Kept It Interesting

Before we moved back to Korea, we wrote a list of things we wanted to do and we labeled it "Keep It Interesting". Mission accomplished.

Can't wait for what's next.

Restaurant Bucket List #6-1

With our umbrellas in tow, we've managed to cross the last six restaurants off our bucket list. This was no small feat, with all the tasks we've had to do in the last week, but (most of) the trips were worth every bite.

#6- Potato Bacon Pizza at Pizza Hut, with lots of garlic sauce. This was a bit of a miss, because they were all out of the 'pan' pizza and we had to go for an over-priced stuffed-crust option. This type of crust didn't have the crispy greasy goodness of Pizza Hut's usual pie, but any pizza topped with potato wedges is okay in my books.

#5- Dalkgalbi- Because of the rain and busy times, we didn't get to go to our favorite dalkgalbi place, Yoogane. We didn't even get to go to our second favorite place because it was closed. This random shop we wound up at served up an okay dish but there was no cheeze-uh and we wound up leaving without even finishing the plate. Fail!



#4- Our favorite galbi restaurant in Suwon. We were going to go to Suwon on our last night in Korea, but we thought that might be a bit hectic so we went there on Monday instead. Most of the foods I've enjoyed in Korea can probably be re-created at home, but I don't know how I'd recreate the food at this place. Honey samgyupsal, yungneum galbi sol, and the best sides in the business- macaroni salad, vinegar soup, lots and lots of grass... amazing. I'll miss this restaurant the most.

#3- Din Tai Fung- A Taiwanese restaurant in Gangnam. We really loved the food in Taiwan, so this restaurant was a real find for us. The lemon chicken, hot and sour soup and beef noodle soup were amazing as always. There's a Taiwanese place we want to check out in Vancouver next week too. We're mad craving some Taiwanese meatball!!

#2- Gostiny Dvor- This place can do no wrong... I mean they completely messed up our order but everything still tasted great. And the company was lovely too.


#1- The last meal... ddoek samgyup and mul naegmyeon. What could make for a better final meal in Korea than bbq wrapped in rice paper with some icy noodles on the side? It was delicious.

Alright, now to mess up our wonderful week of dining with a last meal of airport food! Less than 12 hours to go!!

The Flood

What an awesome summer vacation this has been so far! Since June 22 (the official start of summer) Seoul's been hit with 1259.5mm of rain... AKA 87% of what the country would normally get in a whole year. And it was grey and rainy in Seoul for at least 3 weeks before that, too. Even now, during our last three days in the country we can't catch a break with the weather. We've had an unbelievable amount of rain over the past few days especially, but what we've been getting in the last 12 hours has caused devastating floods across the city.

Check out these pictures stolen from various news websites (I'm sure as hell not leaving my apartment to take pictures of this mess!):

Yangjae Stream has overflowed. This is what it looked like 3 days ago when we took a walk there.

Here's Gangnamdaero, probably the busiest street in the city, about 15 minutes walk from my apartment. We were going to get some supper up there tonight... but maybe we can just order delivery instead? UPDATE: We walked up here during a break in the rain last night and it was no longer flooded. However, almost all businesses operating on the first floor of a building were closed and full of miserable looking employees trying to clean the shops with mops and sump pumps. What a mess.

Daechi-dong, where Mel went to work today. She had a truly horrible trip to work. You should have heard the sound of the thunder and the violent pour of the rain as she had to leave for work. Not only was she soaked through by the time she got to the subway, but after she got off the train she had to walk for 15 minutes more to get to her school. En route, she lost both of her sandals and had to chase them as they floated away in the current, all while holding an umbrella and a coffee. She said the sewers looked like fountains with dirty water spraying from the tops of the manholes. Dirty water she was walking barefoot in. She and her students were sent home early because everyone was hungry but no one could deliver the day's snack in this weather. So on the walk home she tried to pick up lunch at KFC but they were all out of food! Awesome.

The rain caused a big mudslide at Umyeonsan, near Nambu Bus Terminal. This is only a 5 minute drive from our apartment. One person died in the mudslide and a bunch of apartments were evacuated. I read that 32 people have died so far today as a result of the flood.

The Han River, which runs through the middle of the city, has overflowed and forced people to abandon their cars. Vehicles have had to be abandoned all over the city due to the flooding.

This is truly amazing weather we're experiencing. You've got to hand it to the people who are still out there trying to do their jobs in this mess. Mel said she saw businessmen trudging through the water, their suits knee-deep in water. And just as I'm writing this, my doorbell rang and there was a deliveryman for me. My Gmarket order came in! Should ordered scuba gear...

Ask me if I'm going to miss this weather? My only hope is that our flight isn't affected by this weather on Saturday and that we're not wheeling 4 suitcases to the airport bus stop in the rain.
On the plus side, all this rain has allowed me lots of time to clean the apartment and download some new shows. Breaking Bad is awesome! I'll probably be able to get through the last two seasons by Saturday at this rate :)

Photo Album

A mishmash of recent photos that don't really belong in any particular post:

A return visit to the War Memorial.

Mel kicks her legs in victory after winning a game of Yut, a traditional Korean game that plays like the game "Sorry" but you use sticks instead of dice. We got really into Yut for a couple of nights there.

POLOPO SPORTS! This elusive popsicle is the yummiest icey treat available on this fair peninsula, in my opinion. It's impossible to find, too. I've only ever spotted it in three random convenience stores and the last time I found them I bought four so I'd be sure to have some on hand. I think it tastes like white freezies, Mel think it tastes like soap. I'm right.

Mies_Container restaurant in Gangnam. I have never walked past this place and NOT seen a line of people wrapped around the building, waiting for a table. Even in the pouring rain. I'm really curious about what they serve, but from pictures that I've seen online it looks like their specialty is potato wedges covered in cheese. That can't be right, can it? Doesn't sound very well-being.

Sparkling tomato cola to quench your thirst in the hot Seoul summer.

We biked from Jamwon to Yeouido last month. That's the 63 building behind me there.

I just really like the name of this convenience store.

We joined a gym, mainly to pass time. Going to the gym in Korea is an interesting experience. There's a woman at our gym that either lives there or has a sick addiction to fitness. Even when it's 35 degrees outside they will not turn on the A/C (one day last week we hit 40 degrees and they turned it on). I've seen a 70 year old man stand on his head. There are some strange humping stretches that the guys do that would definitely impregnate a vagina if it walked by. Many strange.

The last time we went to Paldalmun Market in Suwon, it caught on fire! We were very alarmed, mostly because we hadn't yet had a chance to shop at the part that was burning. It was a minor blaze, and although some of the stores lost power, none of our favorite shops were affected. Watching the fire trucks definitely gave the shop owners something to watch and talk about that day.

Captain Santa Island- we were bored one night so we walked to Nambu Bus Terminal and back and I noticed this Santa-themed golf store. You could get Captain Santa clubs, polos, bags... everything. Because Santa and golf go hand in hand.

A typical payphone, littered with ads for sexy clubs and massages.

Some hospital patients wheeled themselves to this convenience store to smoke and drink in their gowns.

"Little Pussy" sweatshirt. Meow!

I've never met an ugly beer...

I hate our apartment. It wouldn't be so bad if so many gross things didn't happen and if the poorly made fixtures and fittings would stop breaking. Today our laundry room started flooding. It didn't just flood with water, but with old food and sewage that came up stinking and looking like barf. Several dead cockroach bodies floated up too. Then we noticed that bathroom was flooding a bit too. I am not going to miss Korean plumbing. Or the bugs.

Gangnam. I am going to miss the bright bigness of Gangnam. Life is going to seem so much smaller, soon.

Notepad found at Daiso: "Ostrich. A ostrich has a beautiful double eyelid." And since it's Korean, it probably got that double eyelid at the plastic surgeon's office.

This is actually a store and not an image from the new episode of Hoarders. Actually, a lot of stores in Korea look like this. Can you imagine going in and looking for something you actually needed? You'd probably knock yourself out on one of the bags hanging from the ceiling before you got too far.

Yangjae Stream. Mel had been bugging me for weeks to take a walk down there. They've got a nice pool set up there for the summer.

Packing means throwing out a lot of stuff. We made a lot of progress today.

But a lot of tough choices had to be made :(

Restaurant Bucket List #11-7

We've made a list and we've checked it twice: there are 11 restaurants we have to re-visit before we leave Korea. These are not necessarily our top 11 favorites, but are mostly places we haven't been in a while and have to pay one last visit to. For example, we hit up Yum Thai and Ho Lee Chow a few days before the list was drafted, so we don't need to go back so soon. We've crossed the first five off our list, leaving 6 left in to go over the next 7 days. The results so far:

#11- Everest

Before returning to Korea, I always related Indian food to those TV dinners that might send you to the bathroom within a few minutes of consuming them. We don't have any Indian restaurants at home, so that had been my unfortunate experience. Luckily, Seoul has quite a few delicious Indian places and I've become obsessed with tucking into a nice curry at least once a week for the past year!! Best restaurant by a country mile: Everest near Dongdaemun Station, exit 3. It's a little out of the way for us, but everything tastes fresh and delicious and the prices are half of what you see at Indian places in Gangnam. Love it! We got Chicken makhani, paratha, and samosas.

#10- Popeyes

Actually, Popeyes kind of sucks. Mel hates it. But, for some reason, when we were making this list I decided I had to have their "Cajun Tong Sandwich" again. It's a slightly spicy chicken burger topped with mayo and a slice of ham. Dunno why, but I like it. It was great. Mel hated it.

#9- Pizza @ BBQ Chicken

Their chicken is good, but in my opinion BBQ Chicken makes the best pizza in Korea. At 8,000 Won for a large it's a steal, too. The sauce is amazing. The pepperoni might actually be real! Unfortunately, almost zero BBQ Chicken places serve pizza. The only two we've found are way down in Busan (outside Busan Station) and Dongnimmun Station in north Seoul. We went to the one at Dongnummun and it was, of course, amazing.

#8- Hakoya
Japanese food is my least favorite of the world's cuisine's that I've sampled, but for some reason I love everything at Hakoya. My favorite is the kyushu, a completely unoffensive (try a few Korean soups for an example of 'offensive') pork soup with noodles. The sweet slices of BBQ pork in the soup seal the deal. The gyozas and rice bowls are amazing too. There's one in Yongsan Station and one on the food street behind Gangnam Station exit 7.

#7- Todai

A visit to this place really breaks the bank, at 33,000 Won each, but luckily we've sold a bunch of our old furniture on craigslist and we used the proceeds to fund this trip. Actually, I haven't spent a penny of my own money in 4 days- thanks, craigslist! Todai, near Sinmokdong Station is an amazing dining experience. It's a buffet, but everything looks fancy and tastes fresh. There's so much good stuff here. Examples:

Bulgogi, pork belly, potato pancake, sweet & sour pork, beef teppanyaki, mandarin chicken salad, pizza and a chicken skewer.

salmon sushi, inari sushi, roasted eggplant, salmon salad, chicken skewers, roasted mushrooms and garlic, bulgogi, chicken salad.

Build yer' own pho, more BBQ pork belly, flower bread and another potato pancake.

mango cheesecake, strawberry sweetmeat, watermelon, pineapple, plum, creme brulee and tiramisu.

Cream puff, tiramisu, pineapple, brownie, apple pie, strawberry mousse cake, orange trifle cake, strawberry sweetmeat and a few other cakes that I forget the names of.

All this plus unlimited coffee, smoothies, juices and colas made for a very full tummy on the ride home.

#6-1 still to come. We have a lot of eating to do, and such little time!

Paju "English" Village

Suwon English Village is closed! There it is, in the above photo, with boxes full of English Village dollars and the old Economy game left outside to rot. We were randomly driving by our old school last week and couldn't believe it when we saw that it was shut down. We made our taxi driver let us out of the cab so we could investigate. Turns out, the school had closed just 2 days before we got there! We were the first teachers at that school, working at our first ESL jobs, so it was a little weird to see that it was closed but we were still here! With a little investigating by Jo, we found out that the teachers had only been given 3 weeks notice that they were out of jobs and that it closed because KBS (who owned the building the Village was in) didn't renew their lease.

It's quite sad, really. I feel bad for the teachers who were probably good friends and were forced to split up all over the country at new jobs or go home. After visiting the Alice in Wonderland English Village just a week earlier, it got us thinking- what's going on with all these abandoned English Villages?

The English Village is a pretty recent idea in a country that's been obsessed with English education for decades. The first one was built in Paju in 2006 as an alternative to sending children abroad for English immersion experiences. The Villages were supposed to be "English only" places where kids could learn from "edutainers" in situational classes. Within a year there were 20 English Villages in Korea, but now they're all closing down. Why? Well, in my opinion they were a fad. A lot of money was spent to make these places look impressive when they opened, but no money was re-invested for long-term success. Plus, when people go abroad to learn a language they often stay for at least 6 months. The English Village programs are never more than 2 weeks long, so it's insane to think a person could improve much in such a short time. And it's a flawed concept if there isn't a commitment to enforce the English only policy. But in my experience, Koreans want to learn English but they almost never want to speak it. The employees at the school don't want to speak English, the bosses don't want to speak English, and it just falls apart from there.

So, having had worked at both Suyu and Suwon English Villages, and having visited the Alice Park English Village, we decided to head north to Paju and visit the school that started it all: Paju English Village.

There's a direct bus (200 or 2200) that you can catch outside Hapjeong Station exit 2, which takes about 90 minutes to arrive in Paju. They leave every 15-20 minutes, so it's pretty convenient. The ride seemed to go by fast, and we were all in a good mood because it was the first day in a month that it wasn't raining. A big draw in the Paju area is the Premium Outlet Mall, which our bus seemed to circle at least a dozen times before dropping us off at the Village. According to the sign, even the mall is into edutaining!

Are we in Hollywood, or is this the English Village? Wow, so overgrown.

Just like at the two English Villages we worked at, your visit begins with a trip through immigration. We were given passports (just like at the other schools) and they were stamped as we went through. There were signs posted that the immigration staff should be wearing uniforms, but they were just dressed casually. We ALWAYS wore an ill-fitting shirt and tie- have some respect for the job, guys! The immigration teachers seemed playful with the Koreans, but when the guy saw me he said, "you don't want an interview do you?" and the girl asked Hannah, "how long have you been in Korea?" "3 years,"Hannah said. "Ugh, me too. it's time to get out!" the girl replied, stamping her passport, before turning back to her macbook. LOL!!! This place was awesome already!

We were given an information pamphlet that said, in bold black print, "Only English, no Korean!" but ironically, the entire pamphlet was written in Korean. And from that point, we never saw a single employee or patron of the Village speak English to another person. The employees at the store and restaurant that we visited spoke in English to us, but switched straight back to Korean when they waited on Koreans. Some little kids at the park seemed interested in us and probably wanted us to edutain them, but it was too bad that there weren't really any foreign staff around for them to talk to.

The first thing we did was stop in a convenience store, which had a cooler full of beer! LOL! Why didn't our Villagey have one of those?

An "English only" sign.

We were hungry so we got some food. I chose a cup full of cola with some chicken nuggets in a bowl above the cola and some cheese sticks (served with ketchup). It was pretty good.

City Hall. The Villagey grounds were pretty impressive, though it was clear that it hadn't been kept up at all since it was built. Plus, a lot of the buildings were closed. Still, this was definitely the nicest of the Villageys I'd been to, though Suyu is quite nice too.

Inside City Hall... if I wanted help, who was going to help me? The building was empty. And actually, besides the two immigration teachers, the only other foreign staff we saw was one girl teaching a "bank" class. There were signs up for lots of different classes that were supposed to be running while we were there, but no one was there. The teachers must have a pretty sweet schedule!

Who could resist a photo op like this?

I immediately regretted posing with the stuffed toys as soon as I touched them. They were so wet, and upon closer inspection, covered in mold.

At the 3D cinema (which was showing a Korean movie) there was a sign explaining what to do with your ticket if the movie was starting, but there was no staff around to collect your ticket. Why wouldn't there be someone to take your ticket?!

The dormitories were all named after African tribe names, which was kind of random because the Village is supposed to be based on a European theme and all the buildings looked European.

Inside one of the dorms. I love what they've done with the place!

This poster was hanging in the "Media" building. The speakers at the Village were also pumping out some hideous songs the whole time we were there that went something like this: "Media! Media! I love media! Science! Science! I love science!" I love media??? Really?

This Museum of English Pub History sounded amazing, and totally age appropriate for the park guests, but sadly it too was locked up.

Across from the Pub museum was the perversely named "Kiddywood".

Stonehenge in the car park.

I absolutely loved the English Village. I love the ridiculousness of it and taking the piss out of everything that was there, but as a functioning business- good god, I'd be shocked if it was still there in a year's time. Go now- while you still can!

But we weren't done with Paju yet! There is so much to see and do there. I'd always heard that Paju English Village is close to the North Korean border, but I never realized how close it was. It's like... across the street. There's a touristy sight close by called the Dongil Observatory, which is only 460m from North Korea, so we decided to check it out. We took a bus there (the ever-convenient #200) and thought the fence in the above picture would be a good place to start our hike up to the entrance.

It was such a long hike up to the observatory! It was so humid today and I was a slimy mess by the time we got to the top. To make matters worse, when we got there we saw a sign for a free shuttle bus that we could've used to get up the hill. Dammit!

Admission was only 3,000Won (I love Korean admission prices!) and we spent some time gawking over at the North. We could see some people walking around in a rice paddy. It was quite thrilling!

North Korea is a fascinating place, and I've read at least half a dozen books about the country and watched any documentaries I can about it. It's so many mystery! The observatory had an interesting little museum to look through, full of North Korean products and even some models of a typical North Korean schoolroom and home (above). Notice the framed pictures of Kim Jong Il and Kim Il Sung. You can be put in a work camp if your home is caught without such a photo hanging in it, or even if the frame is a little dusty.

And then you can go to the gift shop and buy some DMZ hand towels or soap.

Next, we wanted to visit the Heyri Art Village, so we hopped on the #200 again. Before long, we'd realized that our trip was taking a bit longer than we'd expected and suddenly we were on the highway back to Seoul! We'd taken the bus the wrong way! It was too late to turn around now, so we had to give the Art Village a pass and continue on home. It seemed so sudden. We didn't even have a chance to say goodbye to Paju...

Here's what most of the drive home looked like: barbed wire and guard posts. Most of the time, I totally forget just how close we are to such a dangerous nation.

Well, after eating some questionable Mexican food in Hongdae we arrived back home feeling a bit weathered from our day of sightseeing. I'm looking forward to relaxing tonight before beginning my LAST WEEK AT PSA tomorrow, with a tall glass of North Korean beer- bought at the observation tower gift shop. I passed on the DMZ soap, but I'm quite interested to taste this beer. They don't sell that in the English Villagey cooler!