WELL it wasn't quite sunday as I expected but us teachers are busy people you know! (especially when you're given assesments to write, not something you really need to be doing while entertaining visitors)
Despite the rude interuptions of work throughout the week as I mentioned in my last blog me and my mum have been having a fabulous time together, getting out and doing plenty and hopefully showing her that I am looking after myself well! It's strange to think that she has almost been here for a week already and I will definately miss her when she has gone but at the moment it's great to have some company and somebody to share the wonderful experience of Korea with.
I think/hope that she is not only enjoying seeing her son but also having a fantastic time, we did some good stuff over the weekend and I definately think that Korea has surprised her. I know that she probably needed the excuse of me being here to come over to this part of the world but I definately think that she is loving how surprising Korea can be and who knows if I ever decide to go to another slightly offbeat destination for work or pleasure, I know I will have at least one visitor.
After our long walk on friday both of our feet were aching pretty badly but as this was the only weekend she was going to be in town I promised that whatever the pain we would visit Seoul this weekend as who knows if she will ever have the chance to again. Saturday was a pretty hot day so we decided to get up pretty early and head to the palace at Jungno-3 in Seoul. It's the one that the four of us tried to get to last week but was closed.
Thankfully this time around the palace was open and following the points the guide map directed us to we walked around the lovely grounds of a fantastic palace. Mum took plenty of pictures and she was surprised to see how beautiful the architecture of some of the buildings was. Despite the fact that there are palaces around almost every corner in many parts of Korea it was only the second time I had been into a royal structure, the first being at Hwaseong Fortress and the second was the one at the City Hall in Seoul which wasn't quite as impressive.
I'm glad to report though that this one was fantastic and it was very big so took us about an hour and a half to walk round. By this time (as we met at 11am) my mum, who had initially rejected my offer of getting diner, decided that she was hungry so we decided to head to Dongdemun as I said I would take her there to walk around and buy some presents for people anyway.
Dongdemun is actually another of the spots we hit last week with Shaun but this time me and my mum walked through the shopping centre rather than the underground market. We headed up to the top floor to get some dinner before heading to the souvenir level which showed me for the first time that Korea does actually sell momentos of your time here. Not many postcards. But still there were some decent gifts which I will be purchasing for myself and other people back home when I return.
Mum wanted to buy some clothes, or at least see what they had so we headed to the underground section of the shops where she was surprised to discover the truth about how much Korean's love shopping! After a few hours spent in there we decided to head back to Suwon for some much needed rest and we ended up hanging around at my place until Charlie and Kevin came back from the movies where they had been to see public enemies.
Charlie had been mentioning a potential BBQ and after Shaun had brought him some traditional South Carolina BBQ sauce he decided to go ahead and test it out. Managing to light the cooker without blowing ourselves up we hooked my ipod speakers outside and spent the next hour cooking chicken, making baked potatoes and then enjoying a delicious meal. Whilst we were eating some fireworks started going off in the neighbourhood which was kinda cool although we didn't know where they were coming from until I went up on the Talkster roof and discovered that they were infact coming from the fortress.
Whilst we were outside enjoying the fireworks a local man who Charlie later described as being 'hateful' started shouting at us, Charlie paticularily, for no reason what so ever. He was pointing at the school and we think he was trying to communicate with us in Korean and then when we looked at him blankly he started asking why we didn't speak any Korean. If he's reading this (on the off chance!) WE DON'T UNDERSTAND KOREAN! SORRY!
My mum got off safely home and after a good night's sleep we met up again the next morning to take on Seoul Tower. For those of you who are ill informed (like me) Seoul Tower is probably the one outstanding landmark in the country and even though you might not have a clue what I am talking about, trust me if you saw a picture you'd be like 'ahhhh I know what you mean now Ben'
I'm surprised it's taken me so long to get there to be honest as I am a bit of a landmark lover but I think the wait was definately worth it. Aside from knowing which stop to get off at I didn't really know very much about how you get up to the tower as I know from looking at pictures that it's up in the mountains. As it turns out you walk up this windey little hill before eventually being presented with the choice of a walk in the 90F sun or a cable car. And even though my mum doesn't like heights she made the wise choice of taking the motorised option.
So after being crammed into a cable car together you ride up into the mountains to find the 'plaza' level of Seoul Tower. Once you've brought a ticket you're good to do and ascending up the however many feet in an elevator you eventually get to the observation deck, from which you can basically get a brilliant view of the whole city and beyond. On the top level of the deck there are windows placed all the way round the outside to give you a 360 degree view of the city and also there are places listed in the windows with how many KM they are from your location in the tower.
North Korea is only about 300KM away with Argentina being a little further at just over 14,000 KM. Rather strangely they also had the South Pole listed on the window which incase you wondered was just 12,000KM away. After a good walk round and a look out of each window we headed to the next viewing point which tells you wnat you can see in Seoul through each of the windows. Back on the plaza level you can walk round and see the view of the city without looking through grubby windows which is kinda cool and then we decided to make our way down and back to the bottom of the hill (which we walked) and to get some dinner.
Eager for some more adventuring I suggested we head to the Korean War Memorial which is in Samjagki just a few stops down the line so we jumped on a train and went there. Although we didn't actually go in the memorial we saw plenty looking around at that they had in the gardens, including a huge memorial to the fallen soldiers of the conflict and also a map of the country before and after the war. In the further past or the area that you could walk to they head models of several planes that were used in the Korean war along with tanks and submaries. On the opposite side they had several statues which were built which signify the end of the war and also one which depicts the hope that Korea are reunited someday.
Pretty cool stuff I'm sure you'll agree.
The pair of us headed back to Hwaseo for another rest for the evening and planned to go and get some tea before my mum headed back to the hotel and I trudged home to work out what I planned to do today in class.
So that was our packed weekend! It's much more fun having people around and venturing out into Seoul I have decided! There's so much to see there and all it takes it a little reading of the book I brought about Korea and some wonders can be found! After class today I met up with my mum to go and get myself a new pair of glasses. Discovering that they cost 70,000 won (about £35) mum decided she's going to go there tomorrow and get herself a pair.
For dinner I introduced my mum to some Dak Galbi which she enjoyed and we stopped in at Baskin' Robbins at the way home to get some ice cream so even though it was only a couple of hours we spent together today it was action packed too! Not sure what we have planned for tomorrow but my mum is heading to the Korean Folk Village tomorrow after she's picked up her glasses and then we might walk the rest of the fortress wall!
No comments:
Post a Comment