Learning to Love the Heck out of Korea #6- GUESTS!

Sam and I at the Boseong Tea Fields.

As many of you already know, my boyfriend Sam came to Korea for a visit. He arrived March 22nd and left April 2nd. It was an AWESOME time. The day he arrived, I bused to the airport, met him off the plane, then we bused home. All we had the energy to do the first night was walk to Hadang (new downtown) and have some Korean dinner. I took him out for my favourite Korean dish- Samgapsol (thinly sliced beef that you BBQ yourself at your table). YUM! I called in sick to work the next day and we enjoyed a big breakfast at my place then went to the old part of the city to explore the colonial architecture that can be found there. My English Mokpo map is pretty good in some ways, and pretty bad in other ways and we could not, no matter how hard we looked, find this private Japanese garden. We ended up going to an information booth and had to be escorted the entire way there. I felt a bit stupid, but there's no way that the map would have lead us to the place we needed to be! Anyway, we had the garden all to ourselves and enjoyed a little picnic. Afterwards, we went to Happiness House (a refurbished Japanese mansion that's now a trendy restaurant) for a milkshake and headed home to get ready for dinner and the orphanage. I was excited to introduce him to kimbap (Korean sushi-type stuff) because I thought he'd LOVE it. Sadly, he was less than impressed with it, but oh well! AS usual, we got our coffee and headed to teach our orphan classes. Sam was a huge hit because he brought them souvenirs and candy from London. A good first day, I think. Sadly, I had to go to work on Tuesday, but Sam entertained himself by watching the finals of some international baseball competition (Korea vs. Japan). In the PM, we went to the movies and saw Watchmen (not very touristy, I know, but we love going to the movies wherever we are). Wednesday night, we went out to a cafe with our books and Sam accompanied me to my taekwando class which I think he really enjoyed. Thursday night we went out for dinner with another foreign couple then we explored the old downtown a bit. We both wanted to pick out our Birthday gifts. We poked in a lot of shops, but with no luck. Friday night we went back to the old downtown and hiked up Yudal mountain, decided on what we wanted for our birthday gifts and bought them (Sam chose a Halle Hansen raincoat and I chose a necklace with my name written in Hangeul) and we went back to the new downtown for samgapsol again! Saturday morning we headed out to Boseong tea fields (about 2 hours away) and enjoyed walking around the tea plantation. Afterwards, we tried some green tea rice Bibimbap (rice mixed with vegetables) and green tea icecream, neither of which we overly enjoyed. The day was good, though! Sunday morning we made a big breakfast and then left on the bus to Walchulsan to see the Buddhist temples and hike the mountain. I really wanted to show Sam a temple, so this place was a must-see. The entire hike up Walchulsan takes between 5-6 hours, but we only hiked up the mountain for 2 hours, then it took about 30 minutes to get back down. It was really beautiful scenery, but a 6 hour hike just was not going to happen. Both of us wore running shoes and we were sliding all over the place. I only wiped out once, though! Sunday night we went out for a another yummy supper of Shabu Shabu. This dish consists of a pot of boiling broth that sits on your table. A big platter comes to your table and you add the veggies first. Eat that like a soup, then add the beef, eat that, then add the noodles and eat them. Lastly, they bring a bowl with rice and really finely chopped veg with an egg broken on top and they fry that up in your pot as your...dessert, I guess. It's all really yummy and Sam really enjoyed it. During the daytime, I had to go to work, so Sam went for walks, ate out at some places I recommended, visited museums, hiked and did some studying and reading. One note-worthy day, however, was when he came to my school for a visit. Students were done classes at the time he arrived, but many were stil hanging about. They went SO crazy when they saw him. It was like they were meeting Brad Pitt or something, it was insane. They kept commenting on how tall he is and rubbing their noses in awe at the size of his! It was really funny. I introduced Sam to my principal, who took him into his office and basically gave him an interview. He even asked him what he liked about me. To which Sam replied "she's pretty". Ha! Monday night we were back at the orphanage and Tuesday night we went to a friend's place for dinner before I headed to my taekwando test (for my red belt). Wednesday night we we relaxed and went out for Samgapsal and Baskin Robbins one more time.

Sam's entire trip lasted 10 days. On the day he departed, we left Mokpo on the 2am bus to Incheon Airport. I ended up calling in sick again, and I'm really happy that I did because we had the entire morning together at the airport before he left. It was hard to say goodbye but I was comforted the next day when I saw that I was accepted to the University of Ottawa for Bachelor's of Education!!! First round!!!!



Sam outside of the temples at Walchulsan.