Hiking Cheonmasan

This weekend we decided to take Roo out for a hike. We haven’t been out since the fall and thought she could use an adventure. Although we walk Roo frequently I also thought it would be nice to get out of our normal paths in the neighborhood. One of our favorite hikes nearby is close to Gimpo airport and consists of a network of parks and easy trails around and up a small mountain. It’s a short 4 stops away on the train. Unfortunately when we got to the subway station we couldn’t convince Roo to get in her bag for the train ride – not surprising since we neglected to practice putting her in her bag since our last hike months ago. So with a change of plans we took a taxi to a mountain pretty close to us for a hike. The weather was surprisingly springy (what a mean trick for the end of January – we still have months) and we were happy for the respite from the cold and wind. As always, Roo and Ryan were bounding up the mountain while I slowly made my way up the steep hillside.

The Last… Half of 2014

2014 led to a pretty strong standstill for the blog, but with a plethora of photos and nowhere to put them, a 2014 recap is in order.

In the fall I took two trips to Seoraksan, once with Ryan and friends, and once as a school trip. The first time we still caught the fall colors, although we were weeks past the rush on the designated “peak foliage” dates 🙂 Unfortunately, there was an intense fog. This hike was the same one we did last year (Ulsanbawi) with sweeping views over the sea and surrounding mountains, but this time we could hardly see past our hands. 

The next day of our trip was nice and sunny, perfect for our walk through Heulimgol Valley.

From There to Here: Our New Home

After a very fulfilling and extremely busy summer full of visiting friends and family, travel, and work (hopefully the first and only summer with work), we are finally getting back to the blog.

As the year progressed at our first hagwon in Songpa-gu, Seoul, Brittany and I both noticed an overwhelming restlessness that permeated our jobs. Despite our well-intentioned and extremely kind administration, classwork and curriculum were tedious, obviously ineffective, and frankly boring. While we loved our neighborhood and experiences, our apartment was…unique. Being fairly unsatisfied with our jobs and our apartments, but still digging Korea, we got new jobs, and with them, a new city and new friends.

Our new home is just outside of Cheongna-dong in Incheon, Korea. We had pretty low expectations for Cheongna, aka “The emerald of the world” (self-proclaimed). Cheongna is a fairly new development on the outskirts of both Seoul and Incheon. On our original ride out on the train, we couldn’t help but feeling we were moving to the Nebraska of Korea, as the sprawling cityscape gave way to farms and older looking small cities.

The Tourist’s View of Seoul

When my family came to visit this summer, we got the chance to head to some big tourist destinations in Seoul that we hadn’t been to. We even took the Seoul City Tour Bus – a hop-on, hop-off route to all the big tourist spots in Seoul- making us officially tourist material. The bus was a good way for us to get around to a few of the sites without too much walking for my jet-lagged family.

Namsangol Hanok Village

The Hanok Village was surprisingly interesting, mostly because of our volunteer tour guide, Reggie, a high school student practicing his English and nervously sharing historical anecdotes about the different houses. 

Korean Baseball: Fighting! Fighting!

For my family’s visit in June, we decided to head to our first Korean baseball game. After watching some games on TV and hearing from others, we anticipated Korean baseball games to be way more fun to attend than American games. We headed to Jamsil stadium to watch the Doosan Bears and the LG Twins.

We attempted to buy tickets online in advance but never did manage to figure it out, so we just showed up at the stadium before the game and bought tickets. At first this seemed bad; the tickets were for a general area without assigned seats, and everyone was sprawled on the empty seats, which were covered with food and blankets. Families were having picnics on the upper walking-area, and I thought we were going to spend the whole game standing up, with my grandma (in her eighties and visiting Korea!) standing the whole time. Luckily, once we started asking around, families very happily moved their jackets and food and other goods and offered us seats.