This time I flew straight to Seoul, stealing as much electricity as I could.
Saw some Korean anime in the train station.
And some Christians outside it. Korea is a rather Christian country it seems.
Walked around for a bit trying to find somewhere I could use wifi to contact everyone.
I was about to give up after going down a small street when I looked up and managed to glimpse the logo of Starbuck's through a window. But unfortunately I was only able to steal wifi from someone's hotspot. Until they left. Then it became an hour-long battle to try to get access to one of Korea's wifi providers. Except it also had started raining. So I was running back and forth between the Starbuck's and the convenience store, trying to get the stupid thing to work. No one at any convenience store ever understood that you needed to buy minutes at the store. Fortunately, the guy spook English. Still took forever because of poor webpage design or something. But it did allow me to get internet for the rest of my trip. Routers are plentiful in Korea, so when it worked, I usually had internet.
I was able to meet up with my friend and we had some Korean barbecue. Complete with a vacuum.
And the detested seaweed soup.
Unlike in Japan, you can stick your chopsticks into your rice. However, it is weird to eat rice (and many other things) with chopsticks and they kept telling me to use a spoon.
Or my hands.
Unlike Japan, Korea has embraced the future. So you can use cards for things. They also have these fancy train cards. They might have actually been used for more than just trains, but that's all I did. Apparently only worked in Seoul though.
Here's another picture of Seoul.
I was staying with my American friend working there. He took me to an American breakfast.
It was awesome.
Then I went to look at things. Here are pictures of things.
And of a fugu. I think.
Seoul is full of weird statues.
Also Nazis.
Most of these pictures speak for themselves I think.
Nice fake building.
Went to another thingy.
Pigeons.
If you can't read Korean or English, you're out of luck. And why are they written in both languages anyway?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNaXdLWt17A but replace swamp with burned down. That won't make grammatical sense though.
It was like Bring Your High School Girl to Landmarks Day or something. Everywhere I went was swarming with them. Apparently a group of them thought I was handsome and shouted that out to me.
That camera looks really cool to me for some reason. Kind of alien or something.
Squirrel.
Apparently they were filming something on that day in a corner somewhere.
Then I left to go look at other stuff. Like this train station.
Korean apparently has kayaking, which would have been amazing to do. Someday.
Cool Korean instruments.
Japan does this, too, but I don't know why. Gloves built into the handlebars.
Stumbled upon a fancy building essentially in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by mundane.
I tried finding my way into some kind of ancient graveyard that I thought the map had led me to, but instead just kept walking along a long long stretch of road. When I did find some kind of entrance, I wasn't allowed in.
I did find this dog though.
And this weird bike.
And some kind of outdoor gym. The lady seemed mad at me for taking pictures so I couldn't get a good shot.
Apparently I had walked full circle from where I started in morning, despite having trained to get around.
More shops.
For some reason when I read this, I first thought of what it meant in Japanese, which would be something like "Eh Guest House" or "Not That Great Guest House". The English isn't much better.
I stumbled on some old people playing Go (or something) in the park. I wanted to join them, but I was on a tight schedule and I couldn't communicate with them, so I tried to come back a different day, but failed to actually get a chance to play.
Near the shrine some dudes were doing some kind of demonstration or something with hanja. I could only read some of it, but I had better luck reading it than regular Korean.
Then I tried to go to this shrine next to the park, but it took an hour and I was meeting my friend in an hour, so I decided not to risk it (but I did go back a different time).
Instead, I looked at random stuff.
I have no idea what was going on here, but it was weird.
It was outside this palace so maybe it was connected to it. Maybe. Anyway, I went inside and took more pictures.
Then I left and tried to get to a train station. It looked like they were setting up for something, but I am not sure what. I saw some Germans looking at a map and I tried to help them in German, but they just replied in English as Germans are wont to do.
Spent a while trying to figure out how to reach over to that thing. Apparently it was part of the palace behind me.
You couldn't actually enter though. It housed some kind of spiritual tablets or something.
My friend took me to her Women's University. Which is basically the best place ever for me.
Apparently she always takes a picture with guests here, so we got some girls to take our picture.
It looked like it would be fun to roll down, but it proved more difficult than I thought.
They had mangoes which transcended both time and space.
The place was built on a mountain, so it was a ton of climbing to get around.
The buses had hammers like in Europe. I was overjoyed. I secretly hoped the bus flipped so I could use it.
Despite being the last thing I ever thought I'd do in my life, I went with my friend to Bible class in Korea. Her friend had invited her so it was her first time there. As I listened to the teacher try to explain to a bunch of women a story about a bunch of Middle Easterns in the Middle East walking around doing nothing of significance and having to explain all these terms and places that no longer exist and were never and would never be significant in anyway, I wondered what the point of all of it was. It was fortunate I had downloaded the Bible onto my phone long before coming so I was able to read and keep up, but my friend eventually decided to leave early anyway.
One Piece!
We walked around some shopping area afterwards.
And got a spicy chicken thing. She warned me about it, but I wanted to go for it. I had to drink a liter of milk to get through it. (Ended up forgetting most of the jug in the park though, oops.)
We went to the university her parents apparently attended and sat on the bench and talked. At some point homosexuals were brought up and she was surprised that I thought it was normal and she said she feared them. I think I was able to make her realize there's nothing to fear, but it was a grim reminder of how much progress there is ahead of all of us.
Also, Pizza School! The homework is breadsticks!
Korean subways were fancy and could get fairly packed. They would play the best music when the trains arrive. I was finally able to catch it on film and have posted it at the bottom.
Apparently the Olympics had happened some time in the past in Korea and there were plenty of leftovers.
Ended up back at the University the next day. I attended a class on art or something that involved a movie about a child with a mental disability. I spent most of the class trying to learn Korean to no avail.
Also, there was some concert or something we stumbled on but didn't stay for.
Then she took me to practice her music for a bit since she is a music major of some kind. I finally got to hear her sing. She also played the piano for me. She asked me to give her a song to play, so I had her play Dearly Beloved. I was able to record her playing, but I'm not allowed to post it online.
Then I went back to the shrine I couldn't enter before. I missed the English tour, so I was stuck with the Korean one. We had to be lead around with a guide for some reason. There was a Russian woman with us that probably didn't speak Korean. She ended up trailing far behind and then had some kind of long phone call and at some point disappeared. It was rather strange. I was surprised the tour guide never objected.
The main part of the shrine was this building here. While walking on the stones there, I noticed a loose stone. Realizing it must hide buried treasure, I tried to lift it, to which the guide immediately responded angrily in English "WORLD HERITAGE SITE!" so I had to give up on my treasure hunt for now.
Then I met up with my friend again and we went shopping.
Bought some new shoes (not sure why my friend took my picture with the sales lady really), and later a new belt. I wanted to haggle with the guy so I had my friend help, but I gave up almost immediately which made my friend angry, haha.
We managed to find these Chicago stars in the middle of the shopping district for some reason.
And some dönner!
And a $2 bill for some reason.
Apparently, this is German food.
It will probably be the last time I will be able to see my friend for a long long time.
Korean subway!
More exploring, this time with my friend that had been letting me stay over all this time.
We went to a burial site.
Then we met up with another one of my friends. I was determined to do one last thing in Korea - eat dog.
It basically tasted like beef, but the mental images probably kept me from enjoying or even finishing it.
Here is the Judicial building of Korea, very omnimous and kind of dytopian-looking.
More weird statues. Unfortunately, non-functional.
Went back to my friend's place to get my stuff. He was living by the Olympic stuff in a building that was trying too hard with its name.
This is my every day.
Korea is awesome for the fact that they have these routers practically everywhere.
More emergency hammers.
Since I was boating out of Busan and I wanted to see my friend, I spent the last day in Busan. I trained on over. I have been to Busan three times now, so I was somewhat familiar with the place. Here is some train station art.
Outside some laser light show was going on. I guess there was some kind of Friendship Day happening. Though no one seemed to know about it. The giant ring is always there, but this time they added dragons, a tower, and some lanterns.
Finding the hostel I was staying at was rather difficult. Even with my friend with me. The guy inside seemed rather tired of life, but he had an ever so subtle accent. When I asked if he was German, he said yes. And when we began to speak to him in German, he became ecstatic. He had missed being able to speak his own language for so long. I felt bad for him though because I didn't really have any intention to talk that much to him.
Also, Busan has light-up blind people guide things. Which kind of doesn't make sense because they are blind.
Pig skin.
And cats!
We went to Korean karaoke. Which was a lot fancier than anywhere I had gone in Japan. Though the input methods in Japan were much better and didn't obscure the screen. I found Electric Six's Gay Bar somehow on the song list and our friend that only spoke Korean began chanting the words "Gay bar! Gay bar!" and "Superstar!" for the rest of the night.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTN6Du3MCgI
Busan has fancy bus terminals.
The same place last night during the day. Much easier to navigate when you can see. Also, there was a döner stand.
On the train there was a dude selling tops. Naturally the top played Gangnam Style.
I decided it would be a good idea to check in early this time so as to not miss or nearly miss my boat like every other time I went to Korea. Along the way, I ran into these murals again. And the rest of this stuff.
Including an anatomically-strange Sonic the Hedgedolphin.
My friends were staying in Busan for all of Golden Week instead of going to other cities, so I went to go meet them. They were relaxing at the beach. At like the other side of the city.
Nearly every couple was dressed in matching outfits, which was kind of entertaining.
The beach! We laid here most of the day. At some point, I noticed the shadow of some dude, so I sat up to talk to him. He looked like one of those people. Unfortunately, I still knew essentially no Korean, so I had to rely on his English. I can't remember if he started out asking where I was from or not, but he began to say some kind of gibberish. Eventually he seemed to give up on communication and wandered off. A few minutes later, he was back. He said more of the same gibberish. Eventually, I understood he was saying "I firmly believe the ends don't justify the means." I asked if he was asking if I agreed, and I said I did or something and he got frustrated. Apparently, he wanted me to pronounce it or something. When I did this, he told me I had nice pronunciation and wandered off. He circled around for a bit before coming back to ask more strange questions. He seemed to get frustrated when I answered where I was from with "Shimonoseki, Japan" and wandered off. When he discovered I was from Chicago, he tried asking how long the flight was and how expensive or something. But the way he asked questions was like I was some kind of travel agency. He went back and forth, asking weird questions, and circling around for a while and then finally disappeared.
Eventually we decided to get food.
I found these delicious 호떡 hotteok again.
And more döner! Plus Fanta! It was like I was in Germany all over again.
They also had Korean onigiri; even kimchi onigiri!
We ended up back at the beach somehow.
Korean food.
We stopped to get chicken, but I had to leave early to catch my boat. I had to bolt because I wasted so much time. I only barely made it and had to be rushed through security and stuff. Somehow this always happens to me.
And so I set sail and left Korea once again.
In the morning, I could see Japan. Well, this island.
Then I could see Japan.
And then Shimonoseki.
Including an anatomically-strange Sonic the Hedgedolphin.
My friends were staying in Busan for all of Golden Week instead of going to other cities, so I went to go meet them. They were relaxing at the beach. At like the other side of the city.
Nearly every couple was dressed in matching outfits, which was kind of entertaining.
The beach! We laid here most of the day. At some point, I noticed the shadow of some dude, so I sat up to talk to him. He looked like one of those people. Unfortunately, I still knew essentially no Korean, so I had to rely on his English. I can't remember if he started out asking where I was from or not, but he began to say some kind of gibberish. Eventually he seemed to give up on communication and wandered off. A few minutes later, he was back. He said more of the same gibberish. Eventually, I understood he was saying "I firmly believe the ends don't justify the means." I asked if he was asking if I agreed, and I said I did or something and he got frustrated. Apparently, he wanted me to pronounce it or something. When I did this, he told me I had nice pronunciation and wandered off. He circled around for a bit before coming back to ask more strange questions. He seemed to get frustrated when I answered where I was from with "Shimonoseki, Japan" and wandered off. When he discovered I was from Chicago, he tried asking how long the flight was and how expensive or something. But the way he asked questions was like I was some kind of travel agency. He went back and forth, asking weird questions, and circling around for a while and then finally disappeared.
Eventually we decided to get food.
I found these delicious 호떡 hotteok again.
And more döner! Plus Fanta! It was like I was in Germany all over again.
They also had Korean onigiri; even kimchi onigiri!
We ended up back at the beach somehow.
Korean food.
We stopped to get chicken, but I had to leave early to catch my boat. I had to bolt because I wasted so much time. I only barely made it and had to be rushed through security and stuff. Somehow this always happens to me.
And so I set sail and left Korea once again.
In the morning, I could see Japan. Well, this island.
Then I could see Japan.
And then Shimonoseki.
And I was home! It sounded a lot like this:
