Fun Things Thus Far

In the haste to complain of my ailments, I forgot to mention all the fun stuff I have done.
So, here goes:

I went to Everland, again. This time Suji (Simon's buddy at Ewha), Andreas (Simon's brother), and obviously Simon made the trip. This time, I rode the steepest wooden roller coaster in the world. The line was about half an hour wait, but it was definitely worth it. I was pumped with adrenaline, scared of falling out of the train (it was only a lap bar). However, it was one of the best roller coasters I have ever been on. It started with the huge drop (77 degrees of free fall). The dips and turns, though not always big, created enough force to make me feel like I was falling or going to be thrown out the side. To say the least, the thrill was maintained throughout the duration of ride. It's too bad that none of us brought a camera with that day.

I also went to Namsan Tower.
The fencing around the base observatory decks were heavy with locks. Sometimes they were simple locks with just the names and date, others were complex set of 12 red locks in the shape of a heart...

The War Memorial was very interesting. I kind of skipped over a whole lot, because I had a headache and couldn't read without adding to the pain. So, I would like to go again, before I leave.


LAST WEEKEND, Simon, Andreas, and I met up with Jimmy. He was an exchange student at Ewha last semester. He's Korean, but his family is in the process of moving to Canada. (I'm only mentioning this because otherwise the story is bizarre and unlikely.) His dad used to work for a company that has housing in Sokcho, where we wanted to go for the weekend. So, his dad booked a room for us, which ended up being free. Isn't it bizarre that a company would still offer a former employee a free room, which wasn't even for the former employee, but his son and friends? This is Korea.

We originally planned on going to the beach one day and mountain hiking the next. Saturday, the weather was okay in the morning, but it got cloudy and rained later in the afternoon. At the beach, I noticed that all of the Koreans just wore their regular clothes. If they got wet, they got wet. No Koreans wore swimming suits, which made the foreigners really noticeable. Although, most didn't even go swimming. They may have gotten a bit of their pants wet, but that's it. I think it's because many Koreans don't know how to swim. Jimmy was saying that swimming lessons aren't really a priority, and hardly any schools (besides large universities) have pools for people to learn. He was afraid to go in too far, because he doesn't know how to swim. This is just amazing to me.

This is Jimmy. We buried him well, with his favorite shirt to keep him warm.

Side note: my roommate and some other int'l students decided to go Seokcho the same Saturday. So, I ran into my roommate on the beach. I guess we had the same thought, but just didn't invite one another...

We also visited the Expo Tower. I gladly took the elevator up the 15 stories. Besides, I don't think we could walk up.

The weather was soooooo nice the next day, so we decided to hit up the beach again. We went speed boating, which was fun but too expensive. Simon really wanted to go, because he had never gone cruising around at high speeds in a boat before. We ended up discussing the differences in American and Belgian summer leisure time. Basically, Americans seem snobbish for owning toys like boats, jet skis, cabins, etc. He has never been water skiing or tubing in his life. I was rather shocked. I'm fairly certain that all of my friends have been speed boating, have gone water skiing/tubing/wakeboarding, or been to someone's cabin. Maybe Americans really are spoiled by such luxuries.