Blog entry 7/5/2012
It’s been almost a month since
Andrew’s been here. Although I’ve had to
work for most of the time, we’ve still managed to venture into Seoul and enjoy
its’ offerings, the main course being alcohol and the food. Korea, unlike the US, has a limited amount of
tourist spots. Lots of old palaces and
temples, historic villages in the countryside, and regions that have their own
particular tourist attraction. I can see
how someone who’s visited a fair amount of the attractions could get tired of
seeing the same thing in a different location.
Don’t get me wrong, seeing the culture and history of a foreign country
is interesting and all, but I find living like a local to be far more
appealing, especially if your stay is longer than a week or two.
Andrew has
seen most of the touristy spots with and without me. I’m sure he’ll post plenty of pictures, as he
doesn’t hesitate to take pictures of the little oddities and quirks that you
come across while walking the streets of Seoul.
The funniest of them being the ridiculous English fails on signs and
posters. Aside from the tourist stuff,
I’ve taken him with me around the city to all the places that I frequent and
met some of my friends who showed him how real Koreans spend a night out. This usually ends with Andrew passed out on
the table while my friends and I are still drinking and eating. Also, thanks to Andrew I’ve been able to find
some tasty new places to go to when he leaves.
One of them being this Mexican place called Tomatillo. Oh how I’ve missed the taste of home and this
place satiates my intense love for south of the border cuisine. I also had to increase my alcohol tolerance
for the first couple of weeks since I rarely get to go out and imbibe due to my
hectic schedule.
Even though
my room constantly smells like fart (thanks, Craig) and has been hard at times,
it’s been nice to have someone from home to hang out with here. Aside from my trip back to Fayetteville this
November and Andrew being here, I probably won’t be seeing anyone from home for
a very long time so I’m enjoying every moment I can. I feel bad at times that I have to work and
can’t show Andrew around some more but my hands are tied and it’s shitty. I’ve some long overdue pictures to post so
here they are. Enjoy. Until next time, love and miss y’all.
~JK
EDIT:;;
We took a
trip to the biggest water park in the world by square footage this past weekend
called Caribbean Bay. Went with Craig,
my mom, and my youngest uncle’s family.
It was probably similar to Silver Dollar City size wise, just imagine
Silver Dollar City converted into one, big water resort and that’s what it
was. The rides were all fun, the most
thrilling one had to be this one called the Aqua Loop. You stand inside this chamber with a trap
door for the floor. It counts down from
3 and the door releases, sending you plummeting straight down about 25-30 feet
inside a tube and at one point you go up the tube and the tube twists again
sending you down into the landing zone.
Watching people from the outside, they look like mail packets being sent
up the tubes you see at the bank. I also
saw some girls who couldn’t make it up the tube since they didn’t have enough
speed going down.
Another fun
attraction was the wave pool. However,
the fun was sullied by the sheer amount of people and jackassery that took
place there. I can’t believe how big of
safety Nazis the lifeguards were. They
had rope setup to limit people from getting too close to where the waves were
being generated (don’t know why they would, but whatever), but they stopped
generating waves because people were too close to the rope. What’s the point of the damn rope if you’re
not even going to let people up to it? I
kind of understand their point of view though since it did look like the
Titanic had sunk and all the survivors were floating in the wave pool. I’m surprised no one drowned. It was also hilarious because I’ve never
seen a lifeguard jump into the pool at any pool I’ve ever been to but at
Caribbean Bay, I saw 3 to 4 lifeguards jump in, all within 30 minutes to drag
people off or diffuse a situation.
The other
thing that was worthwhile was the lazy river that ran through about half the
park. I floated it with my Uncle and his
daughters first. I just attached myself
like a barnacle to my youngest cousin’s tube and floated with her. Though it was fun, again, it was way too
packed to be really enjoyable. It really
made me miss floating the rivers in Arkansas.
Don’t think anything could beat floating the Buffalo with an armada of
Craigs in the middle of summer with a nice flow rate and high water
levels. Anyway, Andrew leaves this
Friday and I’m working the entire week without a break, which es no bueno. The journey has come to an end for a Craig
and hopefully his stay was pleasant.
Even though he could’ve partaken in more of the stuff you could only
ever do in a foreign country, it was fun regardless.
DOUBLE EDIT:::
I started teaching again for some extra money. It's only for 4 weeks and I'm teaching math this time around instead of English. My pay got bumped up some so that's a bonus. Other than that, life is back to normal for me.
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