coldness, fall, and games

I haven't posted in a while, as usual, because I usually don't have anything new and exciting to talk about. The weather is getting pretty cold these days, 30-40s, and to me, that's absolutely freezing! I am not looking forward to the winter at all. I don't know how much my body can take, and plus, the insulation here is, need I to say it, pretty crappy. In fact, our kitchen is half window, and it has ONE pane of class. One pane of glass window vs below freezing weather = very cold kitchen indeed. Even if we cook alot, it's going to be cold, and plus, we don't have an oven here so it's not like we can turn on the oven and open the door to let warmth in.

Anyway, at least, we do have an electric heater, and also getting another one. We also bought a heating pad for the bed, so at least at night we're toasty warm, but it probably means less likely to want to leave the apartment. It's already pretty hard to leave our toasty bed to brave the icy winds of outside.

and just think, this was at LAST November . . .

As for new things we did, last weekend (not this weekend that just passed, the one before), we went to Changdeokgung. It is a palace and garden in Seoul, which supposedly has pretty nice gardens and buildings, and you can supposedly only see it on a guided tour, but when we went into it, we saw a LOT of Koreans just walking around by themselves, so I am pretty confused. I really wonder if only certain people like Engilsh speaking people has to do guided and then Koreans are just off on their own? I'm not sure.

I was wearing a tshirt because it was actually warm last weekend, and then it dropped a lot of degrees.

And then this weekend, that just passed, we attended a Boardgame meetup in seoul. We used to be pretty active in our boardgame meetup back in Texas, so it was a great joy to me to find one in Seoul as well. We all went to a Boardgame cafe and played some pretty fun games: Alhambra (which we love and play many times before) and this bean game Bohnanza, which was pretty interesting as well.

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Palace and Dogs

On Saturday we decided to do some touristy things, so we went to Gyeongbokgung, one of the 5 palaces in Seoul. Yes, we've been here 7 months and still haven't gone to a palace. I wanted to go to Changdeokgung, since it was supposedly nicer, but it was only guided tours and we missed the time, so we went to the other one instead.

The Palace itself was a bit bigger than I thought, although definitely not as big as many of the palaces in China. There was a lot of buildings, and even a pond in the back end of the palace. The buildings were pretty empty and lifeless, it felt like we were going into a lot of ghost towns as we wandered through the complexes. In addition, I felt like they could have done more with the buildings, such as displayed more artifacts or sample clothing or furniture or food or anything, instead of closing off all the buildings and rooms. Nevertheless, it was still a pretty fun day.









After the Palace, we went down to Tomatillos again and got more Mexican food. This time, I got Chili Cheese Nachos and it was so good! I didn't take a picture since I was too busy inhaling it, but it was covered with cheese, and meat chili, and jalapenos.. oh drool. It was great.

When we were stuffed, we headed towards Hongdae. Hongdae is the district filled with young people, since it's in the area that had a few Universities. There was a lot of restaurants, clubs, and cafes. After wandering around a lot, getting lost, we finally found where we were looking for: the bau dog cafe.

Yes, a dog cafe. Not the kind you might think of, but this one is a cafe where you go, pay for a drink, and just sit there while tons and tons of dogs run around and jump on the couch and the windows and you. They had some tiny dogs and some huge massive Huskies there as well. Some dogs were very shy and nervous and some were pretty assertive in their wanting their treats, but overall, it was great just playing with the various dogs and holding some of the small cute ones.











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Chuseok Weekend

So this last weekend was Chuseok, aka "Korean Thanksgiving." We had a four day weekend, Fri-Mon, so we decided to go visit Aaron's relatives in Ulsan, which is in the Southeast area of South Korea. Aaron's mother was visiting from America, so she came with us as we journeyed down there on Friday.

On Saturday morning, which was Chuseok day, we took an early morning walk to the coast of Ulsan to Ulgi Park, which was a coastline park. There was a part of the park called Daewangam Rock, of which several large rocks seemed to rise up from the beautiful clear waters of the sea. It was a pretty gorgeous sight.







Later on that day, we went to Aaron's aunt and uncles house, where they set up all the food as an offering for the ancestors, as a traditional chuseok prayer, which was pretty interesting. Afterwards, we all enjoyed the food as well.


Finally, on the rest of Saturday, we drove to Gyeongju, which was known as the "museum without walls" because of all the temples and shrines and tombs from the Silla empire. We visited a few different places: Imhaejeon Site, Tumuli Park, Seokguram Grotto, and Bulguska Temple.






On Sunday, we visited the Unmunsa Temple, which was a temple for women. It it was pretty scenic, situated near some mountains, and had some interesting paintings and building architecture.







And then finally, on Sunday night, we went out with Aaron's mother, aunt, uncle, and cousins to sing at a Noraebang, and had a lot more fun than expected.





What a weekend! Click here to read more

Hanging out with my friends

Last weekend, some friends of mine were visiting Korea, so I met up with them in Seoul and spent a day and a half with them, which was great. They weren't from Texas, so I haven't seen them in 2 or 3 years, so it was fun hanging out with them.

On Thursday night, we went to the Hongdae (the nightlife) district, which wasn't as big as I thought, but maybe we weren't in the main areas. We went to this spicy seafood stew place for dinner, which might've been a mistake because it was too spicy. In fact, we were dunking the red-coated shrimps and rice cakes into our water before eating it, and even then, our lips were on fire.



After breathing fire, we decided to hit up a nearby Noraebang (aka Korean Karaoke) for some singing fun, and even though I've been here for like 6 months plus, I haven't done it, so off we went. It was really fun, in fact! They had a TON of English songs as well, anything from oldies to pretty new stuff. We were singing old 90s pop songs like Spice Girls, TLC, and Savage Garden - it was so much fun!





We sang for quite awhile, and by the time we got back to their hotel, it was already 1, so we went to bed ready for another day.

The next day we were pretty lazy in the morning, but we did manage to hit up Insadong during the early afternoon. So after that, one of my friends' relatives came visiting from China, so we all went out for lunch, which was Bulgogi - two kinds in fact. One was grilled on the grill thing, and one was boiled in a soup, which later the broth was made into a noodle soup. The meat was tender and oh so delicious.








When our bellies were full, I wanted to show them Dr Fish, so we all went to that cafe where they bursted out laughing as soon as they put in their feet, since it was an oddly ticklish sensation. Still, we had a pretty good time.





The friend with the relatives left with them after that, so me and my other friend, we walked around the lights of Gangnam a little bit, before taking the subway to Dongdaemun, where they are supposedly some night markets. We didn't find too many stands, but there were some little stages with shows like belly dancers, and even a nausea-inducing looking ride. We stopped here for dinner, of which she had tofu stew and I had galbi (beef short rib) soup, delish! We just walked around the area and finally went back to the hotel.












The next day, I had to leave and come back to my apartment, and so that was my weekend. Click here to read more