pretend this all happened a day ago! :D? :(
Yeah okay so I suck at the internet lately. ONE OF MY MANY CHARMS yeah.
Look here's a post about my trip to Korea only a month after it actually happened! I've been busy. sort of. not really. I slept for 11 hours last night. :(
None of them really contain me though because lol photos.
We turned up at Incheon airport and thank god we'd booked a taxi with the guesthouse we were at because lol MASSIVE CITY IS MASSIVE. I don't really know what I'd expected from Seoul apart from maybe shit being thrown at people to make them famous but massive cities always overwhelm and delight me. Apart from if they're Sydney. Sydney >:(
THIS IS WHERE WE STAYED FOR THE FIRST WEEK IT WAS AMAZING. And y that is pretty much the whole room right there. It was pretty tiny but it actually ended up being our favourite room simply because we had loads of privacy to be massive idiots and cable to get stupid at and take photos of Epik High and Suju on the telly (lol D:) and a lovely family who lived next door who were lovely. Also it was in an awesome area with an awesome kimbap place nearby where they filmed an episode of Tazza, with a guy who always looked so ~*~intense~*~ about making his kimbap. We loved him. I think we got really drunk one night and waved enthusiastically as we walked by, but he didn't look up. He was making his kimbap.
ANYWAY man I've lost count of the amount of times we got lost in Seoul alone. I think on our very first proper day we got lost for 4 hours because we got off the subway at Euljiro 3-ga instead of Jongro 3-ga and looked at textiles for a while before running into Cheonggyechong.
These photos all seem to be all over the place, I've no idea how to ramble about things properly.
CHEONGGYECHONG!
Our first night there one of my most awesome and loveliest friends ever ♥♥♥ who I miss so much and who first started teaching me Korean took us out for dinner. I'm really glad she did too, since she pretty much made all my nervousness about talking to people disappear. Heeya's one of those people who will just push you at others and say "NOW ASK THEM FOR DIRECTIONS IN KOREAN :D :D :D" The last night we were there, we all got lost and she kept throwing me at people to ask how to get to the train station, it was lolarious. We also got to meet her family and her mum's just the same. I overheard Heeya telling her mum to speak slowly to us after she'd asked a rapid-fire question and we'd just stared stupidly, only to have her ask again at exactly the same speed and grin at us like crazy and oh man it was so awesome. :D
This was our fridge with a massive amount of Bon Bon. GOD I LOVE BON BON IT'S SUCH AN EPIC AMOUNT OF GRAPE.
I loved Myeongdong. I think we ended up going there about 3 or 4 times. I bought a monkey hat *___* MAYBE ONE DAY I WILL CAMWHOAR IT IDK &monkey hat;
ALSO WE WENT TO KKACHISAN which is pretty much stop 1 of places-tourist-really-don't-just-go that we went to (we also went to Mokpo and Paju, places that really don't get foreign tourists BUT MOKPO IS AWESOME), because our friend Kyuseob is an English teacher at a hagwon there. We sat in on a few lessons with him and I never actually thought I'd enjoy teaching English but MY GODS DID I LOVE IT.
those are the high school students and Kyuseob on the right. At one point he tried to tell them that "fuck isn't a swear word if you just say it amongst friends amirite :D?" We eventually gave him a swear list because he was so fascinated by English swear words, but that just resulted in him pulling it out at the pub when we were poking fun at him and him rattling off a string of "holy shit fuck what the hell" at varying levels of speed. He is also the VAINEST PERSON ALIVE. We ended up calling him Peacock and came back from Andong with a peacock pocket mirror for him BECAUSE. SERIOUSLY. The man would stop at every mirror and fix his hair and then panic if anyone got near it. I miss him, he's hilarious and actualfax awesome.
oh yeah here is the name of the pub we went to:
"I'm beginning to love you. Shit!"
and a MASSIVE BEER. SO MASSIVE :9
We also went mountain climbing, up Inwangsan which was amaaazing. It was gorgeous and serene up there and I cried a little at Sonbawi which is a bit Buddhist rock idky I'm not religious in the slightest, I think the atmosphere was just that beautiful. I also cried a bit at Bongjeongsa I just like peaceful things okay. I sprained my ankle while we were going up the mountain but whatever. MOUNTAIN CLIMBING IS SO MUCH MORE IMPORTANT THAN ANKLES.
And we met Hue's friends who spoke not a word of English, and basically went up Namsan and failed around in Korean with them for a day which was fantastically awesome. They also bought us bundaegi, which is silk worm larvae.
IT IS ACTUALLY NOT TERRIBLE I SWEAR. It tastes like weirdly refreshing meat and wood, which I tried to tell Songho but I suspect this isn't the overwhelming view of people because he just stared at me for a bit. Whatever, it totally does. We were meant to go drinking with them all, but one of the guys, Joonyeong, decided to eat bundaegi even though he has an allergy and ended up having to go to the doctors. His poor swollen face, and yet it was hilarious.
AND THEN WE WENT TO MOKPO.
YAAAAAY MOKPO.
Mokpo did mess with my asthma a little (Seoul and Andong didn't at all) which I'd been warned about before going, so that kind of sucked a bit. Other than that, it was awesome. We had a whole basketball team staying at the hotel with us, along with the strange half-naked exhibitionist guys down the hall, and sososo many people were just lovely. We had probably half a conversation with someone in English; that was it, the rest was total Korean with no friends to lean on and it was awesome. I talked to a nice old man about where we were from, that we were walking a ridiculously long way to see something, and why weren't we wearing hats, it's hot out? &that guy; Also we ate hoe (raw fish platter) which included a still-moving octopus, so I had like a tiny part of a tentacle and freaked out that it was strangling me. I'm squeamish with seafood. :(
LOOK AT IT AAAAAH NO
We climbed Yudalsan whilst in Mokpo and this time Cassie fell over in the dirt and didn't sprain anything and I laughed. AHAHAHA mountains.
Then we went to Andong which, whilst it was lovely, was also a bit strangely touristy, I guess. It also seemed so much smaller than Mokpo (which is tiny so I don't know) and things were so spaced apart, we had trouble getting to places because we kept having to time visits and things. It was still lovely, and we got to see things like Jebiwon (a massive Buddha statue carved in the 11th century) and we stayed at the traditional folk village where again there was no English and I got to see the mask dance so that was awesome.
That's where we stayed, the Hahoe folk village. The people we stayed with were lovely but they kept feeding us this one fish meal, and these sweet potatoes. ALWAYS SWEET POTATOES to the point where we threw some in the garden because we couldn't eat them all and were scared of being rude. :( We told Heeya and she laughed at us, and then gave us more potatoes. I'm not even kidding.
And we ate jjimdak in an awesomely grafitti'd-by-kids room. And since jjimdak was the dish I'd been looking forward to trying the most, I was absolutely stoked. :DDDD It was so good. and also massive, to the point where we lay on the floor for 10 minutes feeling sorry for ourselves and then missed the bus to the soju museum entirely (which was fine because we just took a taxi instead). But man I'm pretty sure if we could have got away with rolling around Andong after that we just would have.
And then we went back to Seoul, did it all again for a week, bought these socks
YEAH
cried a little when Heeya and I said goodbye (she's hoping to come back and study next year AND IF SHE DOESN'T I WILL CUT ... SOMETHING), and then left for the airport and came home. :(
LOLOLOLOL
and now I'm back and Australia feels a bit normal after a month but still also weird, and I'm dating the guy (Hue) who's been teaching me Korean who is wonderful, but I still miss Korea a heap and my friends there and can't wait to go back again. \o/?
Also I just read Tipping the Velvet finally which was A+ and Slaughterhouse 5 which was A+++ and I have an illustrated book of Edgar Allen Poe short stories in Korean which I can't wait to actually understand.
Look here's a post about my trip to Korea only a month after it actually happened! I've been busy. sort of. not really. I slept for 11 hours last night. :(
None of them really contain me though because lol photos.
We turned up at Incheon airport and thank god we'd booked a taxi with the guesthouse we were at because lol MASSIVE CITY IS MASSIVE. I don't really know what I'd expected from Seoul apart from maybe shit being thrown at people to make them famous but massive cities always overwhelm and delight me. Apart from if they're Sydney. Sydney >:(
THIS IS WHERE WE STAYED FOR THE FIRST WEEK IT WAS AMAZING. And y that is pretty much the whole room right there. It was pretty tiny but it actually ended up being our favourite room simply because we had loads of privacy to be massive idiots and cable to get stupid at and take photos of Epik High and Suju on the telly (lol D:) and a lovely family who lived next door who were lovely. Also it was in an awesome area with an awesome kimbap place nearby where they filmed an episode of Tazza, with a guy who always looked so ~*~intense~*~ about making his kimbap. We loved him. I think we got really drunk one night and waved enthusiastically as we walked by, but he didn't look up. He was making his kimbap.
ANYWAY man I've lost count of the amount of times we got lost in Seoul alone. I think on our very first proper day we got lost for 4 hours because we got off the subway at Euljiro 3-ga instead of Jongro 3-ga and looked at textiles for a while before running into Cheonggyechong.
These photos all seem to be all over the place, I've no idea how to ramble about things properly.
CHEONGGYECHONG!
Our first night there one of my most awesome and loveliest friends ever ♥♥♥ who I miss so much and who first started teaching me Korean took us out for dinner. I'm really glad she did too, since she pretty much made all my nervousness about talking to people disappear. Heeya's one of those people who will just push you at others and say "NOW ASK THEM FOR DIRECTIONS IN KOREAN :D :D :D" The last night we were there, we all got lost and she kept throwing me at people to ask how to get to the train station, it was lolarious. We also got to meet her family and her mum's just the same. I overheard Heeya telling her mum to speak slowly to us after she'd asked a rapid-fire question and we'd just stared stupidly, only to have her ask again at exactly the same speed and grin at us like crazy and oh man it was so awesome. :D
This was our fridge with a massive amount of Bon Bon. GOD I LOVE BON BON IT'S SUCH AN EPIC AMOUNT OF GRAPE.
I loved Myeongdong. I think we ended up going there about 3 or 4 times. I bought a monkey hat *___* MAYBE ONE DAY I WILL CAMWHOAR IT IDK &monkey hat;
ALSO WE WENT TO KKACHISAN which is pretty much stop 1 of places-tourist-really-don't-just-go that we went to (we also went to Mokpo and Paju, places that really don't get foreign tourists BUT MOKPO IS AWESOME), because our friend Kyuseob is an English teacher at a hagwon there. We sat in on a few lessons with him and I never actually thought I'd enjoy teaching English but MY GODS DID I LOVE IT.
those are the high school students and Kyuseob on the right. At one point he tried to tell them that "fuck isn't a swear word if you just say it amongst friends amirite :D?" We eventually gave him a swear list because he was so fascinated by English swear words, but that just resulted in him pulling it out at the pub when we were poking fun at him and him rattling off a string of "holy shit fuck what the hell" at varying levels of speed. He is also the VAINEST PERSON ALIVE. We ended up calling him Peacock and came back from Andong with a peacock pocket mirror for him BECAUSE. SERIOUSLY. The man would stop at every mirror and fix his hair and then panic if anyone got near it. I miss him, he's hilarious and actualfax awesome.
oh yeah here is the name of the pub we went to:
"I'm beginning to love you. Shit!"
and a MASSIVE BEER. SO MASSIVE :9
We also went mountain climbing, up Inwangsan which was amaaazing. It was gorgeous and serene up there and I cried a little at Sonbawi which is a bit Buddhist rock idky I'm not religious in the slightest, I think the atmosphere was just that beautiful. I also cried a bit at Bongjeongsa I just like peaceful things okay. I sprained my ankle while we were going up the mountain but whatever. MOUNTAIN CLIMBING IS SO MUCH MORE IMPORTANT THAN ANKLES.
And we met Hue's friends who spoke not a word of English, and basically went up Namsan and failed around in Korean with them for a day which was fantastically awesome. They also bought us bundaegi, which is silk worm larvae.
IT IS ACTUALLY NOT TERRIBLE I SWEAR. It tastes like weirdly refreshing meat and wood, which I tried to tell Songho but I suspect this isn't the overwhelming view of people because he just stared at me for a bit. Whatever, it totally does. We were meant to go drinking with them all, but one of the guys, Joonyeong, decided to eat bundaegi even though he has an allergy and ended up having to go to the doctors. His poor swollen face, and yet it was hilarious.
AND THEN WE WENT TO MOKPO.
YAAAAAY MOKPO.
Mokpo did mess with my asthma a little (Seoul and Andong didn't at all) which I'd been warned about before going, so that kind of sucked a bit. Other than that, it was awesome. We had a whole basketball team staying at the hotel with us, along with the strange half-naked exhibitionist guys down the hall, and sososo many people were just lovely. We had probably half a conversation with someone in English; that was it, the rest was total Korean with no friends to lean on and it was awesome. I talked to a nice old man about where we were from, that we were walking a ridiculously long way to see something, and why weren't we wearing hats, it's hot out? &that guy; Also we ate hoe (raw fish platter) which included a still-moving octopus, so I had like a tiny part of a tentacle and freaked out that it was strangling me. I'm squeamish with seafood. :(
LOOK AT IT AAAAAH NO
We climbed Yudalsan whilst in Mokpo and this time Cassie fell over in the dirt and didn't sprain anything and I laughed. AHAHAHA mountains.
Then we went to Andong which, whilst it was lovely, was also a bit strangely touristy, I guess. It also seemed so much smaller than Mokpo (which is tiny so I don't know) and things were so spaced apart, we had trouble getting to places because we kept having to time visits and things. It was still lovely, and we got to see things like Jebiwon (a massive Buddha statue carved in the 11th century) and we stayed at the traditional folk village where again there was no English and I got to see the mask dance so that was awesome.
That's where we stayed, the Hahoe folk village. The people we stayed with were lovely but they kept feeding us this one fish meal, and these sweet potatoes. ALWAYS SWEET POTATOES to the point where we threw some in the garden because we couldn't eat them all and were scared of being rude. :( We told Heeya and she laughed at us, and then gave us more potatoes. I'm not even kidding.
And we ate jjimdak in an awesomely grafitti'd-by-kids room. And since jjimdak was the dish I'd been looking forward to trying the most, I was absolutely stoked. :DDDD It was so good. and also massive, to the point where we lay on the floor for 10 minutes feeling sorry for ourselves and then missed the bus to the soju museum entirely (which was fine because we just took a taxi instead). But man I'm pretty sure if we could have got away with rolling around Andong after that we just would have.
And then we went back to Seoul, did it all again for a week, bought these socks
YEAH
cried a little when Heeya and I said goodbye (she's hoping to come back and study next year AND IF SHE DOESN'T I WILL CUT ... SOMETHING), and then left for the airport and came home. :(
LOLOLOLOL
and now I'm back and Australia feels a bit normal after a month but still also weird, and I'm dating the guy (Hue) who's been teaching me Korean who is wonderful, but I still miss Korea a heap and my friends there and can't wait to go back again. \o/?
Also I just read Tipping the Velvet finally which was A+ and Slaughterhouse 5 which was A+++ and I have an illustrated book of Edgar Allen Poe short stories in Korean which I can't wait to actually understand.