Pre-Vacation

Matt surprised me by knocking on my door Thursday evening immediately after I had finished cooking dinner--talk about great timing for him! I put him to work on Friday by making him attend summer camp where I played scientist. I blindfolded a student, hid a piece of candy in the room and made the other students give the child directions through a maze of desks to find the candy. Turns out, the kids really will play this lousy game over and over for a worthless piece of candy.

My apartment is out there...

After camp, we headed to Myeongdong for some shopping and then to Jonggak for some Indian food. Saturday we decided it was high time to go to Namsan Tower. We skipped the Teddy Bear Museum inside the tower and headed for the observation room. We rode up six whole floors in an elevator that had an animation of flying through the tower, out of its top and into outer space. It was quite something and left all the westerners giggling.

Seoul Tower

We declined the 12,000 won green-screened photo and attempted to look out over the city. Unfortunately, the smog and the lack of recent window cleaning made for poor visibility, but it was still nice to look over a part of the city. We then looked around the many gift shops selling tower cell phone charms, vials with silk flowers surrounding miniature towers, eyeglass cleaning clothes with the tower printed on them, and overpriced cardboard coasters depicting the tower. Oh, and I must not forget the souvenirs from England and Paris. Korea really doesn't understand the whole souvenir thing.
After the tower, I took Matt to his first Outback Steakhouse. He had his first true bowl of soup and bit of steak in one year. A small plate of cheap steak, steamed veggies, fries and some pumpkin soup never tasted so good! We topped off the decadent day by catching the late show to the new Batman movie. The movie would have been more enjoyable if people could leave their hand phones alone for a few minutes.
Sunday found us back in Myeongdong where we stumbled upon an arts and crafts sale. We hung out listening to a guitarist and I managed to find something crafty that I actually liked. We later headed to Kongdae to eat some BBQ pork with Matt's Korean friend from Jinbo.
Matt followed me to English camp today, lured by the hope of playing kickball. But sadly, it rained and so events were moved to the gym. This deserves its own blog post. I have since sent Matt back to Cheongsong where he can go back to work and prepare for our week in Jeju.