On friday after work the pair of us took a trip to Homeplus as I needed to buy myself a few things and having spent almost every day in my room after work I thought we'd spend sometime looking around the supermarket.
We had the usual meal with Kevin, Charlie and Haji on friday and we were joined by a new friend who Kevin and Charlie had met during the week named Angeline. She's only been in Korea for a couple of weeks and was keen to meet some new foreigners so they invited her to dinner with us. The three of them headed to Now Bar in the evening whilst we decided to get an early night so we could take on a new area of Seoul the following day.
Waking up on Saturday we took the subway towards Seoul and stopped off at a stop called Yeongdungpo which is on the way to where the 63 Building is located. We had to change trains at that station so we decided to pick up some lunch there. Unfortunately after travelling through an underground shopping centre and up nine floors in a depertement store the only option we had for food was to go to Lotteria....
Considering the poor experience I'd had there the last time and coming close to 'obiteing' at the zoo, I decided to stick with some chicken rather than going for a burger smothered in fourteen types of different sources.
The food was actually surprisngly nice (perhaps it was just because I was starving) but I don't think it's enough to make me change my mind and becomming a Lotteria regular.
After our pitstop we got back on the train and headed back towards Yeongou, which is a subway stop on the water, and the easiest way to get to the 63 Building.
Much to our surprise when we came out of the station, in front of us on the banks of the river Han was a beautiful and picturesque park which is totally a surprise when you've been in Korea as long as I have. On a beautiful day there were plenty of people flying kites and riding bikes around the specially set up paths. Walking a bit further towards the building there was a section of water which was specially set up for riding swan boats around and there were also a few people doing water skiing too.
Finally arriving at building we walked around the bottom floor to discover there was a surprising amount of things to do. The 63 Building is Korea's first and only skyscraper and although many of it's 60 floors are used for conferences and used as meeting rooms the bottom couple of floors are dedicated to tourist attractions. We brought a ticket which allowed us to spend the whole afternoon there and for 38,000 won (£19) it wasn't bad at all.
The first of four things we spent the afternoon was in the Sea World Aquarium which was on the bottom floor. The aquarium isn't that large but it had quite a lot of things to look at and see which you don't see in other aquariums. The first attraction which was obviously quite pleasing for me was a tank with penguins in. There were actually a few people in the tank with them as it was feeding time.
As you can probably imagine there were a ton of fish to look at, different types to the ones you usually see as most of there are native to Asia but they also had some rather cool otters in a tank which were extremely hyperactive. They had a little tank set up for them whic went all the way round the room and they spent plenty of time entertaining themselves by running around and showing off their swimming skills.
Further on there were people feeding Seals, some people swimming around a tank with fish and rather strangely there was also a section of the aquarium with reptiles in. Make of that what you will....
Towards the end of the aquarium just before we were on our way out there was a few tanks which were labelled Dr. Fish. There's actually a place in Suwon Station where you an go which is like a spa. You basically take your shoes off and dip them in a swimming pool of water filled with fish. I'm not entirely sure what kind of fish these small creatures are but for some reason they eat the dead skin off the bottom of your feet. Well in this tank they had some small gaps where you could stick your fingers in and they would do the same.
It was an extremely strange sensation as we picked a tank with some of the bigger fish in so you could actually feel the tingle as they were tickling away at your fingers. It was pretty awesome really though I'm not too sure I'll be dipping my feet in a big tank of them anytime soon.
When we'd finished with the aquarium, we headed up te 60 floors to the Sky Art Observatory which we were soon to discover was not only a place with some ridiculous views but it was also an art gallery. Aimie wasn't a massive fan of going up in the lift, and it became an even less popular way of travelling when she discovered that it was actually a glass lift on the outside of the building. Ever since going up te Eiffel Tower, I've never been a massive fan of heights but I was actually OK with it and was paticularily looking forward to seeing the view which I knew was going to be spectacular.
I wasn't wrong as when I got up there you were given a panoramic tour all the way around the building and as good as the view was from Seoul Tower, these views might have been even better as we were in the middle of the city and could see everything around us.We walked around the art gallery and continued to look at the great views before heading back down in the lift just in time for our IMAX movie to start.
We were given English headsets (thankfully) for a movie called 'Animalopolis'. It wasn't the same as usual IMAX movies as this one didn't involve a lot of movement of the cinema confusing your senses but it was pretty interesting all the same. It lasted about thirty minutes before we were able to travel to our final port of call which was the 63 Wax Museum.
Even though it was a faux version of Madame Tussauds it was still pretty interesting to walk round as they had some different statues to ones you might expect. Sadly there weren't any waxworks of Kim Jong-Il but there was one of Che Guevara, the communist leader and also Chairman Mao who was the man responsible for making China communist back in the 1700's. As we walked around there were statues of the usual famous people you might expect including David Beckham, Tiger Woods and Maralyn Monroe but they also had statues of Batman, Spiderman and strangely a mock up of the Last Supper!
I took some good pictures which you'll be able to take a look at in the usual place.
Tired after treking up and down Seoul all day we decided to head back to Suwon which took about an hour and a half. By the time we got home we were both pretty hungry so decided to get a pizza on the way home.
I discovered at about 12am via email that I had a game of football to be playing in on Sunday morning so after picking up some much needed rest I headed out to Yeongtong to play in my first game in two weeks which was made even harder going by the fact that I got a dead leg and a dead back within the first ten minutes. Thankfully the team we were playing weren't too great and we managed to stuff them 5-1.
Back in Hwaseo me and Aimie decided to take a trip out in the afternoon and we headed up to the top of the fortress wall which is just down the road from where I live. Aimie has only walked around a tiny but of the wall so I wanted her to be able to see the fantastic view from the highest point of the wall during the way.
After the wall we headed back home and made ourselves some dinner before watching a DVD and spending some time talking to my mum.
Well it's been another fun packed weekend with plenty of enjoyment and I'm pretty sure the pair of us will be worn out tomorrow morning when we get up.
Just as a slight side note, today is officially the 6th month anniversary of me arriving in Korea. I feel like I have now reached the peak of my Korean mountain adventure and as it's gone so quickly I'm hoping that I might be able to get down the otherside as easily as I seemed to have climbed up it!
It's been a fun 6 months so far and I really hope that the next half year can be as enjoyable. I guess it's going to a bit different as not everything is as fresh as it once was but with Christmas, My Birthday and no more visitors to spend time with here it's going to be a totally different experience.
Hopefully you've enjoyed reading about my adventures over the last six months, and the next few will be just as interesting for you to follow! Stay tuned....
OK folks, time to leave it for the time being, time to get refreshed for tomorrow morning.
Ben
The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.
Eleanor Roosavelt
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