One busy weekend

This weekend we got around. Friday was our friend Shannon's birthday, so we had a night out in Kyungsung area. Unfortunately David had to work on Saturday, so he and Duck left early. That's why they're conspicously absent from this album. These are some pictures of our new friends.

Saturday we took our first Korean language lesson. These lessons cost 3,000 won a month (about 3 USD), and that's just for the coffee and snacks. It's an amazing service and our tutor was very helpful. She's been volunteering there for 6 years and drives over an hour each saturday to be there. Brian and I had our own tutor, and many people are 1 on 1. Then we had a fiasco at the bank. We wanted to check to see if we'd been paid, and eventually found out we had (we're rich!). But in the process I got my bank book stuck in the ATM because I couldn't read the menu. Here everyone has a bank book - about the size of a passport, which you can use just like an ATM card, but they have ATM cards too, but we don't have one yet because you have to have an alien registration card before you can get one and we're still waiting on that. So I stuck mine in and couldn't get it back and luckily some very kind Koreans called the service number for us. THe whole ordeal only lasted about 40 minutes, but it was a scary. We're really a bit dependent here given our current language abilities. But Koreans are so kind that it isn't so bad. After the incident we headed to Haeundae Beach, the most famous in Korea. Even though it was freezing it was still a busy scene. First we went to a casino, it was my first time in one. David and Duck said it was a bad representation though because it was very quiet and there were no free drinks. Not the typical casino experience. But David taught us about roulette and I found out slot machines aren't fun and then we went to drink our 3 dollar losses away on the beach. There was salsa music blasting from the "street lounge" - I think this is a summer event that'll close down soon, but people dance in this courtyard on the beach. There were people shooting off Roman candles from street vendors that shot about 100 feet into the air, there were sparklers and food vendors and groups drinking out on the beach. Keeping with the gambling spirit, we bet David couldn't chug a bottle of Soju without throwing up. I still can't believe he won this bet. With the Soju to keep us warm, it was a great introduction to the Haeundae district.

Sunday we finally got around to some hiking! We visited Guemjeongsanseong. San means mountain, and seong means fortress. This is the largest mountain fortress in all of Korea (there are lots of them). The ruins of the walls are still visible, and the entire mountain was gorgeous. It's hard to believe all of this lies within the city limits.
We went and soaked in the hot springs footbath again after the hike. It felt so good to soak in that hot water after such a cold windy hike. And we ended up carving pumpkins at David and Duck's house Sunday night. Anything for the kids. Today was my first Halloween class and the kids loved it. But they think that the burnt spot on the lid of my jack-o-lantern stinks. I think it's delicious.