Finally, I made it to Dos Tacos, which I discovered is just outside the main campus! All this time, the restaurant has been so close and I never realized it.
While there isn't any chile verde, the menu selection is pretty good! Today I decided to be easy(ish) and try gluten again, so I ordered a potato burrito, cut in half, without cheese or sour cream. To my confusion, half of my burrito ended up with sour cream in it...
There was also the option of fried vegetable burrito, but I just couldn't pass up the thought of potatoes and Mexican food! The potato burrito was satisfying, and the restaurant seemed like any other back home. I was happy. :)
When school ended on Thursday, I went to Hyehwa (혜화동) with friends to go to the batting cages. Each round of pitches was 1000won. I had fun, even though I was sore after just playing two rounds!
Friday was the final school trip (I think). We went to see the Nanta performance, which you can watch a bit of in the video below. There was a lot of audience interaction, so it was pretty entertaining! Of course, I avoided eye-contact whenever they were looking for people to bring on-stage though. :)
This was the view from where I was sitting. The theater wasn't large, so our students filled up most of the seats:
Then we went to Naksan Park (a residential area revived with art) with just the group of us! I've
been meaning to go here for a while, since it's a place I know from a drama. For comparison:
From drama Rooftop Prince
From drama Rooftop Prince
From drama Rooftop Prince
Finally a group photo! It is slanted haha...
Oh, and I ate cold buckwheat noodles (soba) near this neighborhood! I hadn't tried it before, but it was good! It seems many cold noodles dishes are pretty safe to order in order to get something nearly vegetarian.
After Naksan Park, the group split up. Some went to a jjimjilbang, others went to another spa, and I went with two others to Insadong (neighborhood with many shops of trad. goods) and then Itaewon (big place for foreigners).
We ate at this apparently well-rated place where Running Man had filmed once in Itaewon, so there were a lot of people inside. You might have noticed we got the one remaining backup table away from everyone else, right next to a parked car. The food was actually really good though, which I should have expected since we came here specifically for the restaurant's jeon (pancake)! We ordered traditional kimchi jeon, potato jeon, veggie/seaweed rice balls, and pan-fried flat dumplings.
Today (Saturday), I went back to Itaewon. We ended up eating at a breakfast place after walking back and forth a few times trying to find something. I was a bit disappointed because we kept passing this Mexican restaurant. It's been a month since I had Mexican food! Actually, the Mexican place was right across the street from the picture above. I had my eye on it then too!
After Itaewon we headed to Hongdae (shopping area) for no particular reason. We were just wasting time before our musical began at 7pm. In Hongdae, there is a "freemarket," or open-air market for artists to sell items, on Saturdays. I enjoyed seeing the types of things they were selling, such as hand-designed shoes, cigarette holders, drawings, jewelry, etc.
There was also a Hello Kitty Cafe in Hongdae. We decided to check it out:
At last the show rolled around and we got ready to see High School Musical. This was the cast for the show we saw:
My friend was disappointed that a few kpop idols who are also main cast members weren't performing in our showing. I didn't know the others performing today, but I recognized some dramas of the main actor (Kang Dong-ho). Anyway, the show was pretty good and easy to understand since we had seen the movie in the past. There were no English subtitles this time, but they had Japanese subtitles on the sides of the theater. My friend got the below picture, which shows the stage, when the musical ended. They revealed where the orchestra was at the end of the show (see the top):
Good weekend! Most of the group is going to go bungee jumping and do water activities/sports tomorrow, but I'm staying back to rest and do homework since those things scare me!
Finally midterms have ended, so I could enjoy the weekend free of stress. :)
After exams on Thursday, we went to eat Malaysian Indian food. My first non-Korean meal in Korea! Half the menu was vegetarian, so I was beyond excited. Also, this is the first place I went where I got a big glass for water and they filled the cups for us. In Korea, most restaurants give you small metal cups and the water is self-serve, which means you're going to be making a lot of trips to the water cooler when the food is spicy!
I hope I can try some other non-Korean foods here too. It's so refreshing to eat a variety.
The next morning we went to Everland, a theme park I visited the first time I came to Korea. There's a zoo there, which is so much fun to go through!
The next day we woke up early again and travelled three hours to get to the Boryeong Mud Festival (보령머드축제). We didn't plan ahead and just bought KTX tickets that day, so we had "standing only" tickets, which meant we and several others sat on the floor of the train next to the bathrooms.
But finally, we arrived. For being the 16th mud festival, it didn't seem to be structured that well. The paid area is so small. There were a few blow up slides, mazes, and some muddy pools, but the wait time was like an hour to use any of them. We only had three hours until the train ride back, so we just did the maze:
After the maze, suddenly there was mud everywhere! They must have refilled all the buckets. Somehow we ended up in a slippery pool of mud when someone pushed one person causing 20 others to fall, including us. I don't know how I managed to not get much mud on my face!
The part I was least looking forward to was getting all the mud off of me before taking the train back. We paid 2000won to take a cold shower with probably 40 other girls crammed into a tiny area. It was my first time in a communal shower and there was mud everywhere. I had to throw away my shirt, but it was old and faded anyway.
It was an interesting experience, but I wouldn't go back again. The event promotes the use of mud in skin and hair products, and it is definitely targeted towards foreigners. While there I got to make mud soap though!
Last weekend I went with Se hee to Gyeongju. By bus from Bucheon, it took about five hours to get there. Instead of a hotel, we decided it would be more fun to stay in a guesthouse, so we spent the weekend in SINDAL House.
Our night bus tour wasn't until several hours later, so we went exploring nearby areas. As we walked, Se hee told me a lot about Korean history. We went along a street of traditional houses and stopped at a home with a sign calling the area "birthplace of Choe Jun," a freedom fighter. This home was open for the public to look around, although you couldn't go inside. I noticed some homes with historical significance would have a sign detailing the history out front, but people appeared to still be living in them.
For lunch we went to have milmyeon (밀면), which is a refreshing cold noodle dish, as suggested by the guesthouse owner. I also got to try Hwangnam bread (황남빵), a popular bread in Gyeongju with red bean filling! After eating and sightseeing, we returned to the guesthouse and passed the remaining time before the tour playing Chinese chess.
During the night tour, our first stop was Seochulji pond (서출지). The pond was made famous due to a legend that took place there, which was about the King of Silla receiving a letter that said, "unopened one will die, opened two will die." You can read about the legend here if interested!
Seochulji (photo credit Se hee!)
Next we stopped at Anapji(안압지), another pond. It was an incredible sight at night!
The following day, Saturday, we went on a day tour to see some new (and already seen) areas. The tour was split into two busses, one for Koreans and one for foreigners. Our foreigner bus didn't have a tour guide, just a one-minute hardly informative video explaining each next stop in English. One woman on our bus was Japanese and couldn't communicate in Korean or English, but she wisely prepared a lot of research for the trip in advance. After reaching each destination, the tour guide would explain the significance of the site in Korean, while the English speakers huddled around Se hee as she translated the information.
First, we arrived at Poseokjeong Pavilion (경주 포석정지), where the royals would sit around the circle and float their drinks in the water while conversing and playing games.
Anapji was on this tour, too, but since we'd already seen it we went to see the lotus flowers and lily pads in front:
There was a camera crew from a local television station here that interviewed us about the flowers. I was so confused and embarrassed because I didn't know what they wanted me to say! I'm sure my ears were bright red in the interview.
After the day ended, we went to dinner with Se hee's family and aunt. I forgot to take a picture of my meal before I ate it. :( We were served a lot of local herb side dishes that were fun to try though!
I found this on Sindal House's blog haha. The girls sitting across from me were staying in the room next to us. I was too tired after the day and felt awkward not understanding the conversation, so I went to bed first.
On Sunday, Se hee's parents took us back by car. But first, we all stopped in Mungyeong (문경) to visit the KBS historical drama set. The set was so amazing, I felt like we had visited a deserted village! It was raining hard so not many people had come that day. Here are some photos!:
We had traditional tea at the set! With the tea we ate these sweet glutinous rice ball things(?) that were really good.
After that we drove back, but not without stopping for dinner!
I am so thankful for Se hee and her parents taking time out of their days for me! It was a really fun and interesting weekend!
Nothing interesting happened these past few days. I just went to classes and studied, because we already have midterms next week!
The walk to class from my dorm (Frontier House) is very short--less than 10 minutes! I heard a lot of complaints about the walk before I came. People even advised against living in the dorms due to the walk, but I don't think it is very bad from Frontier. The only bad part is the set of stairs leading up to the entrance, although there is a slightly longer way to get there by going up the hill around the building. Below, I tried to record the way up the steps without drawing attention, so the video is poor, but I hope it gives an idea!
And another group shot from Lotte World. I wonder if you can find me now? Haha :)
This weekend I'm going with Se hee to Gyeongju (경주시) so it will probably be a little while until I can update again!
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