In a brilliant display of planning, CK refused to let me have Thursday and Friday off – Monday through Wednesday as the official AVALON summer holiday, so I figured to just take off Thursday and Friday as well. Instead, CK made me go to work on Thursday, and then I got Friday and Monday off to make a four-day weekend. Why make me go back for one day? No one knows, least of all CK himself.
So, finished my day of toiling, Jesse and I contemplated our weekend plans. We were going to go to Busan city, but then we remembered that Jesse's laundry wasn't dry, and therefore he didn't have any clothing to pack. Trip out of the question, we decided to move our Seoul adventures to this weekend instead.
On Friday we didn't actually make it to Seoul – instead, we went to Suwon, a city 30 minutes north of Pyeongtaek. It has a huge fortress that encircles the city center, left over from the Joseon Dynasty, as well as a palace complex. We spent an amusing taxi ride from the train station to the fort with a Korean gentleman who prattled away at us in Korean for ten minutes while we smiled and nodded. We indicated that we didn't understand him several times, but he didn't much seem to care.
I've been to the fortress before, of course, so it wasn't exactly new for me. Jesse enjoyed it, though – which I learned by asking him, “Do you like the fort?” to which Jesse replied, “It's cool”. This being high praise from Jesse, I declared our trip a success. We also hit up the palace, which I hadn't seen last time as it was closed. It was your typical Korean palace – big open squares, curvy roof buildings, very colorful, very serene.
Our trip home was almost more of an adventure than our scheduled adventure. We decided to take the subway back instead of the train, so that we could stop in Songtan and get some delicious Thai food. The only problem is that halfway between Suwon and Songtan, the subway turns around and goes back up to Suwon. We realized that this had happened the stop before Suwon, and were extremely confused until we deduced what had gone wrong. From there, we got off, went over to the south-bound train platform, got on the new subway, got off before it turned around again, got on a new train, and finally reached Songtan. This whole adventure took almost an hour, with Songtan only about 20 minutes south by train. Siiiigh.
On Saturday we went to the War Memorial – again, been there, done that. My favorite part was at the end, when we were wandering the outside of the building and sat down by the pool to watch the water striders leap about. Jesse voiced his oft-heard comment, “I like water”, to which I replied, “I like water, too.” And thus we bonded. I have decided that when I become rich and build my mansion, I will include a large, serene pool of water intersected by various bridges and walkways.
After the War Memorial, we headed over to the JUMP! theatre to see the show. I saw it a few months back, and it was just as good the second time around. Basically the story is that there's this incredibly dysfunctional family – consisting of the pervy mom, prankster dad, drunken uncle, and beautiful daughter – who all happen to be martial arts experts. The action begins when the grandfather brings a visitor home – a shy young man who wants to marry the daughter! Hilarity ensues, fights erupt, and we discover that whenever the shy boyfriend takes off his glasses, he becomes a sexy, virile fighting machine. Then robbers – who bring their theme music with them via boom box – break into the house, only to discover they picked possibly the worst family on the planet to steal from. Very enjoyable, and we didn't stop laughing pretty much the entire time.
On Sunday we went to Gyeongbokgung palace, which is the huge palace in central Seoul that I visited with Mom when she was here. Of course, when she was here it was winter, so the palace was far more enjoyable this time around. Have I mentioned that I dislike the cold? Anyway, we happened to arrive just in time for the changing of the guard, which was not quite as impressive as the one at Buckingham Palace, although a deal less crowded.
We wandered around the grounds for a few hours, admiring the architecture and the lovely rivers and ponds – which naturally provoked another “I like water” statement from Jesse. I suggested that we find ourselves a free tour, like the one that Mom and I went on when we went to the palace, but Jesse said, “I don't like tours”. Most of the time he's incapable of making a decision, and then he just throws you for a loop with a strongly-worded statement like that.
Following Gyeongbokgung, we went to see the second of our two theatrical excursions, Drawing Show: Hero! Like Jump, I'd seen this show before, and I thought that Jesse would enjoy it because it's so... well, strange. There are four actors, who wear costumes and makeup that make them look like Charlie Chaplin (sans moustache). The show alternates between slapstick humor and them creating beautiful works of art in mediums ranging from charcoal to flashlights. It was one of the coolest things I had ever seen, and Jesse declared it “good”.
Let's see... Friday, Saturday, Sunday, check. I took my last vacation day on Monday, meaning I'm now officially out of vacation days (noooo!), although there is still Chuseok (Korean Thanksgiving) coming up in September. We had an unbelievably late start on Monday – I think we got to Seoul at 6 pm – and we decided to go to Seoul Tower.
Seoul Tower is located on the top of Namsan mountain in the middle of the city. There is a cable car that goes up to the top, which Jesse and I attempted to locate. However, when we wandered around for fifteen minutes and couldn't find it, we decided that we must be looking in the wrong place, and decided to just walk up the mountain on foot. This started off well enough – we found a nice, serene, winding path lined with little flower bushes and a stream – until it started to slope down. We had, of course, taken the path in the wrong direction.
So we turned around and backtracked to where we started. From there, we took the downhill path – which we had assumed was the wrong way – and eventually found a staircase that professed to go up to the tower. No problem! Except that we were climbing a mountain, not my apartment steps, and it was both getting dark and it was chilly and drizzling. Nevertheless, with the aide of a few rest stops we made it to the top.
Seoul Tower was... well, once you've seen the CN tower, most other towers pale by comparison. One thing Seoul Tower had going for it is that it was very brightly colored. The whole thing lights up different colors at night, and was very picturesque. We took an elevator to the observatory floor, where we proceeded to admire the Seoul nighttime skyline. It was also at this point that I discovered my feet were aching abominably from hiking up a mountain in non-hiking sandals.
We elected to take the cable car down, which was infinitely superior to walking down in the dark, and stopped for dinner at a lovely little Italian place. The food came out startlingly quickly, which we were confused by at first, until we realized that all the pastas on the menu were made with spaghetti. Pasta becomes much easier to prepare when you just dump pre-cooked spaghetti and pre-cooked sauce into a pot and heat it up a bit.
Our Italian side-quest meant that we missed the 9:15 train by five minutes, and since the Korail transit system lives to “troll” us, as Jesse would say, the next train wasn't for another hour. We made the best of this by acquiring refreshing beverages and watching the Manchester United game. And then we went home, to prepare for four days of me teaching, and Jesse playing computer games. Huzzah!
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