Seoul Mates: Day 2 of 5

02 February 2012 - Thursday

Today Groundhog Phil saw his shadow and deemed that there would be 6 more weeks of Winter. That was an understatement.

We woke up to the coldest February in almost 65 years or since 1957; whichever source you believe, it was still -12/-16 degrees Celcius or single digits in Fahrenheit. Of course, we didn't know this when we woke up. Learning from Wednesday's chilly evening, we bundled up to brave the cold and headed out for our historical-cultural, 100% outdoor tour of Seoul.

Our first stop was the Lunar New Year Event at Namsangol Hanok Village in Chungmuro. We arrived early, so we wandered around in the untrodden snow.

Michele's 1st time in snow. wheeeeeeee~!!

Just one of many candid photos of Michele fascinated by the snow.

We made snow angels! Neither of us had made them before, so this was a fun experience.

Did I mention that it's -12 degrees Celcius outside? Our fingers could barely move to take pictures and our toes were searing in pain at this point. 

We decided to wait, warm up, and get breakfast at non other than a Paris Baguette. The bakery is very common in South Korea, much like 7-Eleven in America. They have little pastries and buns, so we grabbed some with coffee and thawed off.

According to the Tourist Information Center, the Lunar New Year Event was going to be on Saturday. I double-checked on my phone; the website definitely said Thursday. So much for that! Next stop: Gyeongbokgung Palace.

Michele rubbing her toes because they're numb & painful from the cold.

Gyeongbokgung Palace was bigger than I remembered when I visited in August during orientation. It was just as sunny, but frigidly cold instead of sweat-inducingly humid.

Greetings from the entrance of Gyeongbokgung Palace

I wish Chong Tours could give guests a historical background for every place that we visited, but it was better left to our imaginations. In other words, I have no concept of the historical significance of this Palace, but we knew that it was really, really important.

♥

A Palace right smack dab in the middle of the city.

getting artsy

Chongarazzi took some sneaky photos of Michele

Little did I know that she took some paparazzi photos of me ...

Me: Michele, start running around!

The grounds of the Palace went on FOREVER. We even stopped at a cafe just to sit down and regain feeling in our extremities and to mitigate the pain.

We discovered a more commercial area with Lunar New Year tents, displays, and hey -- free samples!

Some sort of traditional rice cake with peanuts & pine nuts.
We were starving, and it tasted delicious.

We look uncomfortable because:
1.) it's sunny 2.)  we're hungry 3.) it's so damn cold

In order to snag a sample of a traditional eggplant side dish, we needed to be filmed saying "delicious!" to this random dude with a camera. Michele said it in Japanese. The guy was not impressed by her language ability   =|

Year of the Snake

Also Year of the Snake

We were in a bit of a time crunch to get to our next destination, so we made moves.  We left Gyeongbokgung Palace through a different exit because after all of that walking, I wasn't going to trek back in the cold to where we began. As a result, we walked around aimlessly in the cold looking for the nearest subway exit, which was no where to be found.

COLD + TIRED + HUNGRY + LOST = this picture

We decided to postpone our tour of Seodaemun Prison. The place would soon be closed, and we still hadn't eaten lunch yet. We walked into this hole-in-the-wall ramyeon restaurant and ate some of the spiciest ramyeon's that I've ever had. If today was the coldest February day, then this was inversely the hottest food.

Spicy Ramyeon (람연)

Cheese Kimbap (치즈 김밥)

So we took a detour from our original plan and decided to hit up Dongdaemun Market for a bit of indoor bargain shopping.

For dinner, I was adamant about locating this soon dubu jjigae / stew (순두부 찌개) restaurant in Sinchon recommended by lonelyplanet.com, but it was nearly impossible to find. No, it was 100% impossible to find. We didn't find it. Instead, we walked into a random restaurant that served 순두부 찌개. While it looked good, I have definitely had way better in Korea (and America). Nothing special here.

Crab  순두부 찌개 

Tomorrow we would catch up with the itinerary and visit Seodaemun Prison followed by more bargain shopping in Hoehyeon.

Chong Tours is Going Global

And another month gone, and another month gone, and another one bites the dust.

Today was my last day of teaching before my mini vacation began. Not many kids have attended class since the New Year rolled around. The number of students has slowly decreased to a trickle. My most populous class of ~14 students has only seen two kids this week. Classes have been chill. We just played a review game similar to Jeopardy that I made up on the fly. I really impress myself sometimes.

Michele is flying out from Kyoto tomorrow, and we're going to spend 5 glorious days exploring Seoul and making up for lost time. We haven't seen each other since we graduated from Oxy in May 2011! We've been diligently planning our trip via Google Docs. The guesthouse has been reserved in Hongdae. An evening show has been booked. Spa reservations have been made. A detailed itinerary broken down by time slots and turn-by-turn directions has been printed. Twice. We're going to N Seoul Tower, Seodaemun Prison, Namsangol Hanok Village, Namdaemun Market, Gyeongbokgung Palace. Like I said, it's going to be glorious. Chong Tours is back and going global.

It snowed again last week. I can't get over how white everything is under a blanket of fresh snow.

Behind my apartment

10am on a Saturday morning.
I was walking my friend's dog (Lucky), while she's away for the weekend  :)
He was rescued from the streets of Mokpo!

"The Longest Road"
Tribute to the song by Morgan Page

"The Longest Road" by Morgan Page feat. Lissie

(Deadmau5 Remix)

The playground at Daebul Elementary School.
The ground is brown & dusty in the Summer and just plain brown every time else.

VIDEO: Snow Day in Mokpo whoooosh~

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I met up with a bunch of people from my province over the past two weekends. 

Fun times in Gwangju (광주)!

Potstickers with Shirley for the Lunar New Year

Chinese food, Korean style

Shirley & I bought $10 worth of candy each from the Weeny Beeny
and "snuck" it into Mission:Impossible - Ghost Protocol.
We knew foreign candy was expensive, but not THAT expensive.
We were shocked for sure when they rang up our bills at the counter.
But hey, the candy was delicious!
And the movie? Well after living in the boonies for 6 months, those special effects were that much cooler.

Sticker pictures!!!!

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Went back to Gwangju (광주) this weekend to celebrate a friend's birthday and chill.

$7 Brunch at First Alley Way:
buttered toast, scrambled eggs, seasoned potatoes, & bacon
The food was delicious. I'm definitely going back again.

SNOW DAY!

BEST DAY EVER! Spent the last 2 classes playing outside in the snow instead of teaching. Got into my first snowball fight, and it was SO MUCH FUN. The kids ganged up and got snow all over me....But I didn't care because I haven't seen snow before, so it was really cool! And it feels so fulfilling to make a snowball and pummel a kid right in the back or the leg bahaha. I guess it's worth getting chilblains after all!

Snowing! View from my classroom

SNOWBALL FIGHT!

The snow is still falling. It's neat to see the little flurries get swept up in the wind or just flutter down to the ground. Rain never does that because it's so dense. So cool!

Let It Snow

It's snowing today! Last time there were just flurries, but this time it is actually piling up on the ground and on top of cars. I woke up to the sound of many sirens, one right after the other. That's what you get when you confront Korean drivers with snow.

View from my street

View from the bus stop

Up the path to Daebul

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Got bored and made some no-bake treats from corn flakes and marshmallow fluff. Then drizzled some chocolate and multicolored sprinkles on top. They taste like rice krispy treats. I'm thinking about making a batch for the teachers next week and maybe for my 5th graders because they were perfect during my Open Class.

Made some individual "cookies"

Also made a tray, but when I tried to cut it, the knife went *chink*
It's too hard to cut, so I have to snap it into pieces.

Food Network fantasies

My laptop is back in the hands of the Dell Service Center in Mokpo. I was still getting blue screens and blank screens, so the same technician came back and picked it up. I should be getting it back next week.

I have diagnosed myself with a seasonal disability. It is called chilblains. According to Wikipedia, chilblains are a medical condition that cause swollen, itchy ulcers when extremities are exposed to cold and humidity. Two of my toes look and feel like they were bitten by mosquitoes, but that is impossible because I wear socks 98% of the time. Cold weather sucks.