Speed-round of mid-May

5/6 Wednesday:

These are the only photos in my phone of 5/6, so all I know is that I bought makeup fro Etude (and a hairdryer) and that we ate at Lotteria for dinner, most likely getting their hot and spicy chicken sandwich, which is amazing. Oh and that Grimm was contentedly on my lap whilst a brushed him.

5/7 Thursday:

Many home improvements were had on this day, as I asked Winnie, my boss, to get me some cork boards from DOCS' supplier, the process and results (though I forgot to take some before pictures, but I assure you, it was horrid) are below.

Tay and I (mainly the latter, though he did give me his blessing) decided to go with gray-scale with pops of lemon yellow, lime green and Caribbean turquoise as a happy and modern scheme for our Seoul home.

Also, our apartment is small, and the walls are bare, so I thought using that ugly vertical space for decoration AND storage would be a good idea :D

The most unfortunately wall straight ahead when you walk in, and therefore the first thing you see...

And the work in progress, though I still have another sheet of yellow to put beneath the cork board, but it is currently being straightened as it comes in a roll and that increases the difficulty of putting it on a flat wall.

This one has no 'before' but where the yellow is now was pretty dreadfull, scuffed and stained and just gross looking.

Step one:

 Step two:

 And here is perhaps the most impressive part; my tools. We don't have a hammer, or any true tools, so a sturdy heeled boot from Hongdae and my little Swiss army knife sufficed.

 And here are the materials (plus off-camera cork boards) waiting to be put to use :D

In addition to the pre-work home improvements, Thursdays have become something of a tradition to go out to dinner with some of the Korean teachers and foreign teachers, as Aaron Tr, Danella Tr, Taylor, myself and Haley Tr (Korean), Jennifer Tr (Korean) and Shannon Tr (Korean) all get out at the same time and are usually hungry. This particular Thursday was Haley's birthday, so we went out for Vietnamese noodles in Anam, on our lovely line 6.

I just got a little shrimp fried rice, harmless, right? Well, I found this little guy lurking in there...and yes, I ate him.

We then went for churros, which like many other incongruent foods in Korea, are quite popular.

5/8 Friday:

Date night! And this time was Taylor's turn to choose :D My phone was completely dead, so no 'decent' photos exist, but Taylor whisked me away to Gangnam. Not for the nightlife though, but for the COEX mall, which happens to be next to the SM building. Unfortunately most things were closed by the time we arrived (out of work at 8:15, there by 9:15) so we stood in awe of the cool area, walked around, got dinner and walked more, talked, enjoyed the beautiful summery weather (even though it is only considered Spring here) and grabbed the last subway home at about midnight. I won't say too much in description as Taylor and I returned on Sunday when everything was open and took many pictures, so I will save the bulk of the Gangnam references for Sunday's post.

5/9 Saturday:

I had heard there was a temple in Insadong that has a beautiful lantern festival for Buddah's birthday, they take nearly a month to put all the lanterns up, but nearing the end it is a vibrant canopy of rainbow paper hanging from 500 year old trees, so I decided to take a looksie, and Laura Tr joined me for a fun-filled adventurous day!

Now maybe you don't know, but directions are not my strong point, so first I will tell you all about the OTHER neat things Laura and I found whilst we searched for the Jogyesa temple, which according to online sites would be 'easy' to find from the subway station...hmph.

First, a ten-story stone pagoda which is a national treasure, not bad for a wrong turn...

 Along with the pretty park it was set in...

Now before the stone pagoda we walked through some great markets, got tired and stopped for a juice, asked for directions from a visitors center, got a map which they wrote on to show us where to go, took another wrong turn, got tired and stopped for sandwiches and coffees, found more neat markets and stores, and then the aforementioned park, saw some cool architecture, and then almost walked past the temple, which was nestles between normal buildings across the street from us. Go figure.

 Selfie time :)

Here is that 500 year old tree, standing 26 meters tall in the center of the temple courtyard. The dancing moon-people are just a perk of the afternoon I suppose.

The golden Buddhas inside the temple..

Not bad for an afternoon of wandering, yeah? But of course, a temple, a national treasure and good company isn't enough, so we stumbled upon a palace as we tried to find a subway station again...

And that was all before the main gates even!

 But alas we were running out of time, and still wanted to stop off in Myeongdong for some shopping, and didn't want to pay admittance for only a brief visit, so we left the palace for another day.

So I shall leave you with the above, as I find it amusing how there seems to be random English plastered all over Seoul and it's people. We saw this as we returned to the subway.

But now it is late and I feel accomplished for getting through a week of backtracking, I hope you enjoyed and of course, more to come!

All of my love,

Tea