This is the view from the roof of my accommodation. Due to space restrictions here in Seoul, a lot of people hang their washing up on the rooftops. Those two socks you can see are mine. I bought them for about 50 cents.
And this is Sinchon McDonalds, a prominent landmark and quintessential meeting place for everyone in this region. It's a busy location in the afternoons, with literally hundreds of people waiting around and meeting up with each other to go out for dinner and whatever may follow. If any of you come to visit me here, chances are we'll meet at this place.
So after everyone arrives and pleasantries have been exchanged, the typical Sinchon meetup group will then migrate down the road and loiter outside a restaurant of choice. This is what Sinchon loiterers look like.
That particular night we ate dakgalbi, a kind of fried combination chicken and cabbage concoction that cooks at your table. Sometimes they put cheese in it. Well actually the cheese here isn't real cheese. It's more like rubbery play-dough that vaguely reminds you of cheese.
Then of course you go to a bar and drink until the sun comes up and burns your eyes.
Here's what it looks like when the sun comes up and burns the eyes of those who have stayed out too long.
The subway system in Korea is super-efficient, convenient, clean and logical. It's definately my transport mode of choice. Seoul metro actually employs a team of mathematicians who come up with the best possible timetables to suit the largest number of people. The stations and the trains are all air-conditioned and you're never waiting long.
You can buy normal tickets to board the subway, or you can use T-money. T-money is probably the best invention that Koreans came up with since cyclic-automated-robotic-carparks that stack cars on top of each other to save space. I'll show you one of those in a sec. But anyway, T-money is a card that acts like a credit card for transport on the subway and buses. You just recharge the card when you want, and then you scan it at the turnstiles. It's kind of like a bluetooth system, the card readers instantly deduct what you owe and you don't have to worry about change or anything.
This is how you scan it to enter the subway. You don't even need to take the card out of your wallet, you just scan your wallet and the computer can read it. When you exit the subway you scan it again and it will tell you how much money you have left on it. You can also use it to buy food at mini-marts and make phonecalls from public phones.
T-money is the greatest. You will learn to love T-money. You will respect the T-money. Do not scold the T-money.
And if the whole T-money thing is too confusing, they even provide plastic bags to suffocate yourself with. Simply place over the head and pull the strings as shown.
And here's the picture I owe you of a cyclic-automated-robotic carpark that stacks cars on top of each other to save space. This whole thing is a robot with a vertical conveyer belt. You just drive into it, get out of your car and put coins in. Then the whole thing rotates like a show ride and your car is stacked up. When you come back you put your pin in and it'll bring your car down for you. Very very cool.
Here we are at a bar again. I have a fair few of these sorts of photos but this one has the guy who hugged Guus Hiddink in it. He actually hugs him in a TV ad they have here. If any of you come to Korea and he's still here, I can introduce you to the guy who hugged Guus Hiddink. For a small fee, he may consider allowing you to hug him too.
Here is my nuna (colloquial expression for older-sister). She doesn't speak any English but she still laughs at what I say. I guess I'm funny in any language?
My Korean hasn't improved much. So far I can only say "Where's the toilet?", "Please give me some beer" and "Where is my beer?"
Yesterday we went to the Lotte World skate rink. This is an ice rink in the middle of an indoor themepark. While I was trying to compose my balance enough to stand still without falling, these little kids were zooming past. But one of the little kids had his helmet on backwards. Hoho.
And here is the King of the Ice, at home in his natural habitat. Shortly before falling backwards and hurting his wrists.
Just kidding, I actually have a remarkable sense of balance when I'm sober.
After a hard days work ice-skating we went and ate samgyeopsal, my favourite bbq type with wrapping leaves, kimchi and a naughty amount of pork fat. The meat has 3 layers of fat, but you can also get ogyeopsal, which has 5. If you don't like eating fat, I usually have enough room left so that it doesn't get wasted.
I've been really lucky and fortunate to meet so many nice people here. I met this group of Koreans last Sunday at the Yonsei University soccer grounds. There was supposed to an adoptee match there, but no one showed up except me. The guy on the far end of the table was playing with a Korean team, so I asked if I could join them and we played together. Then he took me to dinner with his friends. This Saturday they invited me to go to Daejon city with them to see a festival they have there. As I said before, I've been really lucky and people are really nice.
The samgyeopsal we ate that night was a bit more tastier than usual. We had different kinds of leaves and radish slices to wrap it up with. And the whole time the Koreans were teaching me new Korean words. But unfortuneately I forgot them.
Here's what an empty subway station looks like. You can hear the trains in the distance, they make a kind of wailing sound. Then you get hit by a rush of air, then all of a sudden the carriages zip by at lightning speed and then it squeals to a stop. This might be old news to some of you, but back in Adelaide we don't have a subway.
That's it for me this time! And I've accepted a job offer in Busan to teach English to junior middle school students. Next Monday I start training in a special camp for one week before I head down there. When I start working I want to enrol in Korean language classes too. So that should be interesting. Hopefully I can post again before then though. Cyas.
It's been raining a fair bit in Seoul lately, as you can see from this shot I took from upstairs in Koroot. The rain here is different from Adelaide's, it pours heavily for hours on end instead of clearing up frequently. The droplets are large and heavy as well. I didn't buy an umbrella for a while and just tolerated being a bit wet when leaving the house. But then someone told me that the rain here is acidic and can make your hair fall out. Now I have two umbrellas.
A typical view of a BBQ session. Two points of interest: (1) The bamboo containers you can see are filled with a kind of sweet soju (2) There's toilet paper on the table and on the wall. They use it for paper towel here, but the funny thing is that it's not usually found in public toilets. You need to carry your own.
So we ran to Busan station with only a couple of minutes to spare before the train left. Even though there was plenty of time to get there at a decent hour, somehow we found ourselves running for the turnstiles at the last minute. That reminds me of my exams in university, even though I had weeks to study, I always left it to the last minute and found myself cramming the night before thinking 'How did it ever come to this?'
The KTX is a fairly new high speed train that runs from Busan to Seoul in about two and a half hours. Tickets cost about forty five dollars, but can be cheaper if you pool together and make a group booking. Prior to this, the same journey used to take about six hours.
The ride was fairly smooth and the cabins reminded me of an airplane. There are a couple of vending machines onboard and also some train-host-persons (which I believe is the politically correct term) that occasionally push a trolley past with things like green tea and walnut chocolate for sale. It was comfortable enough for the journey, although not a lot of leg space and the chairs don't recline. Kind of like a lecture theatre without a lecturer. Most people fall asleep.
If you're staying overnight in a Korean city, a cheap accommodation option is to sleep at a 
Because there isn't a whole lot of space in big cities like Seoul, a lot of people have their weddings in purpose built wedding halls like this. The wedding entourages are quickly herded in and out in a few hours to make way for the next paying couple. The venue was fairly nice and the food was alright. On the left-hand side of the aisle were the groom's family and on the right were the bride's.
Here's the bride with some friends. We had just arrived at the venue and went into the photo room. Look how natural and relaxed I am in this photo.
And this is me hanging out with Heather's sister, Emily. Bring on the food I say.
The lights dimmed according to plan and appropriate music emanated from unseen speakers. Then a speech was given by a man who looked wise, but unfortunately I couldn't understand what gems of knowledge he was imparting on us all. My Korean now is nearly as good as a native four year old. Well, a four year old who has a suspiciously large alcohol-related vocabulary.
There were many western elements in the ceremony but what struck me was that there was a lot of bowing and no kissing. Also there was no ring-giving part. Maybe the best man forgot to bring them like it happens in the movies. Altogether it was a pleasant and interesting experience. Thanks to Yong-Gyu and Seung-Yon for inviting us, even though that day was the first time I'd ever met them and all I did was consume their consumables.
There was a nice ice sculpture in the reception area. The names of the bride and groom are inside the ice.
So in less than 24 hours we were on the KTX again and heading back for Busan. I noticed that Seoul was much busier than Busan on the metro, there was a sea of people everywhere. They also seemed to walk a lot faster than I remembered.
Family-Mart are a chain of convenience stores in Korea where you can buy everything from smoked eggs to pre-warmed coffee in a can. As part of their ingenius customer loyalty program advertised here (which the store workers haven't heard of), you can apparently get a 'Family-Mart Bonus', otherwise known as a Fonus. What a catchy name.
Family-Mart and every other self respecting chain store in Korea stock special gift sets, which are popular for occasions like 
Remember that sushi place we went to last blog post? Well we went back there again because it was so good. Here's a new fusion sushi for you to admire. It's a rice bed with cabbage in it, topped with 
On Sunday nights we've been heading up to Dalmaji hill, an area overlooking Haeundae beach for trivia nights at a local bar. It's run by English teachers and draws a crowd from across the city. Sometimes the questions are a bit shoddy, but most of the time it's a nice way to drink up and end the week. The other week we won first prize, which is always a bottle of tequila. Dee-rishious! (delicious!)
That particular night, one of the bonus points was for a drinking competition (or sculling as we say in Australia). The challenge was to drink half a litre of beer as fast as possible. That guy in the cap is Kyung-Won, Meaghan's boyfriend from our table who won it for us. He can drink really fast, it took him around 3 seconds.
On the subway there are sometimes salespeople selling things like umbrellas, gadgets or stain removers. They always give a quick speech first, sometimes followed by a demonstration and then they move onto the next carriage. I bought an LED torch from this guy, it cost me about $1 and on the packet it says 'easy to use'. For that price, I would hope so.
This is one of my younger student's pencil case. 'Believe in the best omnibus' is actually a popular stationery brand here. Whatever it means, it sounds like decent enough advice.
Here's the nice Family Toast lady who works a stone's throw away from our school. Family Toast is a franchise here that sell toasted sandwiches. A hot ham and cheese sandwich will only cost you about a dollar. Quite comforting on these cold winter days. Busan's temperature has dropped to around 3 degrees celsius during the day time. Apparently, if you have an outside tap around your house and there's water stuck inside it, it can freeze and burst the pipe overnight. My friend told me that's why some people leave their outside taps running at night.
This is a cat that I spotted sleeping on the roof next door from work. Cats and dogs in Korea behave a little differently here. They're usually more scared of humans and it's difficult to get close to them without invoking a fight-or-flight response.
And here's a view down a street close to my house which has a lot of night markets open on weekdays. You can buy things like fruit, vegetables and fish from the lovely