Parks, Pinkies, and Protesters

Another weekend in Seoul. This was a bit more relaxed than many other weekends here. I actually got to sleep in (until 8 A.M), and take my time getting ready for life. M and I got our usual coffee at the bakery down the street and then headed to my school. My co-teachers had expressed many wishes to see my "handsome friend," and I finally gave in. I very proudly showed off my school and my co-teachers. They asked M a ton of questions and giggled at his answers, I think they were very impressed. And of course my students were peeking in the windows looking at the man I brought to school. Come Monday, I will get a load of "Teacher, boyfriend?" questions. I feel that some of my students are stalking me, as I ran into many students this weekend all asking about M. In Korea, close friendships between men and women are just not heard of.

We made another attempt at the Yongsan Techno mart. However, we got distracted by the mall next to the Techno Mart and successfully purchased an 1 TB external hard drive for $124, including a free case. Take that Techno Mart!

The moon and Christmas lights at Yongsan

Dying of hunger, we headed for Jongno 3. However, a very drunk ajushi (old man) decided that he would befriend us on the subway. He started shouting at us and calling us over. Luckily, we really didn't understand exactly what he was saying so we pretended we didn't know he was talking to us. But he came over any way and pointed his pinky finger at us. We just stared at it, wondering if he was giving us the Korean finger. He kept shaking his pinky finger at us until Matt stuck his pinky finger out and poked the ahushi's finger. The old man wrapped his pinky around Matt's pinky and smiled. The ajushi then turned to me and I followed suit. The old man was very proud and started asking a load of questions in Hangul. So we just shook our heads and raised our shoulders in bewilderment. The man got very loud and agitated, so we escaped the subway at Jonggak only to run into Anti-American Free Trade protesters. I quickly tried to perfect my British accent and ducked the hell out of there. But again hunger called, so we only made it to Piano Street to a bar I know called 2 Men Story (it really isn't a gay bar, I swear). We got our first vodka tonics since leaving the states and enjoy some food. By the time we had finished and made it back to the subway, the protest was over.

Sunday, the apartment walls were too confining, so we headed to Dong Seoul station early, to ensure M could get a ticket home. Then we headed over to Olympic Park, which was quite busy with some K-Pop concert going on at the stadium. But the park itself was quiet and relaxing. We watched ajumas and ajushis wander around, men with extremely large lensed cameras taking photo-graphs of birds, couples bike on bicycles built for two, and children play soccer. It was easy to forget you were in Seoul.

At the edge of Olympic Park