We had a snowy day a while ago and campus was really pretty in the morning.
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| I decided to find a different path down the hill. |
This Saturday my Crime class met in Seoul to make up for a class period we will miss later in the semester. There are numerous ways to get to the city from where we are. Buses run, and we are at the last stop on one of the Seoul subway lines. From a subway stop not far away you can catch an express train that will skip most of the smaller stops or the high speed KTX (K, Thanks) trains. Jun and I took the subway in, a two and a half hour trip. It was nice having a Seoul native with me to explain the system, but I think that now I could navigate pretty well on my own. Actually, I did get us home without a hitch, so I guess I can!
Before we left we stopped by a pillow fight organized on facebook.
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| Fluffy Seppuku |
We met up with one of Jun's high school friends and had 남겹살 (sam-gyup-sal) for dinner. 남겹살 is thick slices of pork belly (basically uncured bacon) brought out to the table raw so that the diners can grill it themselves. The traditional way to eat it is to lay the cooked meat on a leaf of lettuce and put on whatever sides you want, sauces, onions, garlic, rice, kimchi, etc. Then you fold up your lettuce and eat the whole thing in one bite! After dinner we found the 찜질방 (jjim-jil-bang) where most of us spent the night. A 찜질방 is a popular type of public bath house. Jun's friend headed home and we killed time in a bar waiting for our classmates to show up.
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| Favorite beer from London Underground, but they only had the sign :( |
At the 찜질방 you are given a key to a pair of lockers, one for shoes (mine were almost too big) and another for your clothes and anything else you have with you. After stripping naked you go take a shower and then spend as long as you want in pools of varying temperatures (cold, hot, and hotter) or wet or dry sauna rooms. Afterward you can spend 1000W if you want to borrow clothes and spend the night. I should have brought earplugs though, everybody just sleeps in a big room so there's lots of snoring, whispering, and people moving around. Between that and the hard floors I didn't sleep too well.
On Saturday we were set to meet at Emart (3 story department store/grocery/food court) at 1130, but Dr. Oh was a little late. He finally came with a group of military students from Thailand who are studying here in Korea. We ate lunch, then spent some time wandering the store. I found a new wireless keyboard that has Hangul characters on the keys allowing me to type in Korean! (hence the fancy letters you see in this post) After Emart we walked along the Han River that flows through the city. We came to the an outdoor market and a small indoor art gallery. The art gallery was connected to a subway station where we began our journey home.
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| I wasn't the only one tired of shopping |
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| Jun/Nixon |
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| Thai Ninja |
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| The gallery is in the raised tube-like structure. |
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| Reminded me of some of the Prague statues. |
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| There's an ISU Station! |
On one of our transfer stations we said "안녕하세요" (formal hello) to an old man behind us on the platform. It turned out that he was studying English because
his son had recently moved to Canada and he wanted to be able to talk to his future grandchildren. Our train was literally packed, I would have a picture but I wasn't able to reach my camera. We found out from our new friend that there had been horse races at one of the stops nearby and that that was where the crowd was from.
On Sunday I went for another hike with my friends. I brought my camera and took some more pictures of the scenery around our campus.
