Gone

Here I am, in Korea-land.
Apparently on the brink of war over some ship dissapearing off the radar at the north korean border, the rushed and incredibly bleak city is still the same.  Though lacking perhaps in the natural wonder that other asian countries may likely possess, Seoul still has it's own unique beauty.

This consisting of looming skyscrapers, overwhelmingly colorful blocks of shops and layers upon layers of apartments.  I can only hope to give credit in this description to the intricate lack of genius that Korean general architecture around my neighbourhood shows so brilliantly.

But let me not deter you from this place.  Even if perhaps it is not quite the eyeful that you would hope for on a sweet holiday in asia, the power and energy behind this place is still something worth feeling.

Hmm, at some point this blog ended up being a review of Seoul...

Unsurprisingly, one of the first places I went to was Seoul's famous French-style bakeries.

The cakes and such there are pretty amazing to look at, but when I was taking photos the lady at the shop got all paranoid in case I was from a rival bakery that wanted to steal the cake designs.  I didn't think I looked that suspicious AND I asked first...

This is just a general view of a road in my neighbourhood.

We live right near this gigantic sports stadium that though has many good sports facilities, seems to hold concerts way more often than any sports events.  At the moment, my main means of transport is by bus, so my mom gave me my very own transport card that works on buses and subways.  It wasn't the one I wanted (the one with a teddy bear on it that my brother has) but as you generally don't even take it out of your wallet when you get on buses and such, I suppose it didn't really mattered.  You just placed it over these sensor things and then it would beep to tell you that you used it properly.  The hard part is that you have to put it over a sensor again when you leave the bus as it pays by distance or something.  If you forget than it pays a whole round fare which is ten times more expensive than the potential original fare.

I haven't forgotten yet... but it's bound to happen...

I bought a new cellphone for the sake of bringing back here.  Unlike New Zealand where phones are ridiculously expensive, I got mine for free.  It was one of those deals, if you have a contract for three months minimum you can get the phone for free.  It's still remarkaby cheaper than if you buy just the handset which was around $635.  Altogether, the amount I have to pay will be about $152 including most of my usage for the next six to eight months as well.  It's pretty fantastic.

I also went to go meet some children that I will be teaching English to for the next six to eight months.  They all seemed lovely and came from rich middle-class families with young parents.  Most of them didn't speak much English at all.  After the meeting I took the opportunity to nose around their neighbourhood and found this clay shop where they taught little kids how to do clay models.  I thought it was pretty awesome.

Though I haven't really started on my general touristy rounds yet, I still think I've managed to see some pretty cool things so far. (Though mostly I like the bakery cos everything is yummy there.)

And the one picture I have taken of myself so far... was in a public toilet.