December Memories: Day 4

I think Nampo's Xmas lights are pretty impressive.
Ignore the neon lights of the high street and it almost
feels like home.

Our Weekend

After lots of weekends away it was nice to spend some time at home this weekend.

On Friday night some friends got together and we went to a few places around Nampo to eat, drink, and perfect our aegyo skills.

Saturday morning was bright and breezy so I headed back to Nampo, and got myself lost in the market where I discovered a few cute vintage shops and a big building filled with lots of smaller vintage boutiques. After this is seemed a little rude not to have a Red Velvet Cupcake, so I decided to get one to take home with me.

Saturday night was ladies night, so we all got together in Oncheonjang where we tried home made cocktails, and then meant to head out to PNU to watch a battle of the bands competition, but ended up going out too late. It was really nice to see all the bars really busy, as sometimes they can be a little quiet and lacking in atmosphere.

Sunday I just relaxed, popped into Nampo, watched the film, Attack the Block which I thought was awful and had to give up on half way through and had an early night ready for my first full week of teaching since September!

To top my weekend off I decided to go and get my haircut for the first time since I've been in Korea. Because of some decisions I've had to think about over the last month I've literally been pulling my hair out so thought it could do with some TLC. At a friend's recommendation i decided to go to Hwamiju in Nampo. It has a bright purple sign, is up on the 2nd floor of the main street of Nampo, right opposite the big Paris Baguette. It's super fancy inside.

As soon as the stylist, Mina saw my hair she started muttering 'Emergency' under her breath. My own hairdresser didn't even react like that after I bleached my hair 5 times in 48 hours. She'd periodically stop snipping away to stroke and coo over my eyelashes, then finished my straightening my hair into what can only be described as a Rachel look. Having said that it wasn't a bad price at 27,000, she could speak really good English and she did give me entertainment while I sat there...

Care Package V3

This week has been a strange one so far. Somehow I managed to lose my purse last Monday. It was in my bag one day and then when I went to use it on Wednesday it just wasn't there. Not only did it have my Korean bank account card in there, but it also had two English credit cards that I carry around incase of emergencies, and my Alien Registration Card.

Luckily I checked all of my accounts and nothing had been taken out, but I still had to cancel everything just incase, which meant all of my phone credit was eaten up by calling the English banks. I spent 6 annoying minutes trying to explain to someone at Natwest why I couldn't just go into a branch to sort out the credit card. It's amazing to compare the Korean and English banks. Not only do the Korean banks avoid interior designers who're stuck in the 80s  but they instantly issue you a new card while you wait, no having to wait 10 days for a new one.

So in the last few days I've been to the police station, on Monday I went into Nampo to get some more phone credit and yesterday I went to the Immigration office again to try and replace my card. When I got there at about 4pm the ticket machine told me that there were 59 people waiting ahead of me. Bad news. I managed to read a chapter of One Day by David Nicholls, break the photo booth and make myself look like a crazy foreigner after I started screaming and jumping around, just as I caught a big spider trying to crawl into my bag. Quite a productive hour and a half of waiting. Now I have to wait another month to go and pick it up, which kind of ruins our plans for the Summer break as I won't have it back until the end of the holiday.

So hopefully everything is sorted now and I can have my nights back. It cheered me up lots to go out for some pajeon with friends last night and that when I got home a parcel had arrived from my Aunty Ann. Thank you!

Inside it there was lots of M&S chocolate, Socks, jewellery, glowsticks, and a cute union jack purse which can replace the one I lost. Hurray for care packages, they never fail to put a smile on my face (hint!).

Sick of not being able to get any new music I've also signed upto Spotify Premium tonight so I've been making playlists all night, especially reminiscing about when I was 19 and 20 with lots of bands I've not listened to in aaages!

Oh My!

I love all the t-shirts with Konglish written all over them, and managed to resist buying one until I saw this in Nampo market the other day!

Friday Favourite V8: Street Food

At the end of every week I'm going to write down one thing I love about Korea. Last week it was the ice cream shop Baskin Robins and here is this week's (a little late)...

Imagine playing russian roulette with food, that's the only way I can think to describe street food in Korea. You never really quite know what you're getting or how good it's going to be, until you take the first bite.

Living near Nampo, I think most people would be surprised that it's only in the last month or so that Tasha and I have started eating it. Nampo is packed full of food stalls. There's the international market, the back streets of Nampo and also the stalls packed into PIFF square. They're brightly lit with lots of people milling around, grouped together and eating food. Running down from the square there are these tiny tents, all with mini seats and tables where you can pick your food and drink and take a pew.

I that love late at night when we walk home from Nampo we walk past these tents that are dotted through the backstreets, which're sometimes zipped up. You can hear the revelry of the business men inside, but it kinda feels like a private, soju induced party that we're not invited to!

So far we've tried BBQ'd chicken which was pretty good, waffles which Tasha is a massive fan of, fried shrimp, fried hard boiled eggs and kimbap 김밥(sushi rolls) which I could take or leave. My two absolute favourite things is pajeon 파전 which is a savoury pancake/omelette with lots of greens and meat in it, and the best thing I have tasted so far is hot-tteok 호떡 which is a sweet, deep fried pancake that's stuffed with nuts, which unsurprisingly always has the biggest queue for.

Pajeon

My first try of hotteok

Tasha with hotteok

In one of the tents eating fried shrimp

Our Weekend in Pictures

This weekend we celebrated Tasha's 27th birthday and I think it's one that she won't be forgetting any time soon... It started with baseball which turned into a bizarre night out in Nampo-Dong in a Korean night club, next was a trip to Daegu to practise roller derby with the ROKD ladies, a swift KTX ride back to Busan so we could go out in KSU, no time for sleep but Haeundae beach seemed like a good idea at 8am in the morning, tried to sleep it off there but just got sun burned. The best bit was Tasha being so deliriously tired that she managed to walk all the way into my room and stand there for several seconds before realising there was Stevie Wonder's Happy Birthday blaring out, a massive cake and lots of presents waiting for her! What was even better was Birthday cake for breakfast this morning.

A street vendor casually chilling with a kitten on his shoulder.

Happy Faces all around when he let us hold it. Not so happy
faces from him when I pretended to run away with it.

Sajik Baseball stadium

Homemade pom poms

Sleepy Giants Fan

Bet he's had a fair few trips from the tooth fairy

Alternative head wear

Bag Heads

Noone wanted to join in our metro party

The third set of people asking for their picture to be taken with us

The fan then preceded to take us to a techno club

Escorted home

Daegu for the ROKD monthly scrimmage

ROKD ladies in action

Trying to get the Baskin Robins cake home in one piece

Ready for birthday fun

The lovely Maybelle Kim

Our view in the morning

I don't know how he stayed asleep this long

Secret birthday hijack attack Natasha. Stevie Wonder was
playing and everything. 

Birthday cake which turned into Monday's breakfast

Trying to embarrass her failed miserably. She loved it.

Our weekend

You know when you wake up wearing a glow stick that's lost its glow and ears full of sand that you had a good night the night before.

We managed to cram alot in again this weekend. Street food in Nampo along with drinks with friends, a hike to  Seokbulsa temple, a BBQ,  a masquerade party on Songjeong beach and topped it all off with some camera shopping and Gossip Girl on Sunday night.

Seokbulsa temple was well worth the hike. It took us a couple of hours as we repeatedly lost our way as we were working from two different sets of instructions. If anyone wants to try it, my instructions are below. It was slightly disheartening to see once we'd risked life and limb down steep rocky roads (which made you hum the Indiana Jones theme tune) that there was a smooth tarmac road leading straight to the temple. Yet when we got there, for a short, peaceful while we were the only people there and it was amazing.

These will be the last pictures courtesy of Natasha's camera, on Sunday morning when we went to look at the pictures from the previous night, it made an ugly crunching noise. Evidently the sand we've been finding everywhere in our apartment also made its way into her camera too. Sad times. R.I.P camera, you've helped us to record many happy memories so far.

Mmmm Floppy Prawn

Loves that it's polite in Korea to get others to pour you a drink

Ridiculously cheap beer that comes in awesome vases

A baby beer vase and the most incredible soju cocktail. Psst,
see the hole in the table? If you pop your drink in there it keeps it icy cold.

Pretty proud of ourselves that we managed to drink it all

On the way to Geumjeong mountain , this is the wrong entrance

Cable car ride up Geumjeong mountain

Hiking to Seokbulsa temple

Being over taken by ajummas on the way to the temple

Giving ourselves a breather near a waterfall.

The hike was obviously not enough exercise, so I decided to give
the exercise park that's half way up the mountain a go.

Trying not to collapse after the steep hill.

The temple's bell.

The shrine to Buddha at Seokbulsa temple.

Wall carvings at Seokbulsa temple

Hitting the soju at the BBQ.

Masquerade bonfire party at Songjeong beach

Sparklers and fireworks at Songjeong beach.

How to get to Seokbulsa temple:

-Get yourself to Oncheongjang which is on the orange line, exit 3. 

-Go over the road by the bridge on your right hand side, which leads you into Homeplus.

-Best instructions ever; once across the bridge just head for the mountain! Once you start getting a bit closer there are directions to Geumjeong park. 

-We walked past a big map that showed the entrance to the park to be on the left hand side. We ambled into what I think was another temple that had a really colourful entrance gateway (the picture is above with me stood underneath it) carry on heading this way, until you see another footbridge and car park. This leads you straight into the park.

-Head towards the cable cars, these are through the amusement park. You should see all the rides and a massive dinosaur statue.

-Tickets were 7,000 won for a return fare.

- From the cable cars you need to head to the South Entrance of the fortress that's also on the mountain. Basically, we can't read enough Hangeul to know when we got to the South Gate. But the first time we noticed a sign post that was only pointing to every other gate, we veered off the path to the left and followed the signs for Nam moon Village.

-Keep heading down the hill (the road forks off but we stayed on the left hand side).

-Eventually you'll come to  Nam moon village. It's obvious that it's the village as there are lots of restaurants and volleyball courts (they really are obsessed here!).

-Take the path on the left just as you reach the volleyball court.

-Keep walking, past more volleyball courts, you'll eventually go over a wooden bridge.

-Soon it becomes really rocky and was pretty hard to manouvre down, these rocks turn into perilous steps, which then turn into steps that are a bit more civilized.

- At the bottom of the steps there's a waterfall, and if you just follow the path down on the right hand side of the stream, you'll eventually come to the tarmac road.

-Turn right onto the road and enjoy the steep climb all the way up to the temple!