Andrew's Apartment

Andrew's school gave him a tiny, one room apartment, just as we expected to get. It is a 5 minute walk to his school and a fifteen minute subway ride to the center of the city. Unfortunately, it's so tiny that it's unlivable. One person could get by living in it, but there is no way the two of us could live there and not want to kill each other.

Building: Best House
Room: 501


The front door and the shoe closet


The bed and the laundry porch


The bed, bathroom and desk

The bathroom
(The sink is not pictured because it doesn't exist.)

The shower window

Thankfully (and surprisingly) even Andrew's co-teachers thought it was strange to have such a huge window in the bathroom...


...so they talked to the landlord, and a few days later, Andrew came home to find the problem solved.

Say cheese, you're in the shower(and on the toilet)!

The bathroom is roughly 4 feet by 15 feet, and the builders thought it a good idea to leave out a sink, and put the toilet, shower, mirror and cabinet in the same 4x4 square, leaving the other 11 feet empty and useless.

Closet, bookshelf and desk


Bed, bathroom, closet, bookshelf, desk, living room and dining room



The kitchen!


The kitchen/bathroom sink and the 'stove'


The entirely too huge laundry porch


The view while showering


The view from the laundry porch

sk eats... 굴사랑 & 유황삼겹살

The night before, while out to dinner with Dave & Teresa to say our final goodbyes, we reminisced about other delicious meals we'd had over the year. So, the next day, all we could think of were those places when deciding what we should eat. We didn't feel right about going without D&T, so we called them up and had our second goodbye dinner.

굴사랑
Gul Sarang
(Directly translated: Oyster Love)

A beacon in the night

Heading in!

Judy & Teresa

Andrew & Dave

굴해물전
Gul Haemul Jun

A savory Korean pancake made with green onions, onions, shrimp and oysters. A variant of this pancake is served in most places, but the one here is special because they cook it longer than most other places. Usually the center is a bit too wet and gooey, but at Gul Sarang, it's always cooked all the way through and the outside is perfectly crisp.


We'd seen Koreans order this plate of fried oysters many times before, but had never given it a try. We were feeling a little adventurous (and there were more than 2 people dining), so we decided we'd give it a shot. They weren't as delicious as we'd hoped, but definitely not bad.

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After our oyster appetizers,
we headed to a nearby BBQ joint to continue the feast.

유황삼겹살
Yuhwang Samgyupsal

Ready for (more) eats!

마늘 생 양고기
Maneul Sang Yonggogi

Garlic marinated lamb. No need to describe further! Our discovery of this dish was one of the happiest accidents that happened to us all year.

It looks gross when raw, yes, we know, but believe us, it is a mouthwatering, tasty meat treat once cooked!

sk eats... 싱싱

The last dinner with our BFFs warranted some pre-dinner self-timer shots...

싱싱조개구이
Sing Sing Chogae Gui

An amazing shellfish restaurant that we were first introduced to by our Korean friends Suyeon and Sungki. When we would go out to dinner with them, we'd always let them choose where, which usually worked out quite well. This was one of the first places they showed us, and we fell in love instantly. The food was delicious and the preparation was unlike anything we had seen before.

It doesn't look like much from the outside

No meal with Dave & Teresa is complete without the usual bev assortment: Hite, soju and cider.


After we cracked open our bottle of soju, Dave added our cap to the wall...The table of Koreans in front of him found this really funny.


The side dishes - Cucumber with gochujang (chili sauce with soybean paste), hard boiled eggs, and a spicy pepper and bean sprout soup (in the summer time the soup is served cold and in the winter it's served warm).

The kimchi looks really gross in this picture, sorry.

계란말이
Kaeran Mari

We are guessing this omelet contains at least a dozen eggs... And, it's not your usual omelet fixins' either. It's only carrot, onion and hot peppers. It's spicy, eggy, ketchupy and delicous! Surprisingly, the carrot actually makes quite a tasty omelet addition.


A person from the restaurant stands at the table and works the grill for you. They rotate various shells around the heat until the meat can be easily picked off. Then they grab it with the tongs, and scissor it into that tin of spicy broth.


The assortment of delectable sea creatures includes clams, scallops, snails and some giant thing we've never seen before coming to Korea.

Mmmm...

The second round (our favorite) cooks inside the shell of the huge, unknown shellfish. They use three clam shells to prop up the giant shell, then fill it with a spicy mixture of garlic, peppers and some unidentified things.

And then they add cheese!!!

That first wave of the red sauce cooked in the shell is neat, but there is only so much you can get into a shell. After the shell is scraped clean, they add a foil tin to the mix and cook it the same way, only in a much larger quantity.

The delicious aftermath

Don't Go Chasin' Waterfalls

This frightening creature, and thousands more just like it, scour the streets of South Korea in search of garbage and recyclables. No garbage pile is safe from their dirty paws. They can sense cardboard being thrown away anywhere within a 2 mile radius. Afraid of the sun, yes. Nocturnal, no. Scary and unpredictable, yes. The ajuma, as they're known in Korean, is hands down, one of the scariest things in Korea.

This particular one is more advanced and high-tech than most. Her motorized wheelchair elevates her to the ajuma, VIP status. The typical ajuma is seen, either pushing the oldest and most rusted stroller you've ever seen piled high with garbage and junk, or squatting on the sidewalk sifting through almost rotten weeds and vegetables. They are really something everyone should see once in their life.

Loading up her goodies

She really hit the jackpot today!


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We had heard from a friend at camp that there was a really awesome river and waterfall just outside of town, so we tried to go one day. The directions we had seemed simple enough: take a bus to Eunyang, then take a taxi to the waterfall.

Waiting at the bus stop

Self-timer shots on the (empty*) bus to Eunyang

awkward...

*We were the only two on the bus when we did this. Not that it makes it OK, it just makes it a little better. The driver loved it when he realized what we were doing.



The directions we had to the waterfall (take a bus, then a taxi) were too simple to work, as we should have known. Traveling by bus is pretty guaranteed here because they have set routes they have to follow. But, once you sit your ass down in cab, you're completely at the drivers discretion. Most of the time it works out perfectly and you end up where you want to go, but every once in a while, things go horribly awry. We call this, 'taxi roulette.' On this particular day, Lady Luck was not on our side. The first taxi we got into didn't understand us (or didn't want to understand us) so the driver just told us to get out. The next taxi pretended to understand and know where we wanted to go, but then asked lots of questions that proved he also didn't know. He got us to a river, and we assumed it was the river we wanted to be on, but he pulled over and had us get out as soon as we hit some traffic. The way he made it seem was that the water fall was close to this point, so he was just saving us money by letting us walk past the traffic instead of running up the meter sitting in traffic. This was not the case...


We ended up just walking along the street that followed the 'river' for over an hour in the blazing sun. Despite the beautiful forest and mountains that surrounded us, it was awful.

Miserable

This tiny stream was packed with Koreans doing all sorts of things. Some groups were having picnics, some were just playing in the water (both children and adults), some were doing laundry and some were taking stream side naps.

These tables are awesome!

From what we could tell,
having the water run over the road was by design here...

The road we were following first turned into this paved trail, then into a dirt trail. We knew we weren't headed in the right direction at this point, but it was still following the creek and it was shaded, so we decided we would just find an open spot on the bank and set up camp. Screw that stupid waterfall!


That plan didn't even work because our path quickly veered from the river and dead ended at a strange compound.


We had heard tribal drums while we were walking and weren't sure what they were or where they were coming from and discovered that this compound was the source of racket. You can't tell in this picture but there seemed to be a seance going on. One woman was on her knees while others circled, chanted and hit her with pine branches. It was really weird!

Doing a little laundry


Finding a place to set up camp


Don't worry about him, he's just shampooing...


Self-timer!


OK, that's enough, let's get the hell out of here!


The closest thing to a waterfall that we saw all day


The crowds were insane


Wow, a tiger holding a rose in it's mouth...


This was some sort of creekside resort


Nothing good can be behind this door

A love motel city nestled into the Korean mountainside

One last look at the creek

There were no taxis, so we had to walk into this sauna and have the man at the front desk call us one. We were so hot and sweaty we considered making this our first Korean sauna experience just to get into a shower, but decided against it.

Before boarding the bus home, we stopped for a quick snack

Nude tuna

냉면
Naengmyun

A traditional, cold noodle soup with cucumber, radish, pear, hard boiled egg, pork, chili paste and hot mustard. A little strange at first, but once you're used to it, it's quite delicious.

Our chariot awaits