Back to Seoul with Sam

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This past weekend, we headed back up to Seoul for some good times with our friends and lots of Seoul food. A friend of mine, Sam, came to pick us up at Namseoul and drove us into town. It took us such a long time to get there. With it being Friday, everyone was headed somewhere; it took us almost three hours to get there (should have been little over an hour).

While on the way up, he stopped at a rest stop so we could use the bathroom and sample some food (chestnut cakes and mondue dumplings). The bathrooms are very interesting in Korea. They are a little bit more open than usual. Anyone can plainly see what is going on in both men’s and women’s rest rooms. There were, of course, stalls; anyone, though, could plainly see the men’s urinals from outside.

Sam pulled over at a very busy intersection while Charity and Celestia went home with some other Korean friends, Heather and Naomi. I spent the night at Sam’s house.

It was so cool to finally be at Sam’s apartment. I absolutely love his mom; she is so sweet. As soon as I took off my shoes, she hugged me and grabbed my arm to show me the pictures they had of me in the apartment. I started calling her omma (sp?), or mom.

After a tour of the house, Sam and I went out to a nearby restaurant and had a really good cutter-style chicken and pork. After dinner, we then jumped back in the car, and he drove me around the crazy streets of Seoul. He showed me all the sights along the Han River and then took me to Seonyudo island. It was right in the middle of the Han, and it was really neat because it was a former waste treatment plant that had been converted into a park. It was actually very beautiful. On the way back, I met a Korean that teaches English in the public school system. I was walking by, and he asked me in English where I was from. I told him America. His friends were a little drunk and started laughing and told him to play a song for the American on his clarinet-type instrument. So he played “It’s a Beautiful World” for me. After that, we made a brief visit to the World Cup Stadium (Korea hosted in World Cup in ’02).

When we got back, Sam’s mom had clothes ready for me; Sam and I were basically matching. We then ate off a huge fruit tray while watching America’s Top Model and then headed to bed.

For more photos visit: http://cn.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2012103&l=d38d4&id=141100435

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