How NOT to Get to Everland

Although this week many not hold as many pleasures as last weeked, I have managed to wrangle up some tales of fun and entertainment for you. I will start by mentioning that I am currently on vacation from work, and have the next 7 days to do as I please. However, I also have about $50, so the 'doings as I pleases' will be cheap :) It seems that Youngdo wanted to change up the way they give us vacation, as we used to only get two weeks a year; one in August and one in December. I think they wanted to spread them out a little more. Also, the law changed a few years ago, and they had to also fit in an additional 5 days of vacation for us. I wasn't planning on going anywhere this vacation, as I am currently trying to stockpile as much money as I can, because I am leaving here in 8 weeks. My friends headed out to Thailand, and I am sad that I couldn't go, but sometimes we have to be an adult and realize that going back home with no money isn't a good idea. (so, no Thailand for Michelle) I will be going into work for a little bit each day to make some extra cash by tutoring a student who has to do an interview in English for a private American academy. It is keeping me busy and gives me a reason to not waste my day laying around. Then again, I try not to do that anyways, and I have managed to overcome that urge quite nicely this week. Let's get to it, shall we?

We all had to work Monday and Tuesday this week, just to finish off the month of classes, but as of 10pm Tuesday night, we were free to do as we pleased. I took off from work to meet Josh and Kelly for hot wings in Itaewon. It was the first time I have hand wings in Korea, and I was so happy I could have cried. They were spicy and crispy and magical. It made me miss BW3 really badly! After that we headed to ClubSpy to play some pool, and then home for the night. Josh and I have a big day ahead of us, as we were planning on going to Everland. Which is the Korean equivalent of Six Flags or Busch Gardens. It has a zoo and rides and all kinds of fun and wonderful things to see and do (or so I am told.) The plan was to meet in Gangnam at 10am to head out. Well my morning business class was cancelled, so we pushed back the time to 11, and then stopped for a lovely lunch of Pho Noodles, yum! Around noon-ish we headed to the bus stop, so I could try my hand at the bus situation. (if you recall, I had done this once before and it didn't turn out too well) I had faith in myself, and I knew the bus existed that would take us straight there, as I had seen it eariler that week.

After about 15minutes of waiting, the bus pulls up...or so I thought. (we needed 5002, but this was 500-2...apparently the dash means something...oops!) This wasn't the correct bus, but all was not lost as we were still going in the correct direction. I knew about where we were most of the time, and I knew how to get to where we were going, so I decided to chance it and stay on the bus. After riding for a little while, Josh sees a store he wants to look into and see if they have shoes in his size (a Nike store), so it was decided that we will get off the bus. (this was the lynchpin in our day as it turns out) After we decided to get back on the bus, we headed to the station where I tried, in vain, to figure out where we were. That was the point in the day where we gave up trying to figure out where we were and decided to just hop from bus to bus and see where the day would take us. (we had given up on the Everland quest) After getting on the next bus, we rode about 4 blocks and the driver, seeing we were foreigners, told us to get off the bus. I guess there was the World Ceramic Festival happening and he wanted us to see it. We got off and wandered around the 'festival' for a bit before deciding that it wasn't remotely interesting and got back on another bus. This bus took us on to a college campus, which apparently is also the end of the line. Being the explorers we are, we chose to wander around the (BEAUTIFUL) campus and see what we could find. We watched a soccer game, and then went looking for the English professor...just for fun. We were successful in running into him by accident and having a really nice chat about the college and how we should come work there. Also, as we were white, all of the students assumed we were professors and kept greeting us, and bowing to us. Once we tired of touring the campus, we decided to catch the bus home.

As it turns out, Joshua had exhausted the funds on his T-Money card and we couldn't pay for the bus ride. We went in search of a place where we could add money to the card, but we were far far out of the city at this point (more than an hour.) The only place that could charge the card was in the next city over, so Josh and I tightened our laces and started hoof-ing it. It was about a 20minute walk, but sadly the sidewalk ended and turned into an expressway half-way to Inchon. There were no taxis to be found anywhere, so the walk continued (down the side of the highway.) After finally making it to Ichon we successfully charged his card, and stopped at the only restuarant in town for some lunch. We were surely under scrutiny, as I am not sure they get a lot of foreigners in that part of town...or any. On the way back (yes we also had to walk back to the bus stop) we searched in hopes of finding a local bus that would take us to the previous bus stop, but that seemed rather fruitless, and back we walked. We finally made it back to the college campus, grabbed the bus home and settled in for a long ride. I have never had a more tiring day, but fun and entertaining one as well!

I did have to go into work today (Thursday) but I only was adminstering a TESOL test. This measures the students ability to read, listen and understand English, and many of my students were stressing out about it. I was happy that I was there to calm them down, and we had a little fun as well. After they left for the day I worked on some curriculum ideas and planned activities for our summer intensive classes. I could work at my own pace, and listen to my iPod...those are days I like! After work, I met up with Josh, Kelly and Chris and we headed into Gangnam to get massages. It was fairly inexpensive and my masseur was highly talented. I don't know that much about massages, but this one was fantastic and I never wanted to leave! It was expecially pleasing, as I may have hiked 20 miles yesterday. We all left much happier than when we came :)

Tomorrow I have to stop into work for about an hour, and then I am off to Youngsan which is the technology mecca of Seoul. I am hoping that I can successfully get more RAM and memory for my computer, but we will see. This weekend Josh and I are headed down to Mt. Jiri for some hiking and a wild tea festival, so that should provide some entertainment for all you bloggers. It also says that there are natural hot springs there, and I am excited to check those out! I will be updating again soon, and I hope that you are staying tuned for my next crazy adventure! Smooches from Seoul (and the surrounding cities...)

---

---