Well, for Sunday, we were super tired from all the stuff we didn't do the day before because of the shitty weather. I know that doesn't make any sense, but we didn't have any excuse besides just feeling lazy. So we sat around my apartment till after noon, just doing laundry. After lunch, we finally headed out for my sight-seeing around Seoul and Jamie tagged along as well. We decided to wander around, near, up and over Seoul Tower. Taking the cable car up was briefly contemplated, but the weather was actually good and nobody's legs were broken, so up we walked. It didn't hurt our cause that the lines for the cable car were so long that it was probably faster to walk up the damn thing. And I'm sure my dad made some comment about the cable car being terribly structurally unsound, so nobody else felt like getting in the damn thing, either. The trails are nicely paved and certainly nothing difficult but I always seem to end up going the wrong way, though having signs pointed in both directions saying "This way to Seoul Tower" would do that (although both are technically correct, as Seoul Tower is on the back side of the Mt. and both directions will lead you there, albeit rather slowly). Also, the trails that slope up the mountain and appear to be leading you towards the peak...well, after a few hundred yards they switch directions and start sloping down towards the bottom. Messes with the head, it does. But in time, we did manage to find the top. It was hard to say who was in worse shape when we reached the top: dad with his bad knees or Jamie with his general out of shape self. Honestly, it was probably Jamie.
Once at the top, Jamie and I wandered around making fun of all the cliche couples nonsense. And there was a lot of it, so that probably took up a good hour or two. The couple's padlocks and couple's wax hands were probably the silliest. Yes you could pay some excessive fee and then hold hands with your partner and they would make a plaster mold of your holding hands. In theory, the padlocks to symbolize the locking up/joining/imprisoning of one person to another are kinda cute. It seems to lose its effect, in my opinion, when every single couple in Seoul does it, or so it would appear by the sheer numbers of locks at the Tower. Maybe, just maybe my opinion of these things was soured by the fact that a considerable amount of the view of the Seoul skyline was obscured/wasted by these padlocks. That might have something to do with it. That and I hate mass-produced "gifts from the heart", or whatever you wanna call them.
Beyond that, we found a nice spot to sit and people watch with a nice box of movie theater style popcorn (which is very uncommon here, outside of the theaters, and thus very much appreciated by this fella). There was also a musical performer playing some solid tunes. I don't even remember what country's traditional music he was playing but I just remember thinking, "Man, that isn't lousy Korean music....FUCK YEAH!!!" Here's the gang sitting, listening to music and eating popcorn.
As the evening drew near, we parted with Jamie, traveled back to the apt, bought several street food kebobs for very, very cheap, and watched TV until we went to bed. Exciting I know.
Monday the 16th saw my mom and I striking out alone, as father dearest had to actually meet with the business people for which he technically came to Korea for (a few hours of meetings seems a small price to pay for a free ticket for him...and all his food purchases and stuff can be written off...a very good deal). Well, my mom wanted to see my school and how schools are run in Korea, how classes are structured, blah, blah, etc (basically just boring stuff that only other teachers would actually care about). So I showed her around the English room, the office, the general premises and introduced to my co-teacher. Nothing of note, as we didn't stick around too long, as I didn't feel at all like spending time during my vacation at work. I think my feelings about being at work during the holiday can be summed up pretty concisely with the following picture:
Yeah, I was friggin' psyched to be there. Ohhh hell yeah.
Well, with still several hours to play with sans Bob complaining about stuff he doesn't like, we had planned to visit a notable garden outside of Seoul. Sure, we could have gone to a garden with Bob in tow, but then Mom and I would have ended up strangling him within the first 10 minutes just to stop his whining and complaining. And really I don't have intention of killing my father. He's still too financially valuable. So off to the garden we went....except the weather was shit....again. Damn. We briefly contemplated going in spite of the weather but wandering around a garden with no sun while constantly under umbrellas to avoid the rain began to sound less and less enticing. Well, we are stuck in town now and outdoorzy stuff is out of the question....I know, lets watch a movie! Cool. Toy Story 3 is playing at the local theater. But wait, its only the version dubbed into Korean, which would be incredibly lame and impossible for my mom to understand. Uggg. This is how we ended up spending most of the day sitting in my apartment watching a Korean movie I had saved on my computer. Not a terrible fall-back plan, but it still seems very lame for my parents first and only real trip to Korea. Ohhhhhhh well.
While sitting at the apartment, we did get to talk to Alyse via Skype, which is always a treat. She regaled us with stories of her adventures in Peru (at least the rated G stories, as my mom was in the room), and talked about how nice it was to be back in Wisconsin, which just made me angry and very, very jealous. Soon, Wisconsin. Soon. After talking and movie watching for most of the afternoon our dear father arrived back home and we went out for Korean barbecue. Coincidentally, Korean barbecue happens to be about the only Korean food my parents felt like eating. Not like I can blame them for being snoody or picky or something. Hell, if I had my way, K-barbecue is probably the only K food I would eat either. They would eat the harmless veggie dishes set up as side dishes, but mostly it was just cooked meat, cooked meat and a bit more cooked meat. No complaints there.
After dinner was finished, we watched more tv and called it a night.
Tuesday the 17th was our last full day together and the weather finally got its fucking act together, so we were actually able to go out sightseeing. 'Bout damn time. Tuesday's destination was one of the bigger palaces downtown that even I had never been to. This one, Changdeokgung Palace, also featured quite the backyard. For the King and Queen's secret and personal garden/forest, the highly regarded 78 acre "Secret Garden" or Biwon. The palace was the same old same old thing as all the others obviously, so that didn't interest me too much. But the garden? That I was looking forward to. I can't help it. I like green. So here's some shots for the palace proper:
Yup, still way, way, way too big for this country. I really get tired of crouching and bending over all the time.
The garden? Wonderful. Not much to say really. Ponds, trees, gardens, little waterfalls, whatever. It was so wonderful and green and quiet that you could forget you were in the middle of one of loudest, dirtiest, busiest, and most crowded places on the planet. Frankly, this was what I had been looking for the entire time I've lived in Seoul, namely a way to escape Seoul (that doesn't require hours and hours of driving or traveling). Here's the pics:
The remainder of the day consisted of eating some strange sandwiches at a street vendor (they called them "toast" and sure the bread was toasted but they had egg and some veggies on there and other goodies, but all that was over powered by some unknown sauce that really wasn't so good...I'm never a fan of "special sauce"....transparency is very important with sandwiches), more wandering around town, then packing up and riding a taxi to our airport hotel to be ready for the 11am flight out the next day.
Wednesday the 18th brought all the goodbyes and farewells and tears and hugs and all that jazz. Overall, I was disappointed with the vacation because I really wanted to show the parents more stuff, more food, more places, more everything, but it would seem it was not meant to be. There is only so much I can manage when the weather is shit 80% of the time and the parents are content (even on the nice days) to just sit around and drink beer all day. I can only push and prod so hard. If they don't want to move, they don't want to move. In the end, the parents were satisfied and really enjoyed their trip, because, realistically, all my mom needed to have a good vacation was to see me and all my dad needed to have a good vacation was lots of time to sleep, plenty of cheap, drinkable alcohol, and not having to pay anything (done, done, and done). I guess I have pretty low maintenance parents. Here's a pic of the final weepy farewell and then that's all folks.
More Pics: see the facebook album "that's no earthquake, that be giants a rumblin" (part 1 and 2)
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