Saturday, April 6, 2013

Seoul, South Korea Trip, part 2: out and about with Kevin and Miran

Here is more of our trip after the airport; we didn't think it could get much better after that, but it did! :)
We had to meet Kevin by taking a bus from the airport to Beomgye (pronounced Bumgay) station, but ended up missing the stop because we couldn't tell what they were saying and we were looking for Kevin's puffy hair waiting for us at the stop but didn't see it. Everyone left the bus at the last stop, but we had no idea where we were. The bus driver ended telling us through hand motions that we had missed the stop and it was one stop back. So we had to get on another bus to take us to the previous stop. When we got there, we called Kevin using the phone at the ticket station desk and he was still in bed! I thought he had to take the subway to meet us, but I guess he lived only a few blocks away and we were soon reunited! 

The roof top of Kevin's apartment was an open park with free wooden exercise equipment! It seemed that a lot of buildings had an open hang out spot on the rooftop. Also, there was exercise equipment all over the place (along the river, on top of a hill walking path near the fortress we visited, and at parks).


 There are a lot of very tall and modern towers everywhere. There are many more apartment building towers than anything else.

 Kevin brought us to a FC Seoul soccer game at the Olympic stadium and we got a corn dog and a spicy, really thick noodle Korean dish. They didn't know I was taking a picture, so Matt wasn't prepared with his happy face. Here is a taste of what he normally looks like!

Wild fans at the game. There were nice sound effects and games with the crowd during the half time show. The coolest part of this game is that every time Seoul scored, they shot off fireworks! Cheerleaders led the crowd in cheers, rather than just being scantily clad. Kevin didn't like this stadium as much as other ones he has been too because it was too big for the crowd and they had cheers that he didn't know.

Our first authentic Korean feast. We grilled meat atop a skillet over these tubular coals. We used the leaf lettuce as a wrap and put rice, sauces and meat inside. This place specialized in pork face, and it was mighty tasty!

Kevin's mix of friends and foes! Who is who?

After 2 hours of constant eating and drinking. Apparently its popular to put Soju in beer, which improves the taste and alcohol content. 
 After this meal we went to several bars with Kevin's expat friends, one of them was rasta-themed, another was Irish Pub themed and we played pool and had some bangers and mash. We tried to go into Kevin's favorite club, which looks like a giant cave, but it was only about 10:30 and there were about 5 people in the whole place. At this point we were both really tired after a full day of walking around Seoul and zero sleep the night before.

The next morning (actually afternoon, after a full night's sleep!) we went to this very large and modern building. This was the Lotte department store and there is a food court in the basement. The small windows on the second picture light up at night and they often show a Tetris game playing. We ate some Mandu (delicious Korean dumplings filled with Kimchi or other tasty treats) and Taco Bell for breakfast.





































After breakfast we took the train into Seoul to meet Kevin's co-teacher Miran. We all rented bicycles and biked for about 2 hours around the downtown area and Han River. Here are some of the modern buildings of Seoul.



 Here is a panorama of the main parliament building. Kevin really liked it because it looks like it came out of Star Wars. It is huge with giant pillars and angular lines, which can be seen better in the second picture.

Here is a closeup of a mythical lion statue.

 Here is a fountain in front of the government building, and some lumpy-looking trimmed hedges.




 Here is Miran in front of a newly renovated traditional Korean building, it used to be used to house visitors to the government.

 Train bridge across the Han River.
 Train bridge + Rochelle and Matt!
Here is a view from our bike ride along the Han River. The tall building in front is the tallest in Korea. Apparently there is an aquarium somewhere in it. There were TONS of people out biking and the traffic on the trail was pretty chaotic. Not as chaotic as the daily car traffic in UB, though.

 Swan or crane boats?

Trees growing in large metal blocks.
 Is the tree growing from the basement floor? We may never know.
 This is when we were attacked by a giant subterranean tentacled beast! We barely escaped with our lives! The tree wasn't so lucky.
 After that frightening encounter, we decided to gorge on some tasty morsels. We went to this coffeeshop and ordered some ice cream Belgian waffles. All forks in Korea are required to have smiley faces cut into the metal, as shown here:
 Eating that waffle like a boss. That thing was huge and delicious!

More to come! We have many photos of dead sea creatures itching to be shown.

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