We've got Seoul

If you ever need a reminder to how badly you're out of shape, climb a mountain. This is what we decided to spend our weekend doing.


We ventured out into the outskirts of S.Korea with one of the investors at our school and a few of his friends. They were all older (45-55), but boy were they all in great shape. The oldest guy was a Master of a korean martial art, and also leads mountain climbs every weekend. The speed at which this old man went through the mountain was ridiculous. We didn't know exactly where we were headed, but it was somewhere within this:

It started off pretty easy, but I got tired... fast. Tommy was ok through most of it, and they were even making jokes that he should lead the next trip.

Our first stop was to hike to a buhddist temple at one of the mountain peaks. The scenery along the way was beautiful, but it wasn't always eay to enjoy. We were constantly moving, and you really had to watch your step:

Finally we arrived at the temple and it was beautiful. It was so calm and peaceful up there, I could've stayed all day (it helped that I was exhausted). Here are a bunch of pics from the temple and surrounding area:

We enjoyed some excellent green tea there, prepared by a green tea expert. They exist. She was really instense about the whole process, and I must admit, it was pretty delicious.Then the trek was back on to the the 3 different peaks:

The view atop each peak was beautiful. I'm not entirely sure which pics were taken where, so I'll just post the pics that turned out the best:

Finally we made it to the very top of the mountain:

(the bandanas were gifts from the guy we work with)

On the way down, we chilled in this little creek and washed up:

After we decended, we hit up this little bar(?) at the bottom which was serving food/alcohol. They had huge chairs:

We proceeded to drink, eat and make merry (I swear I was happier then I look).

When all was said and done, we had trekked through a lot of the mountain. It took us about 5 hours. We went from the point of my stick to my finger:

It was a really good experience, and we'll probably be joining them again in the future. There's this really beautiful mountain we wanted to check out, and will probably head there in the future (we couldn't go this weekend because there was a typhoon there). I can't remember the name, but it has all kinds of waterfalls and wildlife. At this mountain we didnt see much except a smallish snake.

Finally, here are some of the pics from last weekend at the basketball game.

Olympic Stadium:

The Game:

Some thing:

There are so many more pics from the game and the mountain, but this is taking me forever to upload. I'll share some more soon.

I, Tommy, have added some more pics here:
http://mindtommyandseoul.blogspot.com

Well, today is a Korean national holiday. I'm pretty sure they're celbrating their soverignty from North Korea. I wonder if North Korea celebrates as well? My guess is they don't do too much celebrating, but whatever.

The weekend was good times. We went to see two national basketball games. USA destroyed lithuania, and Italy dominated South Korea. Italy looked really good, they'll probably be every competitive this year. USA looked dominating in pretty much every aspect, and surprisingly never got lazy, even with a big lead. The seats were ok, and we were 17 rows up from the floor. I think I'm just spoiled from all the sweet tickets I've gotten to the Raptors games.

I also wanted to share a picture one of my students drew. I'm not entirely sure, but I think it's of me:

I asked her if it was of me, and she just started laughing. Pretty awesome, she got the fangs just right. Then I was joking around and asked some of the students if it looked like me and they were all like 'noooooooo!'. So then one of the more shy students, Michelle, did her own take on me:

Hahha, I love it. It totally captures my essence!

Anyways, thats it for now - we finally got our couches, so I want to post some pics of the pad. Until then, maybe Tommy can post some pics up from the game and our nights out.

Me and Tommy went out for drinks with a couple co-workers last night and we saw something we've never seen before. There was a designated area blocked off, and only women could go in. WTF? We could see in, but couldn't enter. I had to know what was up.

We called the manager over (our coworkers speak korean) and asked what the deal was. Apparently the manger said guys get really drunk and violent, so he wanted to have a special area just for girls. I find this interesting on about 6 different levels.

Just thought I'd share.

I think Tommy took some pics from the night, maybe he'll post them later.

We walked to the dirt-rod building where our school is located. We expected the school to be its own building but it's actually located on the 6th floor of the Elegance building. Got off the elevator and to our suprise was a brand new school. A "Sick, Wicked, and Nasty" was definetly in order.