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Korea Blog Part 7 (The Girls Come to Korea)
So sorry once again for the lack of updates on my blog but since March, Korea has been an extremely busy time for me, as the weather has got warmer, and I've had numerous people visit and had lots of things to do nit seems but really I have no excuse.
So picking up from getting back from Thailand. Basically Korea was a very depressing place from the 21st January (the date I arrived back to Korea) until about the middle of March. The Korean mid winter is extremely cold. The temperatures can get as low as -20C at night, and as "high" as -10C some days. It never really ever gets above -5C in the day on any days for the whole of January and February.
Korea has very dry winters so there is not much snow, no rain, and it is very sunny. However it feels raw as it gets cold eastern Siberian winds that bring the cold harsh weather. On those -15C days, you have to go out in about 5 layers, and cover up every exposed appendage. On the few days I braved running, it was extremely painful on my chest, and the sweat I did produce would turn to ice on my top and my gloves it was that cold….It was during these days when I had no money after Thailand, where I spent a lot of time at home, and obviously made the decision to never experience another Korean winter!!!
Any way after a period of doing very little, March picked up a bit, the weather got a bit milder, and in the middle of March, there was a big drinking session in Seoul for St. Patrick's Day which was god craic! I did end up falling asleep in Itaewon subway station though, and not getting home until about 9am!
Then on the 23rd March, it was time for my first visitor to Korea in 6 months, as Miss Hannah "Pants" Stephens came to Korea. It was great to see Hannah, and also a little weird at first as this was the fist person who I was good fiends with in England and who knows my life in Manchester very well and so when she came to Korea, I knew she could compare my life in Korea, to my life in Manchester.
It was lots of fun for the 10 days that Hannah was here. We ate out at lots of restaurants, drank a few drinks, played Beer Pong (USA - USA - USA!!!), went to Seoul zoo, visited a Trick Art Museum, and did the full day DMZ tour amongst other things. The Shabu Shabu restaurant was very nice, as well as this really nice Korean BBQ place that Hannah found in Dongam. I have since been back there several times needless to say!
Hannah also came into my school one morning to meet my teachers, see my school, and do a little introduction with the children. She also ate lunch in the school cafeteria and tried Kimchi and hated it as pretty much everyone does when they first try it (myself included!).
We did all the usual Seoul tourist things like Namsan Tower, Ganghwamun Square, Gyeongbok Palace etc, that I've now done several times over.
We also went to Seoul Zoo on Hannah's last day in Korea and that was very good too. It was my first time going to the zoo, and it was really cheap to get in (under 2 quid), and it was very big and set in the valley of a mountain. It had loads of different animals to see, and Koreans don't seem to have a problem with throwing food to the animals to feed them. This is probably not a very smart thing to do, but I must admit it is quite funny watching monkeys and gorillas eat bananas and chocolates that people have thrown to them. All in all, the zoo is a worthwhile thing to do in Korea.
Hannah didn't like the fact that it was cold in Korea I don't think, and she also did her knee in going up the subway stairs…I laughed at her a bit as she was like an old lady walking up and down stairs at times, but the last laugh is on me, as I seem to now have a similar complaint to what Hannah had in Korea!!! ;-) Damn you Korean Subway stairs!!!
Hannah loved the people spitting everywhere, and the blasting out of kpop everywhere though I think! I'm pretty much sure she personally loved her stays in the Korean love motels too, despite what she was saying publicly! ;-) Her favorite part of Korea was probably the square straws though, as she wouldn't shut up about them!!!
DMZ Tour
I'd not managed to do the DMZ tour in my first 7 months in Korea, so I finally got chance to do it when Hannah came. We had to get up very early on the Saturday to get to Lotte Hotel in Seoul to get the bus. This was the Saturday straight after me and Hannah had been out playing Beer Pong the night before and so we were a little hungover so it was quite painful to get up, but it was okay once we had woken up.
The tour itself though was interesting and lasted a whole day. We saw some infiltration tunnels that North Koreans had used to try and sneak into South Korea. We also went to the Bridge Of No Return, and also to Dorosan station which has been built as the most northerly train station in South Korea, and is expected to open up the Korean rail service to attach to China and Russia and the trans Siberian express once reunification occurs.
You get the sense on the tour that Koreans believe that reunification will happen at some point, and there is always a sense that the whole peninsula is just one Korea and not two separate countries. In Korea people always refer to South Korea as just simply Korea. There is never any mention of South Korea. This is only ever used by non Koreans.
By far the most interesting part of the tour is definitely when you get to the Joint Security Area and you can technically cross the border into North Korea (if only be a few feet), and see North Korean soldiers standing on the other side of the border. It is a very surreal experience, and heavily guarded by armed soldiers. Instances of cross border fighting are thankfully very rare but they do happen occasionally at different places along the DMZ and the shelling of the South Korean island off Incheon shows that there are always tensions between the 2 sides.
Overall I think the DMZ Tour is a must for most people visiting Korea, as far as Korean tourist attractions go, it is probably the most expensive at about 60 quid for the full day tour, but I'd say it is worth it. It's not something I'd particularly want to do again though, as once is enough really.
So I had a great time with Hannah and was sad to see her leave. For the next few weeks then, the weather got a lot warmer and I could finally dispense with the jackets and gloves most days. There were a few drinking sessions in April, and I started playing 5 a side football on Thursdays, and also started running a lot more as I found a new route from my house to the end of the subway line at Songdo. It is 9 miles long but a bit more scenic and so I started running it 2 or 3 times a week in April with the aim of getting fitter. It certainly helped, but unfortunately I think I have done too much as now 2 months later, I have some tendonitis in my right knee, but never mind.
I didn't have too long to wait though until my next visitors cam from home as just three and a half weeks after Hannah left, I had the pleasure of Jenny and Pri coming on the 25th April.
Jenny & Pri Come to Visit!!!
So on Wed 25th April, Jenny and Pri came to visit on the 2nd leg of their East Asian tour. They had already been to Beijing, and then they came to Korea for 5 days, before heading over to Tokyo to finish off.
Now firstly I can't be bothered writing Jenny and Pri out every time I want to refer to them, so I shall be just referring to them both as "Penny" going forwards (see what I did there?)
So Penny were staying at this hotel in Songdo which is the newer part of Incheon at the very bottom of the city. It's a bit of a soulless place as its all new skyscrapers and unfinished buildings and so it's a bit of a work in progress still. It's also incredibly windy as its right next to the Yellow Sea, as Penny found out I think! ;-) The hotel overlooked a barren wasteland too, but I reckon it was probably better than them staying on my floor, or in a Love Motel!! ;-)
I was also happy to see Penny, as they came bearing confectionary items from back home, which is always nice to receive. To be fair, my mother sends me regular packages any way from back home but you can never have too many packs of Haribo, or bars of Dairy Milk!
We went out for lots of eating any way with Korean BBQ, some Japanese, Dakgalbi and so on, and Penny did the DMZ tour themselves, and I did the usual Seoul Tourist things like Gyeongbok, Ganghwamun etc for the 38th time, but it was lots of fun, and it was great spending time with the girls. Pri taught me some camera techniques too, so I could branch out from my usual point-and-click routine!
We also went out in Hongdae, Seoul on the Saturday that Penny were here. That was a good laugh as we drank lots of booze and danced around in FFs to a mishmash of different types of music. We also went to the local pub in Incheon called O'Malley's, and had a few beers singing along with the guitarist that was playing Oasis covers. You can forget for a second that you're in Korea at moments like that, but then Pri is always around to remind you, as she moans about the square straws (what is it with girls and square straws!)
All in all, even though I only had 5 days with Penny, we still had a great time, and it was good to yet again see some more people from home.
So into May, and I knew I was only 5 weeks away from Leon coming, and my 30th Birthday, so I still had plenty to look forward to, but then May seemed to be very busy as well.
There were a few nights out to an area I had never been to before in Seoul called Gangnam. The first night out was with my friend Sam, who lives in Pyeongtaek, south of Seoul, but who is originally from Rochdale. I had not seen her for a few months, and so I joined her on a night out in Gangnam for one of her friend's birthday, to a club called Heaven.
Gangnam is deffo the more up market area of Seoul and it seems to have most of the bigger clubs that attract the trendier crowd and the international DJs. There are some very attractive women that go to these clubs for sure ;-) , but the prices are very different to Hongdae and Incheon as you can pay 10,000 won (about 5 pounds 50p) for a vodka and coke here!!!
So we went out to this club, and because we were foreigners, we managed to get a table in a VIP area, and get some vodka and mixers to share at our table. It was a good laugh and we had some good fun.
The following weekend I went back to Gangnam again, but this time to see Paul Van Dyk play at a club called Octagon. This time I went with Lee and Simon from Incheon and I had a brilliant night, as it was good to see a proper DJ and hear some decent dance music for the first time since Global Gathering, 7 months prior.
The club was expensive again, and there was no chance of VIP this time, but being Korea, they just give you a wristband once you get in, and then they let you leave the club and come back in as many times as you like, so all we did was go outside, go to the local Spa, and drink some cheap booze outside, and then go back into the club when we were nicely drunk. J
PVD played a brilliant set and I had a great time just dancing around with a load of Koreans. I also had a bit of success with a Korean girl, which all around capped off one of my best nights I've had in Korea! :-p
After these 2 nights in Gangnam, I was rather poor for the rest of the month of May so I then stayed in at the end of the month, even staying at home doing nothing on the long weekend we had at the end of May. Everyone else went to a beach party on an island off Incheon, but I stayed at home for what was probably the most boring weekend I have ever had in Korea!!! It was here where I also felt a lot of pain in my knee when I went running so I couldn't even kill some time going running all weekend. I basically watched lots of TV shows and movies I had downloaded and managed to get through he boredom somehow.
Once the weekend was over though that meant I was just a few days away from June, and the imminent arrival of Leon to Korea, so my mood soon lifted, and so I shall save all that for the next installment of my blog…
안녕히 가세요.
- comments
Jen "penny" classic! guess its better than Jeri. loved being apart of all that fun xxx
Leon Great blog as always Mate. Looking forward to your next one where I'll be heavily involved
Pri Penny... Amazeballs. I think its going to catch on. It was awesome. Jonny I glad to have been your photography teacher, I believe that my aim in life has now been achieved ;-D you will never forget that move! PS Hondae night out will go down in my book as one of the best nights. Miss the good times! Am excited to have you back soon!! Take care xx
Harribo Mum Marvellous