서울에 왔어요

(The video that inspired this blog name. Cred to Isaac, Dharma, Michah, and Meghan cause I was not in this/did not do this)

A week ago, I had the pleasure of visiting Seoul. Contrary to popular American belief, Seoul is actually 2 syllables. Seo-ul. Yeah. So start pronouncing it right, 미국 사람 (Sorry, I just got a Korean keyboard and I've been wanting to use it.) Our weekend in Seoul was pretty jam-packed. I didn't take that many pictures, so the internet will be supplementing my description. Basically, this trip to Seoul was a preliminary scouting mission. All it did was make me resolve to return...and soon.

First, after arriving, we went to to Fulbright building. Here, we saw Mrs. Shim and went over our contract. She is a pretty funny woman, and her English is excellent. Although, she also is terrifying by her own right. I would not want to piss her off...

 At the Fulbright building, we also had a lovely visit from Dr. John Linton. The good doctor is a very important person in Korea. You can read all about him here. Basically, the simple explanation is that he was born in Korea, but is American as well. He defines his hometown as Jeonju and thinks of himself as Korean to an extent. He explains it way better in his interview. For us, it was a pretty surreal experience. Basically, there was this old white guy telling us very valuable information. Through everything that he said, it was obvious that he only hoped for the best for every one of us. Some of his opinions and generalizations, however, outdated or inconsistent with American standards. Because he looks like he would fit in incredibly well with my Irish-Catholic family from Texas (and speaks with the accent as well), it was hard to remember that he is more Korean than he is American. He has spent more time living here than in the US and, for that reason, his ideas seem as foreign to us as many Korean ideas. It was like an cultural optical illusion. A cultural optical illusion that spoke to us about diarrhea for 20 minutes straight.

 We were lucky enough to go to the embassy for an American barbecue. This was a sculpture outside of the building. The embassy was great. Hamburgers, hot dogs, bean dip, and a pool. Oh, and many OCT members thrown into the pool :).

 Then, the next day, it was off to the DMZ. Here is the amusement park outside of the DMZ. Since the Korean War never actually ended, just went into a stalemate, this is an amusement park right outside of...yeah...a current war? A stalemated war?

Who cares? There was a buccaneer boat that I totally would have ridden on if I had time!

 T'was a foggy day in North Korea. If you looked really far away that would be N. Korea.

 I love caution signs. The pictures are always really funny. Like this one looks like "Don't pull a Tarzan and swing from railing to railing."

 So that's North Korea. If you look very closely (and if my picture was better res) you'd be able to see the North Korean soldier looking at us. They stay there all day and take pictures of any visitors. We had to sign a contract saying we would not point or make any gesture at the North Korean soldier because they could be modified into propaganda. Our tour talked a lot about North Korean propaganda. For example, North Korea has a city within site of the DMZ. This city, though, has no people that live there. South Korea also has a village within site of the DMZ, but people actually live there. I believe they said they are paid to live there though. Also, each city has a flag. North Korea's flagpole is higher than the South Koreans, just to spite them (or something). There are fake big beautiful houses that display the wealth of North Korea. Also, the building has an extra floor because the North Koreans wanted their building to be taller than the Korean building. Please take all these comments with a grain of salt. I am only writing what they told us on our tour. Although, our tour guide did say he wonders if their obsession with height might be to compensate for something...(insert dick joke here).

There's me and North Korea. Smiling felt a littttttttle strange...hence my strange half smile. 

The blue buildings are American/Korean buildings and the white ones are North Korean. That way, they each have access to the border line.  

 The soldiers never move and stay in a ready stance. They are all trained in Taekwondo as well, in case there is a problem. These guys are way more intense than the guards at Buckingham. They looked almost fake.

 In the blue buildings, there is a table for diplomatic discussions that lies on the line. The things in the middle there are the dividing line. I was in North Korea for this photo.

 And the concrete slab also shows the dividing line. Again, in North Korea...kind of.

Cait and I trying to be soldiers and managing to take an unflattering photo instead.

After crossing the border to North Korea, where better to go than "On the Border" for Mexican food? We met our Korean language teachers to eat some fine Mexican food. Overall, I would rate this Mexican food as good as Vermont Mexican food. Although, the rice was buttery and the margarita did not have enough tequila. 

Mexican was followed by a night of 막걸리 (Makgeolli). Makgeolli is a delicious rice wine that I look forward to drinking much of in the future.

This is our Makgeolli table with our teacher at the end. After the time at the table, we cajoled a picture of his girlfriend out of him. Ah, so cute. 

And what would a night in Seoul be without a little bit of night fun. We continued our night of drinking at the NB1 hip hop club in Hongdae. Then, we tried NB2. NB2, however, looked like this:

So we didn't stay very long. 

 
When you're still hungover, Itaewon is the place to go shopping. Of course, we got helplessly lost and...yeah...but Amanda still had a chance to buy one thing. We spent 3 or 4 hours in Itaewon and found the stores for the last 40 minutes of that...Whoooops. The rest of the day, we spent in a spa. Public baths/saunas/spas are really important and common in Korea. This was the one we went to:

Dragon Healing Spa.

This is where you relax post spa experience. Side note: nothing brings friends closer than spending a few hours naked together. Many many hours naked together. So much nudity. So many korean adjumas......

Anyway, that's a basic summary of Seoul weekend! Overall, a grand spanking time!