"I think we might be on the wrong boat..."

So we decided we wanted to go out somewhere on a nice date today.  Eric made the plans and we started out by taking the subway to one of the parks along the Han River where you can go on different cruises around the river either one way or round trip.  We bought tickets for the cruise that would take us from the park at Jamsil to the park at Yeouido a ways down the river.  We had a while before we were scheduled to leave so we got a cold drink and walked along the river.  We made sure we got back to the boarding gate we needed to be at thirty minutes before it was scheduled to leave and right as another boat was arriving.  We joined the crowd of people, gave our tickets to the crew member and boarded the boat about twenty-five minutes before we were scheduled to leave, not an uncommon time to board on other boats we have been on.  Well when the boat left five minutes later (twenty minutes before the scheduled time) we realized we might be on the wrong boat.  When we passed another boat going towards the dock we had just left we knew we were on the wrong boat and just passed the right boat (apparently that crew member didn't look at our ticket very closely).  So instead of going all the way to Yeouido, we went about halfway and then turned around and went back to where we started.  So our date plans changed a bit, but we did get a nice cruise on the river, dinner at a nice Italian restaurant and dessert at Haagen Dazs so we're not complaining!  We will just have to go to Yeouido and the 63 Building another time!

Here we are on the boat we got on

 There goes the boat we were supposed to be on...

Mt. Yongmasan

This morning I decided to start my Saturday off by trying out some hiking, while Eric continued to explore some other areas of the city.  There are a couple mountains close to where we live so I picked one, Mt. Yongmasan (348 meters high) and started the hike.  At some points I felt like I was doing more rock climbing than hiking though.  It was quite steep in some spots.  Other spots had long, long staircases leading up to the next section.  Now I know why the Koreans that look like they are going hiking always have hiking sticks with them!  If the rock climbing wasn't enough for some hard core hikers there were a few different stationary exercise stations along the way where you could lift some weights or work out on the elliptical.  I opted to sit on a rock and catch my breath instead.  It took me just over an hour but I did make it to the very top (where an old Korean man was selling ice cream!) and I stood on the stone signifying I was at the very top.  You could see the Han River and a lot of the city.  It was pretty awesome to look down and see how high up I had climbed.  It was also strange to go hiking on a mountain and still be able to see and hear the city most of the way up.  We also went to another movie tonight.  We got to see The Avengers a whole week before it even hits theaters back home!  Here are a few pictures from my hike.  More will be on our website soon.

 Mt. Yongmasan

 This pavilion was on the middle of the mountain

 Here's the workout place where you could continue to exercise if climbing a mountain wasn't enough

 View of the city from the very top of the mountain

 

Seoul Forest Field Trip

On Thursday we took the kindergartners on a field trip to Seoul Forest.  We were wondering how you could have a forest in the middle of such a big city.  Coming from the Pacific Northwest we realized that it wasn't really a forest, just a park.  It was a very nice park with a lot of green grass and flowers, but not what we consider a forest!  It was a perfect day to be outside and all of the kids and teachers seemed to have a good time.  The kids got magnifying glasses which they could use to look at the flowers around the park and there was a nice playground they got to play on.  We have a lot of good pictures on the pictures website so be sure to check them out!

 Matthew checking out the flowers

On the playground

Lots of nice scenery!

Rainy Weekend=Movie and Grading

Well we thought it was spring.  Although it wasn't all that cold, it has still rained all weekend.  We had plans to go to a baseball game with a few other people from work yesterday but unfortunately it got rained out.  So instead of being outside watching baseball we ended up at Traveler's for some good western food and our first movie theater experience in Korea.  Aside from the tickets being a bit cheaper, the seats a little comfier, Korean subtitles and the concession sizes being a lot smaller, it was just like home.  They show many American made movies in their theaters (we saw Battleship).  They leave them in their original English language and simply add Korean subtitles at the bottom.  I sometimes wonder if they find it strange that things coming out of the United States are so diverse, meaning the people in U.S. movies and advertisements are of all different ethnicities.  The movie advertisements, commercials and posters that we have seen here seem to have only one group of people in them rather than many.  Seoul is definitely not a diverse place and it is sure interesting to be on the miniscule minority side for the first time.

Tonight we are grading our monthly tests that we gave on Friday and tomorrow the monthly report card writing begins.  Friday is field trip day with the kindergarteners so we will spend Friday morning at the Seoul Forest.  I'm not sure how they have a forest in the middle of such a busy city but I guess we will find out!  Tomorrow the weather should be back to the spring weather that is more like summer to us (70s and 80s all week) so our bikes should get their first full week of use! 

We are Bikers!

Now that the weather has warmed up, for what looks to be permanent until October or November, we started the search for bicycles that we can ride at least to and from work and maybe even farther.  We had been looking on Craigslist for the past couple weeks but never came up with anything available in our price range so we decided to start looking at bike shops.  There is one right across the street from the school we work at so tonight after work we went over there, picked up a couple bikes for ourselves and joined the millions of other Seoul bike riders and walkers on the sidewalk.  They are both brand new and the guy was nice enough to even include locks for us.  We are pretty excited to start riding our bikes and saving money by not paying for the bus twice a day (except during monsoon season because we will not be riding during the monsoons!).  Just riding to and from work five days a week for both of us will save us about $60 a month.  Not to mention how much we are already saving by not paying for gas!  Tonight our bikes are locked up outside the apartment building but not before we brought them inside to take a picture :)

 

Sunshine in Seoul

It was absolutely perfect weather this weekend.  Saturday and Sunday were both in the high 60's, the sun was out and you didn't even need a sweatshirt in the sun.  The weather made for some great picture taking along the Han River.  I decided to check out the cherry blossom festival that was happening this weekend at Yeouido Park, right on the river.  Although the cherry blossoms were very nice, the park was even nicer.  At the park you could rent bikes, jetskies and paddle boats, go on a cruise around the river, cool off in the water fountain, have a kimbap and kimchi picnic lunch, look at the flowers, or simply take a walk along the river.  Since Eric thought all I would be doing was looking at little flowers on a tree, he opted to check out a western food market instead, even after one of the Korean teachers at work told him he was a "bad husband" if he didn't go with me since "in Korea wife makes schedule, husband follow!"  So while he found some certain foods we had been wishing for (like real taco chips and real salsa!), I walked along the river admiring the skyline on the other side and the flowers, definitely a place we will both have to go back to.  After our respective outings we met up (you realize how convenient a cell phone is when you want to meet someone in a subway station!) and decided to try TGI Fridays for an early dinner before our Costco trip, which you can read about in the previous post. 

Today we went to the Coex Mall, the largest underground mall in Asia.  It was basically just your standard mall, except it was underground with the subway.  Lots of different stores, a food court, etc.  We did check out the Hyundai Department Store, which appeared to be a larger (11 floors) and more expensive version of Nordstrom.  Tonight is another clear night with a beautiful view of the skyline from the rooftop of our apartment.  It is supposed to stay warm this week and hopefully for longer.  Spring appears to be a beautiful time of year here!  We plan to enjoy it while it's here!

Pictures from this weekend are being uploaded to our pictures site right now (eandskoreapictures.shutterfly.com).  Anything that doesn't get uploaded tonight will in the next day or so!

Our street on a sunny, spring day

Costco in Korea

Yes we went searching for Costco tonight and yes US memberships work here.  Costco in Seoul is two stories.  The ground floor has all of the non-food items, many of which had some of the same brands you can find at home (though for a higher cost).  The second floor (or actually the basement) is where the food is.  Food like Tillamook cheese and rotisserie chicken and Costco cake and Skippy peanut butter!  No we didn’t buy any of that this time.  We also didn’t buy any boiled octopus, squid or dried fish.  But we did take advantage of some Costco muffins, oreos and a few other goodies, along with enough dish soap to last us the rest of the year.  It was nice that this Costco seemed very appealing to both westerners and Koreans alike.  We could find many of the same things that we could find at home, while also be able to find Korean foods.  The frozen section seemed smaller and the seafood and meat section much bigger.  But they still had samples! 

As we were about to get in line an older Korean lady came up to us and asked (in English) if we could help her buy something because she didn’t have a membership.  She went on to explain that she had been waiting for her friend to come for over an hour and had just found out her friend wouldn’t be able to come at all.  All she wanted was some salad dressing.  So we said sure, she gave us the money and we went to check out.  She insisted on unloading most of our cart at the register and then insisted on pushing our cart all the way back up to the main floor and outside which is when she thanked us profusely once again and left with her salad dressing.   

I’m not sure we have ever really experienced so many nice strangers since we came here.  We also continue to experience many blessings.  We were unaware of the fact that the Costco here takes only cash or American Express, not debit cards.  For the second time in just a couple of weeks we had EXACTLY enough cash to pay for what we bought when we couldn’t use a card as expected.  Tonight we viewed the area around us from the rooftop of our apartment building.  In some ways the skyline is not nearly as beautiful as a place like New York City.  Most of the buildings are simple, concrete buildings.  But when you get eleven floors up on a gorgeous spring night and look across the river, it's very, very beautiful.  We continue to be amazed at all the experiences we have been given.  We know they are just beginning.  

 Here it is!

 Eric wanted you to know they had a BIG thing of cheese balls.

 This is our city.  Our home for ten and a half more months.  We both love it so much more than we ever could have imagined.

 

 

I also checked out a cherry blossom festival today... more pictures coming soon!

Happy Easter!

We wanted to take a minute to wish everyone a very happy Easter!  It's hard to know it even is Easter here.  Unlike home where the Easter candy has been in the stores since February 15th, here there is no Easter candy to be found, no plastic eggs and no churches advertising their Easter services.  Maybe it's because the country is predominately Buddhist or maybe it's because they just don't commercialize every single holiday the way America does.

After a more lazy Saturday spent at an English bookstore looking for books that can teach us Korean, testing out Korean Taco Bell, another stop at Traveler's Bar & Grill and a lot of subway riding, we spent our Easter Sunday afternoon at Seoul Children's Grand Park.  It was a beautiful, warm, spring day and we enjoyed the time outside.  Although the park has many activities for children, there was still plenty to see and do for adults as well.  We spent our time walking through the zoo seeing the elephants, lions, monkeys, birds, etc. and the botanical garden.   We also tested out the new baseball gloves we bought, playing catch down by the river.  We may not be too good yet, but we did manage to keep the ball out of the river!  Our Easter dinner consisted of our usual cooking- pork cutlet and ramen noodle with veggies and dumplings soup.  We have become pretty good at cooking in our small kitchen (which also serves as the laundry room and bathroom sink) and almost feel like real Koreans with our meat and noodles every night!  (We leave out the kimchi.  Having it once in a while at school or a restaurant is plenty.)

Tomorrow it's back to work for another week but this time it's the week of our first payday :)  The internet is not cooperating with uploading pictures so please check out our pictures site in the next day or so to see all the new ones!

Traveler's Bar & Grill

Last night we finally found "the menu you've been waiting for."  That's what the front of the menu at Traveler's Bar & Grill said and it was sure true!  One of the teacher's at the school had told us about the restaurant and we decided we finally needed to check it out.  The restaurant was started by a Canadian who originally came to South Korea to teach and ended up marrying a Korean and starting a restaurant with an all American/western menu.  Let's just say it was delicious.  Probably not Red Robin delicious but satisfying all the same.  Aside from the smoking in the restaurant it almost felt like home too since the only people in the place were foreigners speaking English just like us.  Well except for the people that were working there.  The chicken sandwich that I had and the burger that Eric had were very tasty for being the first American meal we have had in over a month now.  Korean food is good too.  But we can't help craving a burger and fries once in a while :)

On Friday we took our kindergartners on a field trip to a Chinese restaurant: China Factory.  The kids got to cut out Chinese sugar cookies, color masks and eat Chinese food.  It was nice to do something different with them for a day and the Chinese food was pretty good too.

Today we ended up at Gyeonbokgung Palace.  Another palace of the Joseon Dynasty that ruled the Korean peninsula from 1392 to 1897.  The Joseon Dynasty built five different palaces in Seoul and they all look pretty much the same but the architecture is still interesting to look at.

For those of you that don't know we have started adding all of the pictures we take to a website: eandskoreapictures.shutterfly.com  Check it out to see all the pictures we have taken here!

 Field trip to China Factory

 Gyeonbokgung Palace

 It was all so good!