We've been busy exploring!

This past weekend was jam-packed--so jam-packed, in fact, that it has taken us a few days to recover and not feel exhausted and to of course, report. It's still no excuse, though, I know. On Saturday we went to an area of Chuncheon that we hadn't really explored yet called "Gongjicheon" (I think). We were looking for these tent bars that Rory found on our Chuncheon "Fun Map" we got when we first moved here (god bless that fun map). It was nice outside so we decided we wanted to do some tent drinking and food sampling. So we got dropped off at the sculpture park, which it turns out is not very far from our house--cheaper to get to this place than to downtown, even. So we were walking around this sculpture park and we saw the duck boats. I saw the duck boats on a chuncheon web site before we ever even moved here, so I was like "hell yeah, we're riding those ducks!" So all three of us rode around in a duck boat, and it felt like a dream of mine had been fulfilled. I still would have liked to decapitate the duck by going under one of the strategically placed "fun bridge"s, but oh well. After that we went to a restaurant whose basement was right at water level; we ate dakgalbi and watched the bridge lights turn on as it got dark. We noticed this really cool temple at the top of a mountain/hill while we were eating dinner, so we decided that we would walk up to it when we were finished. It was sort of starting to rain, I sort of had dressier shoes on and the mountain didn't really have a path, so I ended up walking up the side of the thing barefoot, holding my purse and shoes in one hand and clinging to Rory for dear life with the other. It was fun. We found the top, and there was this gorgeous temple with a really, really old gigantic bell. And we were the only people there. It was beautiful up there. We got to see a part of Chuncheon that we don't ever really get to see. I mean, we had heard that Chuncheon is the city of lakes, but we hadn't really seen any lakes yet. From the top, at this temple, though, you could see it all. It was awesome. I think Rory got some pretty cool pictures. We will post those, too. So then we walked down the other side of this mountain and we saw this restaurant that was shaped like a barn and all lit up with Christmas lights--I had to get to that barn! So we walked over to it, and the closer we got we saw that there was this little winding path next to the barn that led back to godknowswhere--so of course we followed it, and we found ourselves walking through all these cool trees and little rock sculptures and fountains and chickens and little kids jumping on trampolines. And barbecue pits in tree stumps. It was gorgeous and unlike any other restaurant we'd seen in Chuncheon. So we decided to have dinner again. We ate under trees out of a tree while listening to this Korean music that sounded like '60s surf music. I asked our waiter and the only other table there if they knew what the music was, but no one had a clue. It was so pleasant. We bought the other table a bottle of soju and they bought us a bottle of beer. Turns out this place is really famous (we found that out later...). So after this place, we are still determined to find these damn tent bars. We walk for a little bit and then we see them--two parallel rows of these tented bars. They are big on eating and drinking out of tents over here--but these aren't your standard issue tents. These tents are very organized little infrastructures involving a lot of steel poles, very plush couches or benches and fully functioning kitchens. By this point we were very tired. We had been out and about for at least 6 hours (two dinners worth of time...), so we picked a spot and ordered some draft beer. Over here it is customary to order a side dish with your draft beer--this is how they make all of their money. It is not a rule or anything, but just one of those little things we've been told. If you order bottled beer you don't have to order a food item. But the food items on bar menus are like 10 bucks for a plate of fruit or fruit salad in sweet milk. No thanks. So we tried to order just three orders of rice ($1 each, the cheapest on the menu), and you could tell the waiters were annoyed and a little amused. So they brought us the rice and then gave us a free pot of chigay (stew that we actually like quite a bit). We drank maybe half of our beers and then left. It was a jampacked day.

So jampacked that we slept in a little bit the next day, but then we decided to catch a bus to Seoul. Imagine deciding at 1:00 in the afternoon--hey, I'll just pop over to NYC real quick. No problem. We were on a mission to find this used clothing/Goodwill type store called The Beautiful Store. Apparently it is one of a kind in Korea. So two hours later we were in Seoul on the subway, trying to find this place. We got off the subway and referred to my shoddily hand-drawn map I copied off of the website. We couldn't find the damn place. So finally, after wandering around in Insadong (white person central--yuck. all the white folks over here look like assholes, and based on our experiences with whiteys, most of them are assholes. We have met some nice ones, though. don't get me wrong. it's just that that is why we like chuncheon so much. no one looks like us, and it's not full of these hypermasculine US soldiers who come over here to get hot Korean wives), we got a map that looked a little more official (and accurate) than mine. We wound up at The Beautiful Store right as it closed. damn. But it was okay--we sat in little plastic chairs on a side street and drank beers while we waited to meet clayton so we could wander around insadong looking at all of the touristy stuff. It was nice to just wander around. We ended up eating at this tofu place that had the beef/tofu hot pot we had been searching for all over sokcho. Also we had some mackerel. They just brought out this little plate with two whole mackerels on it. It was a freaking side dish. So I thought I would give it a try, and really, it wasn't bad at all. A very tasty, cheap dining experience. We went to another spot to have a beer and look down over some busy Seoul side streets. Then we walked around a little more before heading back to the bus station (we caught our bus with 2 minutes to spare--it was a close one!) and riding back to chuncheon.

On Monday after school, Megan (the chick we work with) drove us all around Chuncheon--up on the mountain, to a really cool resort we might go to on Rory's birthday, past some hookers, all that good stuff. There is plenty to do here. And it's still awesome!

Okay, that's all for now. I will make Rory post the pictures later.