A weekend in Seoul, Saturday August 15

So after working just about every Sunday since being here I finally got an entire weekend off so I decided to spend the entire weekend in Seoul. The two days I will be talking about actually are the two days following my previous post on the baseball game.

Leaving home at about 10AM I caught the train with 6 other people who I would spend my first day with. For about a dollar more we booked our first class train tickets (which are totally worth it) and started our day.

Our first stop was Unhyeaongung, which was a former royal residence back in the 1800s. Personally I was not that impressed as it was small and didn't really offer that much to see. I guess I felt that way because I was comparing it to the other palaces which are HUGE. You will know what I am talking about from previous posts and also what I will talk about below. Anyways here are some of the pictures I took from Unhyeaongung.

Storeroom of sorts

Traditional clothing

After finishing our time at the royal residence we walked about 1000 meters to our next stop Changdeokgung Palace which made the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage List in 1997. The palace can only be toured with a toru guide so we had to wait an hour before we could enter so we relaxed at a coffee/tea shop just down the street. The next two paragraghs are from Wikipedia, haha

Changdeok Palace, is set within a large park in Jongnu-Gu. It is one of the "Five Grand Palaces" built by the kings of the Joseon Dynasty and because of its location east of Gyeongbok Palace, Changdeokgung is also referred to as the East Palace. The literal meaning of Changdeokgung is "Palace of Prospering Virtue".

Changdeokgung was the favored palace of many kings of the Joseon Dynasty and retained many Korean elements dating from the three kingdoms of Korea period that were not incorporated in the more formalistic Gyeongbokgung. One such element is the fact that the buildings of Changdeokgung blend with the topography of the site instead of imposing upon nature.

Instead of going into a ton of detail I will let the pictures to the talking. :)

From across the street, the entrance to the palace

Inside



Our lovely tour guide


Here I am standing on the road reserved for the King's advisers and to my left where the stone is raised is reserved for the king.


Throne room


Decedents of the royal family actually lived in this section of the palace until the late 1980's


Road to the "Secret Garden"


In the Secret Garden




Library used for research, the building on the left was once used for preserving old books

Video from the King's "Secret Garden"

After the palace tour which took about 90 minutes we headed over to the COEX mall (Convention and Exhibition). Wow, what a cool place, it is the largest shopping center in Seoul and it is really easy to get lost in. The main reason we all went (6 of us) was that we were all craving some Mexican Food and they have an On The Border there. Before going I had never heard of one but it is just like Chevy's. After a Quesadilla and 2 large margarita's I was quite satisfied.

Ahhhh the first one was good, the 2nd was better

Korean Apple store



It is good to get a real cup of coffee, around most of Korea you can only get instant coffee and it sucks.


The love florescent lights here

After dinner and going to the Bookstore I split from the group as they all were heading back home. Since I had the whole weekend off I had made the decision to stay the night in Seoul just to get away. Earlier that day I found out it was Korean Independence day so getting a hotel was a little more difficult then I originally would be. Anyways I ended up staying near Insadong at the Best Western Kukdo where I got a room on the 19th floor which gave me a great view of the city.

After checking in I went out to the Dongdaemun shopping center which really comes alive at night. Take a look.

Here are some pics of my room

Smoothie King in the Doota! shopping center around midnight

People like to shop after midnight






The yellow tents sell things from DVD's to fake wallets, sunglasses, shirts, jeans, etc.




My next entry will be all about Sunday where I visited Seoul Tower and the War Memorial, stay tuned, it will come soon.

Korean Baseball game in Seoul

Hello again....Sorry I have not posted in a while but things have been hectic around here and I just have not had the time. Anyways here is a little rundown of what has been going on since I last posted. Last Friday (7 days ago) I had the chance to go to a Korean baseball game in the capital city of Seoul. Driving in with Sandy, a Korean guy who works here we headed to Jamsil Stadium, which is also the baseball site for the 1988 Seoul Olympics. As we drove through what seemed like endless traffic we finally made it to the stadium where parking on site was only (4,000 Won) $3 (try to find that in America). Although the baseball stadium was an impressive site in itself the Olympic Stadium which was next door was even more impressive.

The Entrance to the Olympic Stadium area which houses both the baseball stadium and the stadium used for other athletic events. The one pictured just below is just the baseball stadium.

The French always seem to sneak in there, haha.


Main Olympic Stadium


View of Olympic Stadium from baseball stadium

So joining Sandy from my work and his friend we watched the Seoul LG Twins vs. the Busan Lotte Giants. You are probably wondering the strange names, well all the teams here actually have a sponsor within their team name. LG, is the worldwide electronics company while Lotte is one of the countries largest department stores. The visiting team from Busan come from one of the 2nd largest city in Korea which is located on the Southwestern coast. I won't go into too much detail of the game but I will talk about a few of the differences between watching a game in Korea and one in the USA. For instance the first thing is that our tickets, which cost about $4.50 were general admission seats so it allowed you to sit anywhere you wanted. And since Korea is about the size of Illinois the fans at the stadium were about half for the hometown LG Twins and about half for the Lotte Giants. Now this was really cool because the stadium was always loud no matter what team was up to bat. Another cool thing was that the fans were constantly breaking out into song and also constantly using their thunder sticks instead of clapping. Here are some pictures and several videos that will help explain my experience at the baseball game. Also you could get a 16oz beer in a can for about $2.25, now that's a great price at a game!

We got there in the 2nd inning so we could not get great seats, but we moved down later as the game progressed.

I don't know how I feel about cheerleaders at baseball games but the had a guy who I guess you could call an MC was there to get the crowd excited.

A player down after being hit with a ball. No fights, both teams were pretty civil.

Here is a look at the cheerleaders on the jumbo-tron

If you didn't already know what thunder-sticks are, basically you can smack these together instead of clapping. Naturally I bought two supporting the Giants!

So after 6 innings there is a break and the players go on to the field and stretch



These fans are 100x more passionate, just watch the 3 videos below





So does this song sound like Nacho Nacho Man by the Village People or is that just me.

The game is close to ending but there is still a ton of fans there

I have nothing bad to say about Korean baseball, sure the pitching is shitty and many home runs are hit but who cares! I think the final score was 16-14 with the Giants winning. Each team used like 6 pitchers and the game took about 4.5 hours... Everyone there was having a great time and it was a great site to see.

I am hoping to return to Jamsil Stadium one more time before I leave.

Please stay tuned as this blog post was only about the baseball game. Expect another post in a few hours or maybe tomorrow about my 2 day adventure into Seoul last weekend, there is too much to tell so I must separate it into another blog post. Stay posted!

Korea, August 3rd - August 10th, Yongmunsa Temple

Well today is Monday and I will be honest I am kind of burned out from working so much. It feels like I have been working every day I have been here, which I guess is partially true. Since I arrived on July 12th I have worked every day (Sun-Fri) except for Saturdays and I think it is really starting to get to me and I think I need a break.

This coming weekend will be my first full weekend off (at least I think so) and I will definitely take advantage of it. I plan on taking a personal weekend out to the East Sea, aka The Sea of Japan, which separates South Korea and the Southern Japanese islands. In addition I plan on taking my last week here completely off to make up for all the Sunday’s I have worked. I have been told I will get those days back in the form of paid time off but if I don’t I will not be a happy camper and I will be sure to raise a stink about it. Haha.

Staff room around 4:30 on a Monday

Anyways I am currently a little more than halfway done with my current batch of two week students and they are still are still a lot of fun. We have done all sorts of fun in-class activities and we have already moved onto our play “The Stone Soup” which we will perform this coming Thursday. One of my students was actually in my class 2 weeks ago but he had so much fun before that he made his parents fly him back up form Busan (on the southern coast) to be in my class again. That made me feel really good about the work I am doing because it makes me feel like I am doing a good job here.

Working with my team teacher Jasmine has been an absolute blast and she is one of my favorite people here. I often call her by her Korean name, Ji-Hyang, which she enjoys, even if I pronounce it wrong, which I do most of the time ☺ - I also do that with many of the other Korean teachers here as well just to be different. I also just found out that we will working together again next week so the fun should continue with a new batch of students. Here is a picture taken of us just this afternoon.

Jasmine and I after our day of teaching. We both are smiling but we are dead tired

My free day, this past Saturday was spent at the Yongmunsa Temple located about 15 minutes from my home. People come all over the country come to visit this amazing site and it is quite peaceful. The Buddhist temple is said to have been established back in the year 913 by Monk Taegyong but over the centuries it has been rebuilt several times and also made bigger. The current site is about 50 years old. In addition to the temple is home to a 1,100 year old Gingko Tree. It is roughly 41 meters tall and has a girth of 14 meters. The sign also stated it was the largest tree in the East, what that means I am not totally sure, as “the East” can mean many different things. Anyways all of the pictures that follow are from my Saturday trip at the temple. I hope you enjoy them.

So at the base of Mt. Yongmun were the temple was located there was this mini village that had small shops and restaurants. I guess we would call this a tourist trap


I just thought these were rediculous, but later on you could see people riding them with their small children


Believe it or not Gatorade tastes better from a can


The small village at the base of the mountain had a few amusement rides including bumper cars, and one of those rocking pirate ships


It was real hot that day (90F and humid so people were playing in the water all day


I'm sure these symbolized something


Me at the Yongmunsa gate, which translates into "Dragongate" as you can see the two dragons on either side. I think the word originates from China, or so I am told


Map of Mt. Yongmun


People cooling of their feet



More people playing in the water



Just a bridge


A bridge that took me off the beaten path



Just after crossing the bridge I had this taken before I started up the hill



The stairs were in pretty good shape, but with recent rain it was kind of muddy


This is what I found after going up about the hill for about 15 minutes, I guess it is a place for religious leaders bones


I kind of went off the beaten path on the way back but made my way back to the trail



If you want to learn more about Yongmunsa Temple just click the picture


Inside one of the temples at Yongmunsa, I think there were 5 in all there


A closer look



This is a video of people praying. They didn't seem to mind that I was recording them




Tourists



Not sure what this was but it looked cool



This was a place to get some fresh water from the pipe below, it really cooled me off



Cemetary



Bell, that you could here from a pretty good distance.



Watch the video to hear the bell in action






So this is the famous Gingko tree that is 1100 years old, and the largest of its kind in the world


This kid was messing around with Dragon-flies and he was happy to be in the picture



A woodworkers shop halfway up the hill. I thought about buying something but it was super expensive


Food stand at mid mountain



Did I tell you that it rains like every day here?



These wagon wheels on every table were lit up and just looked cool


Leaving the village at the bottom of Mt. Yongmun



Just thought I would throw this one in there. Located just down in our town I think Hooters may have a copyright case against this place which serves fried chicken

Anyways that is all for now. I hope you enjoy the pics from Yonmunsa. I hope to have a good time wherever I end up next weekend and you can expect a story to go along with it.