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!

Spring is finally here!!

Sorry to keep you all waiting....it's been nearly 6 weeks since I last blogged! Danny and I have been super busy with school and other things. So we have some good news for all of you back in the states....we are coming home early! In late March I started looking into nutrition programs online to be sure I was on the right track. Originally I had planned to start working towards a registered dietitian (R.D.) certification at Queens College in the spring of 2011. But, I recently found out that Hunter College in NYC just launched a new program that combines a masters in nutrition AND an R.D. certification. This is a great opportunity, because very few schools offer these two things together. So, I won't be ready to enroll at Hunter until the fall of 2011. But, I need to come home ASAP to start taking pre-requisite science courses for the nutrition program. I spoke to my director, and she was obviously sad to hear I was leaving, but she understood. I will hopefully be home in the beginning of June (just in time to take General Chemistry I at Nassau Community College). I am already signed up for two science courses in the fall, and I have to take two or three more in spring. In case you're wondering, Danny will be coming home as well! We are a exciting to come home and see all of our friends and family, but we will miss Korea and our students though.

I'm trying to remember what we've been up to the past few weeks...Danny and I were sick for awhile (allergy season + stomach virus), and we had tons of work to do at our schools. So if you look at all of the pictures I've posted on Picasa, you can get an idea of what we've seen so far. Three weeks ago it finally started getting nice outside, so we walked around Ilsan Lake Park. We walked another 2km or so around the Ilsan area and finally found a vegan buffet restaurant that I've been looking for. It was probably one of the freshest and most delicious buffets we've been to so far here, and we are actually going back for dinner tomorrow. Last Saturday we went to Yeouido, which is an island in the middle of the Han River in Seoul. The annual cherry blossom festival was held there, and despite the late spring in Korea this year, the cherry blossoms were in full bloom. Last Sunday we went to the Korean War Memorial Museum. It was a huge museum, with displays on all the wars that Korea has fought in, and the grounds were beautiful too. Today we went to Everland, which is the largest amusement park in South Korea. It's owned by Samsung, but it's got nothing on Disney World. It was a lot smaller than Disney, but it was still really entertaining. It was a beautiful day, so nearly everyone in the Seoul metro area seemed to be at the park. Since it was so crowded we only went on two roller coasters and a water rapids ride. The wooden roller coaster was actually really fun and scary. The other rides were mostly kiddy rides, and the other adult rides had ridiculous wait times. So we spent most of the time exploring the park, which was really scenic because it's built into a mountainside and the cherry blossoms were blooming. Our favorite things were probably the giant tulip garden and the huge zoo area. I actually had my best amusement park meal ever there too. Literally every other snack stand or restaurant on the premises served only meat dishes, so we found a fancy buffet that had fresh food with lots of veggies. Plus there were no crowds in the buffet restaurant! The only thing that was disappointing about the day was the transportation. It took us nearly 3 hours to get the park, because the wait for the public intercity express bus was so long. On the plus side, everything was so cheap! For the entrance fee, transportation, and food combined we probably spent less than we would on just the entrance fee alone to an American amusement park.

I promise I will try to keep you all updated over the next few weeks, because we are scrambling to see as much as we can before we leave! We actually planned out a schedule for each weekend.

Fun weekend in and around Seoul....

So this past Thursday night I went out to an Indian restaurant near Sinchon with some of my coworkers. I rode on the back of a motor scooter to get there! It was so much fun, and it was a really awesome way to see the city at night. The Indian food was delicious! The owner was so nice...he just opened his restaurant, so he gave us free curries and chai tea. Afterwards, I went out for gelato with some of the my coworkers and their friends.

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:

MC Mong - Indian Boy

Brown Eyed Girls - Abracadabra

2NE1 - Fire

G Dragon - Heartbreaker (Does this one sound familiar? haha)