Weekend trip to Seoul

My coteacher helped me buy a ticket to get to Seoul this last weekend. She didn't recommend the bus or the high speed train, so I went on the regular train. Assigned seats, just like the movie theaters. She's done so much for me because I can't speak Korean, and at the same time has more responsibility in school because she was put in charge of the first grade teachers. Rides home from school, trying to find me Korean teachers, it's been really nice. The train ride to Seoul was about 2 hours, and I met Annie in the English bookstore.

Annie and I had dinner at a small Korean restaurant that I thought would be good. At a lot of Korean restaurants the meat is cooked right at your table on a small gas stove. This restaurant had those grills, so I thought, sure, they'll have sangiapsal (grilled pieces of pork that you wrap in lettuce with vegetables). One thing about a lot of meat in Korea is that it's a lot fattier than the meat I'm used to in the States. So the waitress put two kinds of meat on the stove and cooked it. One was a really good, lean beef kind of meat. The other was pretty much pieces of fat. Annie said the waitress gave us an unhappy look when we asked to pay without having eaten most of the fat. Sorry!

On Saturday I saw my first Korean movie (the name of the movie is translated to mean "A bittersweet life." The Korean movie was a lot bloodier, and its themes (like loneliness, love, despair, life philosophy) were more poignant than the typical American action movie. American movies usually have a guy gets the girl theme, this Korean one did not. Both movies have the seemingly bulletproof hero and the never emptying gun clips.

We also went to a palace, where we randomly ran into fellow ETAs Jen and Evan. Pretty random, and also funny because I think both pairs had the question, "so... are you two a couple?" But neither of us asked.

We also went to Itaewon, the foreigner district, which was kind of nutty, and the war memorial museum. The war museum was about the Korean military's history, not just the Korean war. The fountain monument was very cool. The museum part was somewhat interesting, but didn't go into real detail about anything the way military history books do. It didn't exactly glorify war, but there weren't many negative parts to the museum. Maybe because military service is mandatory for men in South Korea?

It was nice to get away. Next weekend I want to visit my friend Tom in Cheongju, but I think I might spend friday night with my host family because I think they missed me this weekend. Happy labor day America...