Stirring It Up In Tokyo and Soeul

I had just done a karaoke nomihodai with wes and mills, they were responsible and went back for a good night a sleep, I hit the town with my girlfriends

mel and I on the tokyo metro



ready for a night out


we met these guys in Kabuki-cho on the way to catch the last train across town for our wild night out...from L-R Shogou, Beth, Me, Tatsuya, Tiffany, Susumu


heading to the dance club


Shogou, Tatsuya, Tiffany, and Susumu....We had a wild night / morning in Tokyo before heading the next day to Korea.


the next morning


our first night in Korea


a typical street in souel


oishikatta


like shi


hitting the town sunday night. We went straight to the club from walking around all day, none of us knew we would be doing that, so we were dressed like scrubs...i had hiking pants on for bloody sakes, but that didn't ruin my game...we all still had a good time..we went to NB this night


the city lights of Soeul, a view from the mountain that Souel Tower sets on


everywhere you look there are street vendors selling food


to get where we needed to go, we had to head down street of try to walk


these are buckets of scraps and garbage, yum


hungover?


One of the coolest things about Asia is the architecture, check out this shot, right in the middle of the city is this amazingly ornate palace, surrounded by beautiful gates and walls... what a contrast from the modern highrises that surround it


Tiffany getting down with her shadow...
she is also holding one of the most expensive things we bought in Korea, a Starbuck's coffee


the pic she was taking


the three of us



the roof of the entrance was intricately painted in amazing colors, it rocked


inside the palace gate


Due to our grand evenings and fun-filled nightly adventures, we made it to the palace too late to see it, so we got to hang out on the grounds for a few minutes and gaze in awe of it's grandeour... mel and tif in standard fashion, goofing off...itsumo tanoshii!!



Even through the lack of communication we were quite good at meeting people, here tif and mel say cheese with a group of random korean kids, the coolest thing about korea was how superbly nice everyone was!


they later emailed the pic they took to tiffany


the art district


the bookstore reminded me of the one that I used to frequent on delmar, except due to the language barrier, and my illiteracy of korean, i couldn't browse like i love to do


colorful candy


korean drums


sweetpotato art


the woman is cooking a kimchi pancake, a famous korean dish



Mel and Tif in a moment


this is a barrier that marks the beginning of the DMZ



a guard walking the border, they are allowed to patrol here and up to the edge of the DMZ, but not in it

-
on the other side of this fence is a "freedom bridge", the last people to come to South Vietnam from the North used this bridge... they crossed it at the end of the fighting, escaping to democracy...yet since there has been no resolution and the borders have been closed, the bridge is now fenced up and lined with barbed wire to ensure no one will cross the border...
people adorn the fence with flags, cloth, and notes in memory of loved ones that were seperated during the division of the North and South


the fence near the bridge


this is the train runs on the tracks closest to North Korea, right along the border of the DMZ, there have been incidents of bombing the train



korean flags and barbed wire protect the border


this is an altar that was set up at the edge of the DMZ so people could pray here. Many people travel to the border to pray for their love ones who were lost or seperated during the division of North and South Korea


some scenes on the stones that surround the altar



the entrance of the tunnels that lead to North Korea.. the North Korean government wants a share of the profits S Korea is making off the tunnels, because well, they built them...


due to security concerns you must stand behind a line to take pictures at the DMZ observation.. here you see all the folks lined up for a horrible bi


that my friends, past the binoculars, do you see that horizon? that is North Korea, this is really the closest I could get... it is near impossible for an American to get a visa, word has it that when you apply it takes ages, and many times your application gets lost in all the paperwork.....


the largest flagpole in the world... this is in North Korea...they hold the Guinness World Record for having the largest flagpole in the whole world, cool huh!?


that poor guard must get people like us everyday... this train station is a beautiful new station but nothing runs from it, it is built only to serve as a hope of reuniting with North Korea



the girls trying to escape to the North...




Soeul has a really cool art scene, as part of the hi-soeul festival there was this


amazing


light

show, with transitions and movement all


orchestrated to music


city lights... we got taken around and shown many a places here...


once again out on the town


i was not a big fan of this guy, he said i looked like ET, he was going for the girl from ET, but he said ET none the less. he was also a chavanist, and tried to put us in our place one too many times, he invited himself to join us, and then he opened his mouth, enough said



we got treated to a VIP room with a full spread of fruits and vegetables and liquor, sodas, and beer....


hello, everyone please meet, CarSnufalupagus. that is my name, they were so proud when after many moments of practice they finally could say it~



and this is my friend Sari!



right outside this palace is a huge gathering ground for old men...it is great! next time I go to Soeul, I want to spend a couple hours just milling around talking (well probably not actually talking since english may not be known) but hanging out with the old folks...they were all sitting around, drinking, dancing, in one corner you would have some group listening to classical, another corner there would be a group of old men listening to what sounds like cambodian hip-hop... it was great...mel got up in the midst of them and started shakin' a leg! what a superstar she was!


mel gets down with the old men




they really took a liking to us, i wanted to hang out with them, but we had to see some sights, we needed to do at least one while it was open..


old men begging for us to come back



the pathway into ~palace


the landscape was gorgeous


the ~


mel and tif being good student


this is ~ it is the longest building in all of korea


the thing that grabbed my attention most was the uneven stones that lay in the square in front of the great hall


Mama Melly reads to us about the temple, she was our educator, well at least mine, i was typically not in any type of mood for learning about sights, i was happy just being visually pleased

these creatures were seen atop many temples and shrines in korea, they look like evolution, but i think that they may actually be signs of your year


the wall of the palace inside


a man relaxing in the shade of the palace grounds



just to give you an idea of how big this is, look at the cars driving by, and the size of that wall.. unreal i tell you


rooftops


always~ coca-cola



i decided i didn't need anymore moo-moos so i didn't get the shopping done that i expected; the choices were mainly old lady clothes, or cheap brand name clothing- i don't wear that stuff so i returned empty handed



seafood



and now close up, delicious



we sat down at a food stall and kanbeied our beers



we then began chatting with these three, but they knew absolutely no english at all...



we used body language and the phrasebook to hang out and learn things about eachother. All week people kept asking Tiffany if she was an actress, because she is so animated while acting out various words.


after the foodstall they invited us to a place i dubbed the Korean Denny's only because of the decor



they had one friend show up who knew a few english words, we hung out with them for several hours, no language ability at all and had a great time..




i saw these men and had to join them, i ended up sitting and chatting with one of them for a long time, the guys that we were with started telling him in korean things they had already told us, like thier jobs, the business man said, they are...and i finished his sentences, jewlery designers, yes i know,...everyone was shocked and in disbelief that we were actually able to understand what they were trying to say without any language...especially the guys we were hanging with...shows what living somewhere you have limited language skills can do to you.




this ~ he was the business man that i met, he was very friendly, he helped us get a cab that night, it was nearly impossible due to the holiday




the city was vibrant for hi-soeul festival


i am pissed off if you can't tell, i had an issue when buying my food...grr...



we made it to thursday and we are still hitting the town...that is jared, he is a cool guy we met at our hostel, he seemed to enjoy our company, he is a squash professional and he comes to korea to live on the offseason..he rocks... here we are at hoe bar 2..jared was very happy to tell us the next day that he discovered hoe bar 3, which means there was one for each of us~thanks jared~



mel looking hot



tif and jared



me and tif



now it's friday we did nothing but lay around and go to an onsen before meeting friends for dinner and clubbing


dancing the night away was pretty much what i did in korea




here we are on Korea University's campus. It was a lively campus, I got to watch part of a pick-up basketball game... oh and there where we are standing smelled amazing~



that my friends is dog meat, dig in...



the subway was filled with brilliant



for tobacco



we got to the point where we were running into friends on the street quite often.. here we are on our last day and we bumped into Jared..the night before we had bumped into ~



our last dinner- the most expensive but i thought the least impressive


on the train back to niigata


back in japan