Exploring Seoul

By the time the welcome crew left my apartment on Saturday night it was after midnight, and I was ready to go to bed forever. As many of you know I absolutely require the tv to be on while I sleep, so I was happy the cable was hooked up and ready to go. I would have been happy with watching some random Korean show, but I found that at any given time you can find 4 or 5 things in English. I found the Simpsons on a channel called Tooniverse and was pretty much as happy as I could be.

I slept until almost noon, and shortly after Hollis and I headed out to explore. Our neighborhood is really nice, it's pretty similar to any busy neighborhood in Chicago. There are restaurants, shops, and anything else you could need all in walking distance. We decided we wanted to see Seoul and went to a bus stop. Luckily Hollis can read Korean, because I would have had absolutely no idea where I was going. After about 40 mins we were in Itaewon which is the "foreigner" area of Seoul since it is right by the American military base. It was kind of overwhelming, there were a lot of great places to shop I'm sure, but I haven't been here long enough to figure out what I need.

After awhile we got on the subway and rode to Jamsil which is another great shopping area. One of the biggest things in Jamsil is Lotte World. When we got off of the subway, we actually found it difficult to get outside because right away you are in Lotte World which is this huge maze of shopping, movies, restaurants, and apparently there is an indoor/outdoor amusement park around there somewhere, although I didn't see it. Actually, pretty much everything in that area seemed to be "Lotte-something". We eventually made our way to Lotte Mart, which is an enormous department/grocery store. We even ate at Lotteria - the Korean McDonalds. To the left there is a picture of part of Lotte World.

During the day I had been looking for a camera (since I lost mine at some point during the "I don't remember anything for this four hours" part of my going away party), and after shopping some prices I found a good deal at Lotte Mart. Buying a camera in Korea isn't as easy as buying a soda or something. Up to this point I had pretty much been able to hand them what I wanted, hand them some money, and the transaction was over with no speaking (except perhaps me butchering a Korean thank you at the end.) The lady behind the counter was asking me all kinds of questions, apparently undeterred by the utterly vacant look in my eyes. At one point I thought they were trying to upsell me a tripod, extra memory card, and camera pouch. I pointed at all of that stuff and shook my head, and then pointed at the camera box and nodded my head. Then she said the magic word. She smiles and points at all of extra stuff and says "Service!". Luckily I had learned that service means "this is free". So I got a nice camera and a bunch of extra stuff for 179,000 won, which is probably the same as I would have paid in America, but I got a charger that actually works with the outlets here, and it was a fun experience.

We really had a good time wandering around that day. After we got to Jamsil we each made a "power-ju" which is just a big Powerade with a bottle of soju poured in. It was definitely key, because it loosened us up, and after awhile it felt like wandering around a foreign city with some guy I met the night before was the most natural thing ever.

Jamsil seemed to be a pretty upscale neighborhood, and I quickly noticed something. Korean dudes dress waaaay better than I do. And the girls all seem super classy and way out of my league. Koreans definitely know how to look good. One of my goals for this year is to develop a sense of Korean style. Step one seems to be get a pair of designer glasses. Step two is always wear a scarf. Step three is that your jeans have to be pretty much the opposite of the ones I wear. I tend to like the plain, not a lot of fade, no weird rips look. This may take some time because glasses and scarves are both really annoying, and I just can't get into that jacked-up jeans look.

On the way back we took the subway to the Migeum stop which is the closest one to us, and cabbed back to the apartment. On the wiki that I linked you will see how they refer to Migeum as "small" compared to it's neighbors. The picture to the right is of an intersection in Migeum. Small, clearly.

So we made it back in plenty of time to get tons of rest for our first day at work. I will get into what the school and the kids are like next time. Last nights episode of Gossip Girl just got done downloading, so that is pretty much all I've got in store for the rest of the night. Speaking of which, Gossip Girl is apparently on every morning at 8am, so the last two days I have watched the first half of it before I leave for work. Have there been any new episodes of any other shows I watch? Please let me know if so.

Oh and also, why didn't anyone tell me that Chester dunked in the Michigan game!?! Can someone get me a video of that? I searched for awhile at work and couldn't find it. After those two road games I think 1-1 is a great Big Ten record. And things are going to be even better after we beat Indiana by 50 and then redeem ourselves against Michigan at home.

Ok bye everyone! I'll probably write again tomorrow.