Well, it was another weekend not planned!!! What is the world coming to?! Absolutely terrible! Still, as usual, something was in the pipeline, so I headed to the holiday village after work and knocked up the Butcher. Friday night was spent quietly, with a bit of kimbab action and then a trip back to Faye's to watch some films. Tame, but, as always when Butchie and I are together, excellent fun.
Saturday morning we decided to give the markets is Seoul a try. We got on a bus to Gangnam, which, at the current time is my favourite place in the capital, during the daytime at least. Gangnam has all the most amazing shops and lots of cool bars, including my favourite, Prague bar. Saying this however, my experience of Seoul is pretty darn slight. Sometimes I worry that I'm missing out, seeing as I've barely ventured around my own doorstep, but then again, I've seen a heck of a lot of the rest of the country during my short time in Korea, and I think that through the winter months I'll probably be spending more time discovering all that Seoul has to offer. Not much more though, seeing as there's skiing to be done and frozen waterfalls to climb, but all the same. One arrival in Gangnam, we wasted no time (apart from the bit where we got lost) getting to Dr Fish's, so that a few little fish could nibble at our toes. The poor guys. I've mentioned Dr. Fish's before but for those of you who didn't read that blog/can't remember and can't be bothered to scroll, then Dr. Fish's is a cafe where you go to put your feet into water full of fish (very cheap for both the service and the drinks and you get free 'all you can eat' toast and jam - amazing). The fish nibble all the dead skin off your feet, leaving you feeling relaxed and your feet feeling soft. Or that's the intention anyway. Faye and I stuck our feet in, screamed with laughter as it tickled so much and, on withdrawing our feet 20 minutes later, realised that our tootsies were FAR too far gone to be as smooth as could be, rather there were just a load of really bloated fish turning to each other and exclaiming that they didn't get paid enough to gnaw all the crap off those excuses for walking instruments. Still, the experience was pretty good. I reckon if we kept at it, we could develop a some fresh and lovely skin.
We emerged back into the rain, for that was what Saturday was about, unfortunately, and found the local Mexican eatery that Rubes is always going on about. Located in a side alley off the main drag of Gangnam, you can get rather over-priced, but extremely tasty burritos, tacos, nachos and chimichangas, whilst people watching all the other westerners that come in. Pretty good craic, but I'm not sure I was as enamoured with the food as Miss Dee, shame that, as I love Mexican and am rather partial to a fajita or two (dozen). Whilst eating I found a card advertising the 'HOPE' charity, which enables western teachers to give back by working with disadvantaged kids in Seoul, teaching them English. I've been in contact with the co-ordinator and am hoping to start volunteering as soon as August's 9-5 timetable is out of the way. Luckily, there is a school in Gangnam I can help out at, so it should be easy to head there one morning a week. Also mentioned were soup kitchens, which got me rather excited owing to my work in that field while in Nottingham. Excellent.
Feeling about 100 stone heavier, Faye and I made our way to Namdaemun market. Namdaemun is one of the oldest markets in SK and is located by the old South Gate to the old city. The market is huge, and when you arrive you will spot tourist information booths with maps and friendly English speaking (for the most part) staff, who will send you on your way with a smile. Despite this, we saw only a very small part of the market, missing, somehow, most of it, even though it spans a huge area. Well done, girls. Still, the part we saw was an experience, finding many things on offer, such as bum shaping padding, hankies with hair attached, ginseng and pots and pans a-plenty. I have to say, Namdaemun is worth a look from a purely touristy perspective, but if you're after clothes and you're not an ajumma, or are looking for anything that isn't cookery related or tat, it's probably worth heading to Dongdaemun instead. Good to visit though.
Next on the agenda, after a long debate of 'where shall we go?'' Dunno, where do you want to go?' date stylee, was a Han river cruise! Yey! We took the purple line to Yeouninaru (ignore the Lonely Planet, it tells you to get off a stop earlier, which is further away from the river and, well, pointless really. Silly LP!) and then walked to the river, where we saw a couple of moored up boats that were being used as restaurants/convenience stores and jetties for the cruises themselves. We bought the standard single course (which, I found out, doesn't mean that you get one course of a meal also. Just so you know.) that took us 15 mins down the Han one way, past a nice fountain in the middle of the river and then back. It was rather pretty I must say, though the highlight of the evening was finding the lit up heart at the back of the ferry and posing for some rather romantic photos. Oh, the Butch, how I love you so! Heehee!
It was decided that we would stay in Seoul that night, as to leave and then head back to meet the girls for baseball the next day would be rather annoying, so instead we headed to our favourite jimjilbang - Dragon spa! It's found in Yongsan, right next to the station and is not only a 24 hour affair that is pretty close to Itaewon, but is also one of the best jimjilbangs around. This place has it all, cinemas, rooftop terraces, a swimming pool, all the rooms you could imagine and a lot of baths, norebang, pc bang, restaurants, massage parlours, the lot. We spent a while pampering ourselves and then hunkered down, only to wake up early the next morning to do it all again. Bliss! Shame that we didn't bring our cossies, as we could have quite happily spent most of the next day messing about in the pool. Still, we had somewhere to be - BASEBALL!!!!!!!!!
We headed to the Digital Sports Complex and met up with Anda, who had us in hysterics with her buying water antics. Come on, it's buying water, how can it be that funny? Still, it gave birth to the CHUNON! term and hasn't been forgotten since. The game was between Doosan Bears, the visitors from, well Doosan and Seoul's own LG Twins. Of course, like the morons you expect us to be, we ended up in the Bear stands, but to be honest it made not a jot of difference, apart from when trying to guide Ruby and Amy to where we were sitting. There was screaming, dancing girls and Mexican waves aplenty, and just when we thought that the game would outlast us (we had to get the last bus home) the LG Twins won and all was over. An excellent game all round though, even though we were so high up it was hard to see the players. 'Cept for Ruby of course, who could tell which player was Korean and which wasn't; 'You know, you can tell by the features'...Ha, bless her!
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