Weekends

I don't know what I would do without weekends? I need that time to live life beyond my daily routines and embrace the life of spontaneity. This past weekend included a perfect balance of events. On Saturday I woke up early and met with some friends to hike Bukak Mountain. The hike wasn't very intense, but it did consist of a billion stairs(lets say 40 minute stair master)! The timing of this hike was perfect because the trees were all showing the warm autumn hues. After the hike we were planning on taking a walking Tour of “Old Seoul” that was suggested by National Geographic. We didn't get to do too much of the walking tour because it started to rain. The only part we were able to explore was the Samcheong-dong area. This neighborhood is to be Seoul's most charming area with small buildings, cafes, boutiques, wine bars, and idiosyncratic museums. I had a great time walking around this area with a warm cup of coffee in hand! Later that evening I met up with other foreign teacher's from my school to have a farewell party for a teacher that finished their contract. We started the evening having galbi gui which is Korean BBQ! I must say it is very tasty!

On Sunday, Heather and I took on the challenge of taking the subway by ourselves to another neighborhood about an hour from our place. We were planning on checking out a church in the late afternoon. Since we got to the area early we decided to kill some time by walking around the area. Due to it being a chilly day we decided to sit in a neat cafe called “Moss” that caught our eye. Right when we walked in we were intrigued by how they brewed an individual cup of coffee. They brewed coffee using a glass Vacuum coffee maker. While we were discussing the process an older Korean woman approached us asking if we had ever seen this done before. After a little small talk she motioned for us to sit at her table and she bought us coffee. She was a very nice classy lady and turned out to be the owner of the cafe. We really enjoyed our visit with her and she really loved practicing her English. She owns the cafe for fun on the side, but her main job is designing traditional Korean dresses for women. She has done a lot of traveling and I'm sure has many stories to tell. We exchanged information and we have high hopes that she will be our Korean “grandma”!

P.S. I started an online photo album! The link is http://picasaweb.google.com/lnsimmons