Adventures of late

The daily grind in the marketplace means the vendors sit here for hours upon end

So the following days have been fun:
Monday - moved out of my place at Eemonims, but only after a morning at the markets where she swindled me a lovely deal on a ring I've been unable to forget, and a delicious traditional Korean lunch. Then I scooted out to my friends place way at the very south eastern end of Seoul; well so far south it is out of Seoul an off the subway line. It took about an hour to train there. My friends family is so cute! Pregnant sister and her husband, a fun and adorable mother, a father with a shock of pepper hair littered with salt, but Spock-like eyebrows that are all grey and have just enough of a zenith to make him seem extraordinarily interesting. All this topped off with a midnight screening of Iron Man 2, complete with Korean subtitles, beer served draft for only $3.50 a pint, and no line up since you pre-select your seats upon purchase. Seriously, can this be beat??

Tuesday - Ruski came to town. Well, to country to be exact. We bused in to Myeongdong to
meet him and from there the hunt for a suitable resturant began. Rejected were the uncharacteristic holes above the wall ( not a hole in the wall since most places here are stacked floors and floors high with the establishment you are after), scoffed at were expensive menus ( although this place let me reach incandescent catch one of their squids, which then suction-cupped on to me until I screamed a little and dropped it back into it's watery home), and also this one amazing place that we missed the dinner menu of, and they were now only serving booze and booze eats since it was after 9pm. To rest your worries, we found a great spot, bib em bap really is a good tasty dish. We also made sure to show Ruski the MyeongDong ropes- how they literally give you a free gift just to come into the store, even if you purchase nothing. Dope! Then came hunting down a place for the light traveller, who ended up at a Jim jil bang in GangNam- 10,000 won (like $10 basically) to get a locker, clothes for the night, access to showers, saunas and communal rooms you can sleep in or hang out in until you want to leave.

Meat on display at the markets

Wednesday - I climbed up the mountain which is steps from the back of my friends house, where they have hula hoops and excercise equipment which is free to use, as well as a lovely old man just hanging out drinking macolae - rice wine - and offered me a drink. So we chatted for a while until I headed out again, crawling under fences, discovering small hillside farms and feeling like I had a moment of solitude for the first time since being in Korea for 5 weeks... and then I heard all the gunfire. Turns out literally next to the walking path I was on, was an army training ground, and they were definitely working on live ammo that day. Goodbye solitude and quiet. My friend and I headed back into the thick of things in Seoul, anyways though, so it was most certainly short-lived.