Our Weekend Update

Kim and I had another busy but extremely entertaining weekend.  I realized after going through our pictures that we need to take more pictures.  I thought all we did was take pictures but I am always noticing things that we missed.  We'll continue to work on it.

Friday night we went out with a group of friends from school to celebrate our friend Kerry's birthday.  She is one of the korean teachers at our school and she has been very nice to both Kim and I.  Last week, she actually took the two of us out to dinner.  Kim and I got to enjoy some spicy BBQ chicken.  A group of about 15 went to a bar in Gangnam (located on the southeastern part of Line #2).  The bar was huge and was not as expensive as I thought it would be since Gangnam is considered to be one of the nicer areas of Seoul.  It was a fun night.

The next day, Kim went to Hongik University (it is pronounced Hong Dae and it is located on the northwestern part of Line#2) with two of our friends, Anna and Robin, work to get a haircut and do some shopping to find a dress to wear to a wedding next weekend.  Anna introduced Kim to a hair dresser that speaks perfect English so Kim was very happy this time around.

That night, Kim and I decided to go back to the Hongik University area for dinner and some drinks.  We chose a Spanish tapas restaurant that Kim saw earlier that day.  Though a bit pricey, it was really good.  We went with three side dishes (potatoes, shrimp and ham) and a cheesy seafood rice skillet.  The meal was delicious, especially the sangrias.  Below are a few pictures of the meal.

You can kind of see Kim's new haircut in this one.  As you can see in the picture, the restaurant was very nice and we had a seat right by the windows so Kim and I could people watch.

Here is the cheesy seafood skillet that we ordered.  No matter what meal you eat in Korea, it seems that they always serve it with pickles.  

After dinner we went across the street to an open air bar called Shooters.  It was a Western Bar so  Kim and I were able to order something besides soju or beer.  I would say half the crowd were foreigners.  Below are some pictures.

The bartenders put on quite the show.  This guy was juggling liquor bottles that we on fire.

This guy was saying something to Kim in Korean that we did not understand but he is just about to spit fire.  Unfortunately, we were not able to catch that in a picture.

After a few drinks at Shooters, Kim and I felt brave enough to belt out some toons at a nearby Noraebang (Karaoke Bar).  I forget our exact playlist but I am pretty sure that the Beatles, Eagles, Bruce Springsteen, Whitney Houston, Journey and Eric Clapton all made an appearance that night.  We both know that we are bad singers but singing is a lot of fun when you know that no one can hear you.

On Sunday Kim and I used some tickets that we got from Sang Kwun's friends for an amusement park called Seoul Land.  The park itself was not that great.  I would compare it to Six Flags back in St. Louis.  But the surrounding location was beautiful.  Seoul Land is located within Seoul Grand Park which is a giant Zoo.  We did not have the time to tour the park but we will definitely be back.  Seoul Land was about a 20 minute walk from the entrance so we decided to take the Ski Lift instead.  The view was amazing.  

These are some shots at the park from a distance.

This is a picture of Kim that I took on the Viking.  I especially love the young boy in the back of the picture trying to act brave by throwing his hands in the air but he is obviously scared to death.

Feeling a little crazy, the two of us decided to do the Sky Drop.  They strapped us in a vest and pulled us up to about 75 or so feet in the air.  Then I had to pull the cord which put us into a free fall.  After that we swung back and forth about 4 or 5 times.  It was awesome.  

After the amusement park, we headed up north to Janghanpyeong to have dinner with Sang Kwun and Mr. Kim.  Once again, Kim was spoiled by her birth father with clothing from her factory.  I think she got about 3 or 4 sweaters and 2 jackets.  We headed out to dinner and then Sang Kwun drove us home.

Overall it was another fun weekend.  It is finally starting to warm up here in Seoul so we will be probably be out sightseeing a lot more in the near future.  Next weekend we will be attending the wedding of Chloe, one of our co-workers at Poly.  We're kind of excited to be going to our first Korean wedding.