Up in Northern S. Korea

This past weekend, I made my way to the Northern part of South Korea, not to be confused with North Korea! I went up there to meet up with my friend Shirlen (my orientation roommate) since I haven't seen her since my first trip to Seoul. She had planned a wonderful weekend with White Water Rafting and Everland, the Disneyland of Korea. I was very very excited to spend time with her as well as her boyfriend and old friends and her friends whom I have never met. I stayed at a guesthouse on Friday night. I arrived in Seoul around 1030p and I made my way to the guesthouse. I could've stayed with Shirlen but she lives about an hour away from Seoul, so I didn't wanna travel all that way just to wake up super early to get back to Seoul because that's where we were gonna meet up for our trek to the river. I wanted to get as much sleep as possible. I thought I had left the guesthouse with enough time for me to get to the meeting spot at 840am. The bus was set to leave at 9am. I didn't know that. Anyways, I was still on the subway at 840am. 845am. 850am. I finally get off the subway at 854am and I scan my T-Money card to get out of the subway, but it says there's an error. I was like, OH CRAP! I NEED TO GET OUT OF HERE! The bus leaves soon and I don't know where the bus is! I try scanning it a couple more times to no avail. I hurry and put 10,000 won on it because I thought maybe there wasn't enough credit on it, though I was sure there was. After I put the 10,000 on, it still didn't work! I was panicking! There was no one around. No other train riders, no employees, so I climbed underneath the turnstile and ran for the exit. Thankfully the bus was right outside the subway exit. I had made it with 2 minute to spare! Onward to white water rafting! I was quite happy and hungry. haha

White water rafting was a blast! I had so much fun! I was worried that my glasses would fly off, but Shirlen bought some of those librarian glasses string thingies for me! So sweet! Then the rafting people also gave me something similar, so I had double the protection! The river was so nice! It was so clear that you could see to the bottom. The water was an aqua color too. So beautiful. The scenery was amazing. The other people that were there were from Singapore and they spoke perfect English. They were incredibly nice! I couldn't have asked for a better first rafting experience!

After rafting, I went to Myeongdong to do some shopping. Of course I had to stop by Forever 21. I bought some basics (a blue thermal, purple dress, jeans) and a pretty floral dress! Then I met up with Jarrod and watched some Koreans dance to kpop music. Some of them were really good, notably the nerds! Yeay Nerds!! Then I wanted to get boba at Quickly, but they were closed. I don't know if it was forever or just for the night. It looked like forever. I was sad! Is it too much to ask for a freaken boba milk tea around here?? Geez Louise! Instead, we went to a cafe for some tiramisu and patbingsu. Yum =9 Then we walked around a little bit more.

After Myeongdong, I went back to the guesthouse only to find that I've been kicked out of my room. I was to move to another room on a different floor because 2 big parties were coming in. I didn't hide my displeasure and I asked, "Why?" Shouldn't the other people be the ones who have to work around me? I didn't wanna move because I was so beat from rafting, but I'm a very flexible person, so I acquiesced. I went to the next floor with the person running the guesthouse and he showed me my room. There was already someone in there. There were 4 beds. She was not very welcoming, so the guy told me to go to a different room. I was like, uhhh, okkkkk. Why are girls so strange?

The day after, I was supposed to go to Everland (the Disneyland of Korea), but I ended up bailing the morning of because I had school the following day and I hadn't planned my lessons yet. Plus, Everland is really far away from the bus station, so I'd have to leave Everland early to get to the bus station at a reasonable time in order to get home to plan my lessons. Too much. So I decided to go to Everland another time, when I had time to enjoy every part of it. Instead, I went to Dongdaemun, one of the largest if not the largest, market in South Korea. It was raining and I didn't see much that I liked unfortunately. I also came across the pet shop section. It was a horrible sight! So many animals stuffed into one cage, and the cage wasn't even a good one. It was really terrible. And it wasn't just one or two stores. There was a whole bunch of them, with cats, dogs, birds, lots of birds, amphibians, reptiles, mice, hedgehogs, etc. They were all crowded and huddled inside their tiny cages. My heart was breaking for them! This one cat was SO tiny but it wasn't a newborn. It kept purring at me as if begging me to save it. It was depressing!

I decided to give up on my sightseeing plans and go to the bus terminal to do some shopping at a vintage store that I had always passed by when I came to Seoul but never actually shopped in. I looked around, but didn't see anything that I wanted to buy. I started to roam around and I found more and more shops. A LOT MORE. After about an hour and a half of shopping, I decided to call it quits as to save my wallet from an extra brutal beatdown.

I had school today and it was not so bad. The periods were a little bit shorter (by 5 minutes) and all we did was listen to Justin Bieber. The kids love him and I had all girls today, so it was the perfect song choice for the listening activity, however, I think it may have been too fast, or I chose really hard words. I'm not sure. The kids had a hoot and a holler when it was Ludracris' rap part! haha Unfortunately, I didn't get any students to try the rap. Sadness. I really wanted to hear someone try!!!

So, tomorrow begins my 6-day weekend! How many of you can say you've had a 6-day weekend??? It's gonna be amazing! I'm going back to Seoul for a few days to see Shirlen and the others again. I need to get all the time with them that I can because I can't see them on a weekly basis. Gotta get all the chances I can!