Monday was back to school for the SLP crew and back to soloing Seoul for Bradley fish! This was also my day to finally hit that sweet water park!! Unhindered by the crazy crowds flocking to the slippery slides and lazy rivers...sadly I was only hindered by the complete inability to figure out how to get there, the fact being that it was at least a 30 min bus ride out of Seoul, I was never able to find where the buss left from...fortunately not all was lost, because like a good boy scout I always come prepared!! The Seoul zoo was my back up plan!
I have never been to such a large zoo in my life. It is located in the Seoul grand park and as I rode the tram in we passed a large lake and some sort of amusement park, the entrance has a giant tiger statue welcoming you in. I must have walked at least 10k venturing all around the park, which is at least a kilometer from front to back. The zoo also has a chair lift type ride going from the bottom to the top, which I took later in the day just to get a nice top view of the park. While there I got to see the lion feeding, seal and dolphin show and just about every type of animal you can think of in a zoo, plus many more! They have a large botanical garden...this place kinda freaked me out though because for some strange reason the plant didn't have goggly eyes on them...so how was I to know where I stood with them?? After walking around for about 5 hours at the zoo I was getting quite pooped and ready to head back to ansan with dreams of tequila on my mind...thankfully these dreams became a reality when doodie and friends were all enthused to go out for drinks!! Steph, Caroline, Tyler, and David brody went to a bar across the street from SLP to get started. After a drink or two we started to talk about the tequila that was waiting at doodie's place...for free! Onward for tequila sunrises, Viso margaritas and lemon drink chasers for shots shots shots!
After getting good and i imbibed we headed back to the school are for a nori bang! (kerioke room) but first for a stop at the batting cages for a round of drunken baseball!! Quite good, but I was never very talented with a bat...the nori bang was very different then what I have experienced in the states. While alcohol is always good for this sort of thing, it isn't as required because you don't get up on stage in front of the whole bar, but rather you get your own room for your group where you can choose what ever song you want and have an awesome time with out looking like a fool in front of a bunch of strangers!! Well that is unless you drink too much and pass out in the hall way.... O.o can't say that I remember much of the nori bang, but it was sure a fun night!! The next morning I woke up still drunk and decided that since my reservation for my DMZ tour was full I would just go into work with doodie that day and see what this whole teaching English (engrish) was about!
SLP is a private school where the doodie and the other English teachers will have different classes ranging from kindergarten age to middle school...they teach them english. A very simple concept, but certainly can be taxing at times. Fortunately Tuesdays are one of doodie's easier days with only 3 different classes to teach. I can say for tuesday's kids at least that they were quite adorable! The first class was quite young...when the kids saw me come in with doodie their eyes opened up wide (well wide ish) and one kid asked "beard???" they were all very cute and it brought me way back to elementary school. For how young they are they behaved very well and even better when bribed with stickers or merit cards! After two sessions with this class we went on to some older students with two very funny chubby little Korean boys, one named gun ho and his fat partner who was a wonderful opera singer :p doodie tried to get him to sing for me and his class mates, but I think he was shy because I was there. She even tried to bribe him with merit cards and then 100 won, but it was no use. She even told him that he couldn't eat his snacks till he sang, to which he kept trying to sneak snacks, by trying to put them in his drink and even shooting his head into his backpack and pulling one out with his mouth! I think I laughed the most at this class cause they were a bunch of crack ups...though they didn't get much work done :p. Doodie's last class were two young boy who seemed to be arch rivals, because they always ha d to beat each other, quite a few laughs from this class too, but it was nice to see the end of the day and get some dinner! A day in the life of a doodie seemed to be quite good, though I didn't go on her busy days where she actually had to teach around 15 kids...I imagine that this is a bit more difficult, but all the kids I met were very nice...if not a bit energetic!
On my last full day in Korea I lazed around a bit and took my time getting things packed up and ready for my departure. I also headed to Seoul one last time to Lotte world, a giant mall and amusement park. If the aquarium was a silly place, lotto world was in the same vein, but more like the Korean Disneyland! Sadly it was raining in Seoul so the outside part of the park was all closed so the rides for older people weren't really open. I hit up the adventures of simbad, which was kinda like an Asian pirates ride...over all the amusement park was...amusing? But I had to head back to ansan because were were going out for my last night...and go out we did!! I liken the experience to doodie's last night in the states with regards to being up all night and partying then heading really early to the airport...but Korean style! Doodie really did it up great, when we left we had all of the English teachers that I had been hanging out so far during the trip plus Vanessa and a new teacher and then about 5-6 of the Korean homework teachers! In total we had 15 people in our group!
Doodie, charis, Tyler, and I split off from the main group to grab some Italian food while the rest when to Korean BBQ, what? I wanted some pizza! After the food was settled we went to a cool bar that sat your group in a personal room with a door bell thing to ring when you wanted service...soju!!!! Yes we got about 5 bottles to start with and two 3liter pitchers of Korean beer! While there the Korean teachers taught us a few cool soju drink ing games, one where you have to flick off the twisted end on the bottle cap and the two people on each side of the person to flick the cap deally off had to drink. We also did soju bombs and other neat tricks. One of the Korean teachers knew. Our waitress which managed to get us three free bottles of soju and there were fruit platters and bunches of snacks! After getting a good start on the night steph's friend james took us to a second bar where we found another group of English teachers chilling. This bar we stayed at till about 3am and we took it over!!! Literally! The bar tender showed me e computer where the music was playing so we put on everything we needed to hear and doodie...in grand fashion was pouring drinks behind the bar!!! Go figure! What a great last night, fun places and people! We got back to doodies place really early and I was planning to leave for the airport at about 5:30am. I tried to get a little sleep, but that didn't work that well...I was still very wired from the evening, I did however sleep a bit past my time frame and by the time I was totally packed up and ready to go it was 6:30!!! To avoid missing my flight (which I did) I took a taxi to the airport...getting ripped off by at least $50 but getting me there in time to stand in line for over an hour and missing my plane...the hang over was setting in and I had missed my plane, but the nice people at the airport pulled some strings and got me on a plane two hours later direct to Kuala Lumpur!! So not only did I miss my flint, but I didn't have to layover in hong kong for two hours, so I got into KL two hours earlier!!! Providence!
My time in Korea was fast leaving...I was tired and hung over but I had a great week!! I wish that I had more time, but off to other adventures I had to go!! Everyone that I met was very friendly and welcoming and I can't thank doodie's friends enough for everything that they did for me!! Most importantly doodie for letting me stay at her place and showing me a great time!!! Love ya all and I can't wait to see some of you in Oregon in the future!! Doodie! 9 months :)
Off to Malaysia for two days...and time to start my travels with my pops!! :D
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