Boryeong Mud Festival

This post will talk about a festival that happened earlier in the summer.  I didn’t have a chance to post about it back then because it happened right before going to Thailand, and I was busy getting ready for an English summer camp.  First a little background knowledge.  Before coming to Korea I found out that I was going to be living in the state that I live in now (Chungcheongnamdo).  Once I found this out I did look up the different things that happen around my home state.  I did find out about this particular festival I am going to describe in a minute and I thought it would be pretty neat to go if I have the chance.  About two days before getting on the plane I found out that I will be living in my current city (Boryeong) and that happens to be the location of this particular festival.  Once figuring that out I knew that I would be able to make it to the Boryeong Mud Festival.

This festival takes place for two weeks usually around the end of July and has been going on for fifteen years.  The reasoning behind the festival is because there is natural mud pits somewhere around my city.  This mud is nice for the skin and they compare it to the mud at the Dead Sea (I think the Dead Sea mud was better).  So this festival is held to draw attention to the mud and the health care products that go with this particular mud.  It does happen out at the beach which is about a five minute walk from my school.  The festival started on a Friday night but for that whole week leading up to the festival they were setting up the two stages and everything else that went along with the festival.  Then on Friday the South Korean Black Eagles (air force aerobatic team like the Blue Angels) were practicing it seemed like right over the school.  Plus there was music being played from the stages so the students were pretty distracted. 

The festival basically is a huge party with mud, blow up slides, music performances, Air Force Aerobatic team performances, fireworks, and more mud.  On the weekends there were a lot of foreigners out at the festival.  It was the busiest I have ever seen the beach.  Then during the week (after school I could check it out) it was mainly Koreans.  Since it is in my hometown I was able to go each day.  The first weekend was the Air Force performance and fireworks and so that was pretty neat.  We barely found a spot on the beach.  Then the second weekend it wasn’t as busy but still pretty crazy.  That weekend there were some music performances that I watched.  Plus the whole time there was free mud with paint brushes to get covered in the mud.  Of course the Sea is still right there and was the best way to wash off the mud. 

Overall it was a couple good weeks and with the festival being so close was pretty convenient.  Even though I have played in the mud before it was pretty interesting to have a festival solely for mud.  This week it has been back to school like normal.  I have the same amount of classes as before but different times to teach.  Basically it is about twenty different classes.  The level of the students range from false beginners (act like they know nothing, but in fact know some of it) up to my conversation class where the best English speakers at my school.  Still the highest students I would consider at a low middle school level compared to students in the United States.  This weekend I will be going up to Incheon.  It is right next to Seoul and is actually where the airport is located.  I will be heading up there for a 5k race.  It will be a fun run because it is a "Color Me Rad" run.  I will leave it at that and describe it in another post, but first I need to go to the run.  Attached are some pictures showing the mud festival.  I will write later.  

Beach with no Mud Festival (picture was taken yesterday) 

Still known as "mud plaza" even without the festival (picture was taken yesterday) 

Mud Festival (Taken about the same spot as picture above)

View from English room at school (Can you see the big slides where "mud plaza" is located?)

Before the actual show (picture taken from English room at school)

One of the designs they did at the Mud Festival

Over the water during the performance at Mud Festival

Summer in Korea

Summer in Korea is a different experience than I have ever had anywhere else.  For one thing it is always humid.  Not just a little humid but on average around ninety percent humidity.  The average temperature in the heat of summer (from about June to mid-August) was pretty much a steady ninety degrees Fahrenheit.  That isn’t that hot compared to Arizona, but throw in the ninety percent humidity and then it is pretty bad.  Plus air conditioning in South Korea isn’t constantly on everywhere you go.  The air conditioners here aren’t all central, but instead it is usually wall mounted air conditioners.  At school how it usually works is that during the morning no air conditioners are supposed to be turned on.  After lunch the air conditioners are allowed to be turned on.  The reasoning behind this is they are trying to save power.  I don’t know if anyone is familiar but Korea usually does do rolling blackouts to save energy.  This is especially true this year because some nuclear plants that produce the power have gone off line.  I am not sure exactly why they are no longer working but either way it has been said that there is possibility of rolling blackouts.  They are trying to avoid the whole country from losing power at once.  There haven’t been any blackouts yet, but it wouldn’t surprise me if there were some in the future.     

So over summer camp it was pretty warm.  Luckily I am out by the beach (can see it from my window now) and so that means it is a little bit cooler compared to in town.  During summer camp I did have the windows open and hoping for a breeze.  With no air conditioning in the morning sometimes the students do complain that they don’t want to learn.  I see their argument, but I am always visible hotter even if it isn’t the case.  This is because I sweat a lot easier than Koreans.  This is true for anybody from the West.  I have heard the argument that Koreans don’t have as many sweat glands as people from the West.  I don’t know how true that is but no matter what us foreigners always look hotter because of the sweat.  I am enjoying the summer weather because it isn’t too bad and bearable.  I know that the winter time will be a lot harsher to handle.  

           

Another interesting thing about summer in Korea is the constant noise.  In summer time there is a bug known as Cicadas.  These bugs could possibly live other places, but this is the first time I have heard them.  They are a bug that comes out in the summer to mate.  They are only out during the warmest months.  I have never seen the bug because they are high up in the trees and don’t bug people like a mosquito or fly would.  They simply make noise all day long (usually stop at night around 9:00p.m.).  Someone told me they live underground the rest of their lives and when they are making the noise they will die by the end of the summer.  If that is true that means it is the old male (females don’t make noise) Cicadas that are the soundtrack of summer in Korea.  I read somewhere that some grocery stores play the noise in their music loop that way people will buy watermelon and other summer related items.

It is actually starting to cool down already.  In the morning it is pretty nice.  By lunch time it is kind of warm, but then they kick the air conditioning on.  Fall supposedly happens around the mid to end of September.  Plus fall is a really short season and then it kicks into the bone chilling winter.  Last week was orientation.  Basically we were locked down on this campus and went to classes from about seven in the morning to eight at night.  There wasn’t that good of information on teaching, but I was able to meet some more foreigners.  This week is my first full week back at school with regular classes.  This weekend there is a going away party in another city for a friend I plan to attend.  Plus the weekend of the 6^th of September there is a 5K color run up near Seoul.  Basically it is a 5K race but you need to wear white because people on the side will be throwing color stuff all over us.  Now it is off to play some football (a.k.a. soccer).     I will write later next week sometime.    

Trip to Thailand

So it has been awhile since I have posted.  It was the end of the semester and I had been busy with planning both a Summer Camp and my vacation.  Summer Camp is more like Summer School and for me it was five days long with only teaching from 9:00a.m. to 12:30p.m.  Funny thing about Summer School is that I never had more than two students.  They didn’t want to be at school learning English.  Right after Summer School I took my vacation.  My destination was a country known as Thailand.

I left Seoul, Korea on the morning of August 1^st and ended up in Phuket, Thailand around 11:00p.m.  I did have a long layover in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.  Anybody planning future vacations avoid a long layover at that airport because I was able to walk around the whole airport in ten minutes.  Anyway I did make it to Thailand and right away it was known that I had never been to Thailand before this time.  This is because I tried to get into the taxi on the driver’s side.  In Thailand they drive on the opposite side of the road than in the United States or even Korea.  With driving on the opposite side of the road that means the driver side is actually on the right hand side when looking out the front windshield. After making it to my hotel basically the next morning (it is about 60km from the airport) I went out and found some food.  Even though it was a Thursday night/ early Friday morning there were still a lot of people out on the town.  Now Phuket is actually the name of the whole island and my little area where I stayed is named Patong Beach.  It didn’t matter what day it was there was always people out all night long.  The next day it rained majority of the day.  I was busy seeing the town and making payments on some reservations for scuba diving.

Yep, the main reason for going to Phuket was for the scuba diving.  It was well worth the trip.  Saturday was the first day of diving.  With the company I booked with they picked me up at my hotel in the morning.  We finished picking up more people eventually ending up at the dock (about 30 mins. away with traffic) where the boat is located.  The boat is a pretty good size boat and there were multiple shops using the boat each day.  So the very basic safety briefing (never mentioned about life jackets) and off we go towards that day’s destinations.  While heading out breakfast is served and after every dive there was food served.  Saturday there was still bad weather hanging around from the day before so it was long rolling waves as if we were on the roller coaster.  People were warned and motion sickness medication was offered but there were still some who did get seasick.  All the days diving I didn’t get sick once.  Also with the company I booked it comes with a dive master.  So each day on the ride out to the site I was being briefed with the dive master about the location and the various fish that we might see.  That first day there was one other diver and me with one dive master.  That boat ride was close to two hours and once we did get out to where we were headed it was possible to hide behind the island.  In doing this it was like glass and looking over the side you could see all the way down to the bottom.  We did two dives at this location moving a little bit and then headed backed towards an island we passed on the way out to dive a shipwreck.  Every dive I did throughout my days of diving I did see: schools of fish, banner fish, clown fish, coral, puffer fish, snapper fish, and different tropical fishes that I don’t know the names.  Those fish just listed I basically saw every single dive.  Other notable marine life I saw the first day was a big leopard shark.  She was sleeping on the bottom and was easily 6 feet long and the dive master said she looked pregnant because of how fat she was.

Second day of diving was at a place called Phi Phi islands.  We did two dives there and then one at shark point.  The shark point dive had a strong current that day so a lot of swimming for the last dive of the day.  Ironic thing is I didn’t see any sharks at shark point but instead at Phi Phi.  On one of the dives I saw three black tipped reef sharks.  This was towards the end of the dive so we also saw them while we were on the surface waiting for the boat to pick us up.  Plus the second day I saw a school of barracuda fish, lion fish, sea snake, triggerfish, and a sun starfish.  The third day of diving we went to the same islands as the first day, but we did dive different locations.  That day I had the same dive master as the first day and so we were looking for the leopard shark again.  This is the only day I didn’t see a shark of any type.  Instead saw the fish listed above plus a couple blue spotted rays, a few moray eels, lion fish, scorpion fish (hiding very well and extremely poisonous), triggerfish, and sea urchins.  The fourth and last day of diving was to a completely different location.  This day it was bad weather again and so the rolling waves with more wind so it was crashing more often.  It definitely made it interesting getting back on the boat the whole entire day.  The first dive was on a wreck by the name of “King Cruiser.”  There was no island for protection but the boat was hooked up to a buoy.  This wreck was quite a bit bigger.  For the second dive we ended up doing shark point because it was a little bit more protected but still pretty crazy getting on the boat.  If you didn’t time it right you would be thrown from the ladder and it was best to just be thrown and not try to stay and crash again with the ladder.  The last dive of that day we hid behind an island and did a wall dive.  The current was strong again but we just floated with it and didn’t try to fight it.  That day I saw three bamboo sharks (look like small nurse sharks), four seahorses (of coursing hiding in the coral), eels, lion fish, trigger fish, sea urchins, two colorful lobsters, big sea fans, and three good size squids.  Overall it was some real good diving and I saw a lot.  Only thing that I missed was a turtle.  On one of the days there were a couple divers who did see a hawks bill turtle but I had no luck.  No complaints though and any day of diving even in the bad weather is a good day in my opinion.  I hope the pictures do turn out and that it does make some of you jealous. 

After getting back to the hotel around 6:00p.m. at night I usually had dinner and simply relaxed.  I did try some of the local beer which one of them had an interesting name.  It was called Tiger beer.  It wasn’t the best one but not too bad.  On the boat I did meet this American couple who also live in South Korea too.  They were on vacation too and so one night we went to a show together.  This show was at a place called “Simon’s Cabaret” and in fact it was a lady-boy show.  If you didn’t know this fact before you would have never known the difference.  It was a pg show with a lot of music and a little bit of comedy.  They kept changing the sets and doing something from a different country and so when Korea came up it was pretty funny.  Afterwards we went out on the town and ended up at the Hard Rock Café in Phuket. 

Originally I had planned on doing a jungle trek one of the days while down in Southern Thailand.  I never did it though because it seemed like it was constantly raining.  It is the rainy season and so it wasn’t too surprising.  So I have yet to visit a jungle yet.  I eventually left Phuket on an airplane on Tuesday night going to the big town of Bangkok.  In Bangkok I wasn’t able to see much.  I blame it on something I ate the first night I was there.  Bangkok is the capital of Thailand and is a huge city.  Like I said I didn’t see much.  What I did see was a lot of buildings, a lot of people selling stuff on the streets (clothes, custom made suits, souvenirs), lots of people (both local and foreigners), and a lot of street food vendors.  It did have the big city smell which isn’t that pleasant.  As far as Bangkok goes, maybe in the future I might end up back there but it isn’t on the list of places to visit again.

I ended up back in Korea on the 11^th and back to my house kind of late.  So with visiting one other country I did get four more stamps in my passport (this includes leaving and entering both Korea and Thailand), and some more travel experience in Asia.  Currently I am at work this week but with no students.  It is known as desk warming which isn’t that hard to do with the temperatures in the 90’s and the humidity hovering around 90 percent too.  For the students school will start on this upcoming Monday.  I will only be here for that Monday and then I will need to go to a mandatory orientation which will last for six days.  So I basically miss the first crazy week of school.  I will rest up this week and then get ready for the start of the semester.  I will write later.   

Pictures of Thailand

Motor bikes were all over the place 

A bar game where you race (one at a time)  to hammer the nail in 

I mentioned it rained a lot.  Driving through it wasn't a problem. 

Schools of fish 

It is not knats.  It is a school of small glass fish. 

This isn't photo-shopped.  I ended up in the middle of the school!  

Nemo's cousins Ralph and George.  

Trigger fish.  Can be aggressive so we avoided swimming close. 

Leopard Shark sleeping on the bottom.  If it wasn't sleeping I might not be posting this....

Banner fish

Nudibranch 

Spot known as shark point.  We swam around it a couple times with one tank of air. 

It is hard to tell but it has blue spots.  So it is named a blue spotted ray. 

Some lion fish. 

Close up of another lion fish. 

Lobster that was really colorful. 

I am pretty sure it is called a trumpet fish.   I could be wrong though.. 

Moray Eel 

Another eel but not a moray eel.  It was a lot smaller.  I think it is called the white eyed eel? 

Can you see the seahorse? 

A different seahorse close up

Funny Pronunciations

Pronunciation is a pretty interesting topic that I can hear every single day.  When I first started I didn't know the Korean alphabet and how it does sound.  By knowing that it would give me hints and a general idea on the sounds and letter combinations the students would have a hard time to pronounce.  While being here I now have heard and I know the basic letters or sounds that give the students issues. 

My first day I did come across one combination of letters that is hard for them to pronounce one of the many ways it can be pronounced.  It happened the first day because it is my last name.  It doesn't have an “a” in it but the way it is pronounced sounds like there should be one.  The spelling is “Keiser” and so the students wanted to pronounce it like “kee-zer.”  After a few classes I started to write my name with an “a” “Kaiser” so I didn't have to explain.  Of course some words do have that spelling and are pronounced how my name is pronounced, but these words aren't that common and don’t make sense for my students.  Words such as: beige, deign, feign, freight, rein, veil, vein, weigh, etc.  So I wonder how many people were looking up those words as you were reading off of the list.  This combination of letters with the “a” sound I think is for higher level students and not feasible to teach false beginner English as a second language students.

Another pronunciation issue I have heard quite often has to deal with one letter.  Obviously this means they don’t have this letter or a sound that is close to this letter in their alphabet.  That letter is “z.”  It was kind of funny when I figured it out.  The topic for the lesson was about animals.  I am asking the students various questions and I kept hearing something along this line: “I have seen that animal in the ‘Jew.’”  The students were not trying to make a joke or say something wrong.  It is just that it is hard for them to pronounce the ‘Z’ sound, and instead it sounds more like a ‘J’ sound.  First couple times it did take me a second to understand what they were saying, but then I realised this is the case for all of them.  It did get me thinking that if Adolf Hitler had spoken Korean then maybe there would have been a lot of killing of “zoo” animals and not actually what happened.  That would have been an interesting curve-ball to World History.  Of course how often does somebody use the ‘z’ sound in everyday conversations?  Here is a list of some ‘z’ words so you can practice using a dictionary to figure out what the words mean: zoo, zebra, zesty, mizzen, Nazi (fits well with Hitler part) zodiac, zipper, braze, winze, crazy, ablaze, tizzy, gazebo, cozy, etc.  I have heard from other foreigners it is pretty hard to teach them the ‘z’ sound, and besides a few words there aren't that many the students need to know.

            

One more pronunciation thing I have encountered here is the dreaded ‘e.’ For native English speakers we know when words have a silent ‘e.’  For a non-native speaker they usually see an ‘e’ and assume it needs to be pronounced.  Some good examples of words with the silent ‘e’ that the students should know are: gave, love, stove, toe, brave, gate, hate, dime, cake, bake, plane, ride, age, etc.  For some of those words if you take away the ‘e’ then it is a whole new word, and so there is a purpose to the ‘e’ at the end.  In order for the students to get a hang of this pronunciation I use a lot of repetition, and have the students repeat the word after they have heard me say it.

These are just some nuances that I do encounter with teaching people whose native tongue is Korean.  Obviously other languages will have their own pronunciation difficulties for non-native English speakers.  Really the only way to get around the pronunciation issues would be to have a silent language.  Of course with this language there are other things that could be confusing that would never come up in a spoken language.  At the end of the day, I think if the students hear the pronunciation from me, then in the long run they can have conversations with someone else where the other person does understand.  Then they will be able to communicate and pronounce in English.  

This post does give a little insight on some specifics of teaching and of the Korean language.  Vacation is coming up soon so will write more about school related topics in the fall.  This week the students are taking finals and so for me there is no teaching.  I am getting ready for the Summer school that does only last for five days.  After that I will be on vacation.  I did just buy plane tickets and will be heading to both Thailand and Malaysia.  Scuba diving in both places is supposed to be amazing and so I can’t wait to get in the water.  I am sure I will write before vacation because that doesn't start until the end of July.      

Smells

This post is going to a little different.  Last week I was teaching the five senses to some of my students.  For those who do forget they are: sight, hear, taste, touch, and smell.  During those lessons I started thinking that whoever does read this gets to experience some sights that I do see, but what about the other senses.  So this post I will walk you through the smells that I experience on a typical day.

Waking up the other day I did smell rain.  A side note on the smell of rain.  The smell of rain here isn’t as strong as back in Arizona.  I think this is because the fact that it is always humid here and not dry, and so the smell of moisture isn’t that strange.  Just an educated guess, but of course I do smell it more when I start walking to the bus stop.  When it isn’t raining and I walk outside to go to the bus stop I smell the trees and wild flora.  Right around my apartment it almost is like a pine smell, but not exactly the same.  Since it is Spring I also smell the flowers and other shrubbery as I am heading to the bus stop.  Of course each different type has a different smell.  At the bus stop if you stand behind the bus it will smell like exhaust.  Once getting on the bus you can smell the leather and it typically has a wet smell.  This is true even when it isn’t raining because I think they wash the busses in the morning.  Heading to school there is a very strong smell of fish.  This is in town and not even by the beach yet.  This smell originates from the three streets (all parallel with each other) where the fish market is located.  One day I will have to take pictures and then post them for your sense of sight (I will have to put a disclaimer because some look nasty).  For now though the thought of a fish market and that smell just multiplied is what I smell while riding in the bus.  Once we get out on the main road the smell changes to the trees and wild flora.  Of course on the bus it does fill up and so if somebody didn’t take a shower then you could potentially smell them.  Another smell I experience on the ride to school is the smell of fields.  Now keep in mind these fields are different then back in Arizona.  These fields have rice, bean sprouts, and different things that require the fields to be flooded.  With the fields being flooded it does produce a rich not always pleasant smell.  You do get used to the smell because on the way to school it is all fields along the way.

Walking up to school there are some more flowers and different trees that do produce some distinct smells.  Inside the office area (all the teachers, including me, are here) it smells like coffee and tea.  This is because there is some tea and coffee everyone is making in the morning.  The tea is stronger and it is a wheat tea, so it has a wheat kind of smell.  Besides the drinks it is a typical office smell with all the computers and people busy working.  In the classroom there is the smell of chalk and chalkboard in the classrooms that have them.  If not chalkboards then it is a whiteboard with the marker smell.  Now onto the special smells found at my marine science school.  In a building behind the office there is an aquarium.  It does have real life fish with tanks and everything.  So walking in there, especially where they hold the bigger fish, it smells a little like fish but these ones are at least alive.  It does smell more like the sea water because they are always cleaning the tanks, rocks, and anything else that needs to be cleaned.  Then over in one corner of the main school building walking in that direction a distinct smell makes it way to my nose.  The smell of metal being grinded, cut, welded, and machine worked.  Each of these there is a slightly different smell, but it seems like one day they will do something and then the next it will be something else.  It does remind me of working on the cars back home in the garage.  Down another area of school is a strong smell of oil and of engine smells.  They do have a couple different engines here that the third year students seem to always be working on.  So some days that doesn’t smell good because I don’t think burnt oil is the best smell.

For lunch the cafeteria does have the smell of the food wafting through to everyone’s nose.  In general Korean food doesn’t have a strong smell and of course each day it does smell a little bit different depending on the food.  For the most part the “spicier” (Korean spice is different than say Mexican food spice) food does have a stronger smell.  Sometimes on my lunch break a co-worker and I go on a walk towards the beach.  The beach does of course have the sea smell.  On the way down there it is a smell of more construction.  They are constructing some more hotels and so it is a lot of metal smell and not a lot of wood smell.  It is very humid and “wet” here so building with wood isn’t the smartest so of course they have adapted.

After school I head towards the bus stop.  At my bus stop I could throw a rock into the sea, so that area smells like the sea.  Once on the bus I head back through all the fields again.  Maybe when they start picking or at least however they get the product there might be a different smell.  For now though it still smells the same as described earlier.  I get off at my stop and since it is later in the afternoon some people have already put out some trash along the road.  For trash pick-up it just goes on a corner and by morning it is gone, but on the way home there is a smell of trash from these various piles.  Once home I walk into my apartment and it smells like wet clothes.  My clothes are drying.  I do this by hanging them up since I don’t have a dryer. 

Those are pretty much the smells that I experience on any given day.  I hope this post was somewhat interesting and a little bit unique.  I will write later when I am not busy out relaxing on the beach or enjoying the nice spring weather.    

Big City of Seoul

Two weekends ago I made a trip up to the big city of Seoul.  When I mean big city that is probably not saying enough because it was a giant city.  I have been to big cities (New York, Chicago, Amman, Cairo, London, Madrid) but for some reason it seemed like Seoul was bigger than all of those cities.  That probably is not true and there has been no fact checking at all, but for me coming from the small city that I live in, Seoul just seemed huge.  I went to Seoul that weekend because I did have Monday off of work so it was a three day weekend.  Right now I will describe my weekend in Seoul.  

On that Friday I left school about ten minutes early and I don't think anyone really noticed.  I wanted to get to the bus station as soon as possible because I wasn't sure when the bus left for Seoul.  In order to get to Seoul I can take the train or bus, and I obviously decided on the bus.  This is because it goes directly to Seoul unlike the train that stops at various towns along the way.  It turned out those ten minutes didn't help much and I ended up having to wait about fourty minutes for the bus.  After about two hours and fifteen minutes I made it Seoul at the "Express Bus Terminal."  From there I did head towards the subway in order to go find my hotel.  Lucky for me there were two students on my bus and also taking the subway too.  They live at school (there is a dormitory) during the week and go home during the weekends.  So they were able to direct me the best way to go and so I didn't get lost that night.  This would be pretty easy to do because the subway in Seoul is the biggest that I have seen with about nine different tracks and probably close to a hundred different stops.  I was able to find the hotel and after checking in I changed and went out. 

That first night I ended up at a neighbourhood known as Itaewon.  It was pretty close to my hotel so that is where I went for that night.  Now this neighbourhood is known as the International part of Seoul.  I both agree and disagree.  That night there were a lot of people walking through the main part whose main language is English.  There were some other nationalities represented such as: French, Lebanese, Nigerian, Spanish, and a few others.  So, yes the crowd is International, but besides that there wasn't much more.  I thought there would be more restaurants that offered a bigger variety but not that I saw.  I did find a "Mexican" place.  They do have a taco bell (I didn't eat there) but for them they think that is some good Mexican food.  I think having grown up so close to good Mexican food there won't be anything like that, but I did eat a burrito.  Not horrible but I wouldn't keep going back.  I did end up back in Itaewon during the day and also found a Jordanian food place along with an Egyptian restaurant.  The Egyptian place was no  good but the Jordanian place wasn't bad at all.  

Itaweon was all right both at night and during the day.  There is a better place that I will describe in a little bit.  First I want to talk about getting lost.  I didn't have much of a plan and was happy with walking around.  I did want to find somethings though such as the War Memorial of Korea (its more of a museum.)  I did find it but decided to not go in because the weather was so nice to keep walking and not be inside.  There were a couple different occasions where I did get on a bus and get lost or at least not want to go in the direction or area I was headed.  I did end up seeing the World Cup stadium and a few other things that were neat when I wasn't trying to figure out where I was located.  

The last area I want to talk about is known as Hongdae.  This area is close to a couple of the local universities in Seoul and so it has a younger type feeling.  Plus it is where the art scene is located.  There are a lot of murals, artistic graffiti, music performances, and other street kind of shows.  I ended up there both at night and in the day.  At night I did find this public park where there were a few bands playing.  It was pretty neat and busy at the same time.  After the bands were finished nobody seemed to leave and that place stayed busy the whole night.  I think the nice weather had a lot to do with why it was so busy.  Basically how it worked was the local convenience store such as a 7/11 and a few others is where you would buy the drinks and then just come back to the park to visit.  I ended up meeting a group of people and staying at that park until the early morning (around four).  It was a pretty neat thing that would have never happened in the U.S. because the police would have stopped it.  Plus places such as bars, clubs, restaurants or anything like that don't have a set time when they close.  If there is people still around spending money they will stay open, unlike the U.S. where 2 in the morning is pretty standard.  I definitely like the Hongdae area better because of the overall atmosphere and it seemed like the people were more open to interact.  

Next time I head up to Seoul I will have to check out some new areas, do some of the tourist things, and take more pictures.  My camera ran out of battery and I didn't bring my charger so I only took a few pictures.  It was a great weekend but I was pretty happy to be back in the small town of Boryeong.  This past weekend I spent relaxing and stayed in town, and so no trip to Japan.  Which isn't that bad since I spent it at the beach.  In fact I ran into a couple different people who were visiting from Seoul because they wanted a weekend out of the big city.  Even though I live in a small town it still does attract other people here because of the sea and beach.  

I know it is a long post but it was a long weekend.  This week will be a normal Monday-Friday week with no days off like the last couple of weeks.  I am done with Monday and at a cafe having some tea.  Enjoying the Spring weather, but it is supposed to be raining later on for most of the week.  I think this post is long enough and I will write later.   

Seoul in the distance looking over the Hangang river