Big Day Out with Jojo and Kyle

After a long night of being out and about in Seoul, Jojo and I summoned the courage to leave the shoebox (Jojo's office style apartment that is in similar size to a shoebox) and brave the cold.



Before we could really get going, we had to get our daily (if not hourly) fix of Kimchi. So, we stopped by a local Gimbab Chongu to fuel up. If you ever come to Korea and want to know how to eat out inexpensively all the time, just remember Gimbab Chongu and Gimbab Nara. These are two chain restaurants that are extremely cheap, located everywhere, and open 24 hours a day. They are also always a good fallback place because they don't serve anything all too gnarly. So if you don't know all that much Korean you will still be safe. For instance, you won't walk in and mistakenly end up getting served a ton of octopus or chicken's feet.


Jojo wanted McDonald's.

Jojo and I then hopped on the extremely efficient subway system and headed for City Hall. There, amongst numerous skyscraping office buildings and neon billboards, we discovered a rather large park that contained several traditional korean structures. Above is a photo of Jojo getting his classic tourist pose on in front of a statue of the man who created Hangul (the Korean language).







I wish I could explain in greater detail what all of the pictures above were of or even of what I saw that day but......during our Saturday outting, I soon came to the realization that I am really horrible with the whole tourist thing. The cultural exchanges that occur at everyday places, with the everyday people are far more intriguing, educational, and enjoyful. So, for all you Korean history buffs out there; if you are looking for a plethora of photographs containing ancient buildings, then this blog is probably not going to be the spot....my apologies.

Cassfaced

These are a few snapshots from a night out in Gangnam (a district in Seoul). The crew was Carillo, Agnew, Seung Ju, Coco, and myself. We ended up going to a foreigner's bar that played some old school American jams.....and they accepted requests.




Seung Ju is on the left and his girlfriend Coco is on the right.



If you pay attention to the carving on the wall, you will notice the term "Cassfaced" that is engraved. This term stems from an extemely popular domestic beer in Korea, named "Cass,"
which tastes a lot like Natural Light.



At the bar, we ended up meeting a few foreign teachers that were in the same boat as us....kind of. The girl on the left was from Nebraska and the guy on the right came from Fargo, North Dakota.
A message to all the Gudmundsons that weren't born and raised in southern California: Don't worry, I represented the family's North Dakotan roots pretty hard.

Music Teacher Farewell

This post will serve as a small to some of the people I work with.
Unfortunately, the music instructor at our school decided to take a break from teaching to tend to her studies. In order to properly say our goodbye's (or annyonghikaaseyo's), a few of the teachers and I went out for some dinner and drinks.


This is a snapshot of one of the two co-teachers that accompany me with the students on a daily basis. Mrs. Kim is married, has two boys, and speaks English fairly well. I would say that our relationship is more mother to son than anything.





My homeboy and by far the best English speaker in my school is Mr. Kim whom is located on the right. Both him and I ended up having a great night later on, but that's another story entirely. The music teacher that was set to leave after that night is in the middle. Bummed out about that.