul. Ours had green tea in the pancake batter, and it was amazing! With our bellies satified, we walked over to Gwanghwamun. While admiring the new flowerbed there, we were stopped by some English speaking Koreans that were about our age. They asked us to take a picture with them, and afterwards they were nice enough to take down our email address to send us the photos. From Gwanghwamun, we spotted the famous blue roof of Cheongwadae, so we walked in the direction of Gyeongbokgung. On the palace grounds, we were directed to a road that would lead us to Cheongwadae. When we got to the Cheongwadae "photo zone," we learned that we couldn't actually go on the grounds, but we could only take photos from a distance. There are special tours of the blue house available, but you have to register nearly 6 months in advance! Next, we walked over to Samcheongdong, which is a cute neighborhood full of cafes, restaurants, galleries, and artsy shops. It seems to be the more fashionable and less touristy version of Insadong. We did some gift shopping in cute stores selling handmade items, and then came across a gorgeous park on the north end of the neighborhood. We finally made our way back south to Insadong for some more shopping and dinner at our favorite vegetarian buffet.

On Sunday, we took the subway all the way across the city to eastern Seoul for Chungdahm's Spring Picnic in Tteoksam Resort Park. English teachers from dozens of Chungdahm branches in the Seoul metro area were at the picnic. The picnic naturally featured some American style picnic food, like burgers, hotdogs, Taco Bell, fruit and veggie salads, and cookies. There were also recreational activities like ultimate frisbee, dodgeball, balloon toss, kite flying, and rock climbing. Danny and I had the highest score in balloon toss, but that was probably because we used a really tiny balloon that didn't break as easily. I wanted to try the rock climbing wall, but there was a long line. We wandered to the other side of the riverside park, where there were those swan peddle boats for rent. We peddled around the designated area in the Han River, and caught some views of Olympic Stadium and Namsan. After the picnic we headed over to nearby Children's Grand Park. This park was just down the block from the CDI training center that we were trained at in August. We had no idea back then that there was such a huge beautiful park nearby. Children's Grand Park was originally designed to celebrate children, and it includes an amusement park, zoo, playgrounds, botanical garden, ecological park, theaters, and more. Just like its name suggests, it was packed with children and it was definitely grand. It was probably the most beautiful park I've ever been in. We tried out the barefoot park, which is supposed to massage and strengthen your foot muscles (just what I need!). We also walked quickly through the zoo, botanical garden, and ecological park. As the sun set, we made our way over to Achasan vegetarian buffet for dinner. This buffet had a lot of dishes to choose from, but they featured too many mock meats and white bread. I prefer the more vegetable and whole grain based veggie buffets. But, Achasan's mock meats were tasty and could easily pass for real meat!

This Wednesday is Children's Day, which is a national holiday. Children usually have off from school, so Danny also has off from work. I still have to work, but my school is having a 10am-1pm class instead of 4pm-7pm. So I am able to go to an FC Seoul soccer game with Danny! Then on the Saturday coming up, we are going to try to go to the Seoul World DJ Festival. It is an annual 12-hour show outdoors along the Han River that features international DJ's and dancing all day and night long. So I'll keep you updated!

It's been a longgg Saturday!

So before we get to Saturday, let me debrief about this week. Not much happened except that I didn't have to teach night classes yet. So Danny and I were able to go out to eat with his coworkers most nights this week. On Monday I tried a new Korean food. I had chamchi kimchi jiggae (which translates as tuna and spicy fermented cabbage stew). I'll admit that I was a bit hesitant to try it at first, and I was disappointed that they didn't serve a tofu stew instead (sundubu jiggae). But it was actually delicious! And it came with many side dishes and rice (and for under $5 it's an amazing deal). Danny and I also successfully mailed a package on Monday. We were clueless when we walked into the post office, but the security guard spoke a few words of English and he helped us wrap our package and everything. We mailed home some Christmas gifts, which was costly to ship by air (but it got home in under 4 days!) I also received a huge package from my mom with some Christmas gifts, but hers took 10 days to get here (I guess the US Postal Service is not nearly as efficient as KPost).

Saturday morning Danny had to wake up early and go to his school. Not for work, but for "Market Day." For 4 hours the students came in to his school to trade in their "dollars" for prizes and play games with their teachers. The students are rewarded during the term with dollars for good grades and excellent group projects. My school has the same reward system, but we don't have a market day. Instead, the students at my school just turn in the points to the Korean desk staff for prizes anytime they want. I decided to pass by Danny's school for market day because I heard there was face painting, and I had to show off my painting skills. Actually I was pretty bad, but I was doing a lot better than Danny. So the students flocked around me, and they all avoided "bad Danny teacher." The favorite design was a swan, which Danny modeled on his hand. At the market day, there was also a game room, a movie room, and a snack bar. It was cool because I got to meet some of Danny's students.

After market day, we went to Gwanghawmun Plaza in Seoul. It's a huge square that was just remodeled this year, and a 100 foot high fake snow ramp was constructed in the area for the Big Air Snowboard World Cup. At night there would be a competition on the snowboard ramp, so we got there early and walked around the square. There were thousands of people in the square for the event. A huge ice skating rink was also placed in the square for the winter. The grand opening of the rink was this weekend, so I wanted to ice skate but the wait line was ridiculously long. The weather was pretty comfortable out until the snowboard exhibition started, and by that time my toes were beyond frozen. So I could only watch 3 jumps and then I escaped to the warmth under the Sejong Art Center. It's a museum and art center, but in the basement there was an exhibition on King Sejong (one of Korea's most notable historical figures, from the 14th century). So I walked around that for awhile and met up with Danny after. Danny's roommate from college, Lee, teaches in a CDI April school south of Seoul, but he came into Seoul for the night. So we took the subway with him and his girlfriend to Itaewon. Itaewon is the "foreigner-friendly" area of Seoul, so we found a good Mexican restaurant for dinner. It felt so good to eat a veggie fajita and some black beans and nachos. Afterwards we met up with some of Danny's coworkers at a hip-hop club that was hosting a bellydancing show. Unfortunately, we showed up towards the end so we didn't get to see much. What we did see was really awesome though. After that we walked into a handful of different bars to find a place to hang out, but most were way too crowded and didn't suit our taste. I guess Hongdae is better for a night out. Just as we were about to leave Itaewon, we ran into Danny's head instructor. We wanted to take her out for a drink and the only place we could find was a posh club with thumping techno beats. It was fun though, and we ended up dancing a bit.

By 1am Danny and his coworker persuaded me to accompany them at the casino. Gambling is illegal in Korea, so Danny's head instructor couldn't join us. Casinos in Korea are purely for tourists, and are usually attached to hotels. We went to Seven Luck Casino in Gangnam, near COEX mall. Most of the people in the casino are Japanese, Chinese, and American tourists. I don't know how to play any card games, but I watched the guys play blackjack for a few hours, and I caught on. I also watched roulette, but I didn't find it that interesting. Danny actually did pretty well in his casino debut. But don't worry, we aren't becoming serious gamblers. I am super frugal, so I was extremely strict about his budget. We are so cheap that we waited to catch the first subway train home at 5:30am instead of paying the expensive cab ride home.