Zach Does Korea

Hanging out with Zach in Korea for the New Years was a really great time. We did so many things that it’s going to be difficult to not only recount the events in writing, but actually remember them myself. Luckily, I snapped over 160 pictures to help jog my memory. I would expect nothing less from Mrs. Woods, even on vacation.

I arrived at about midnight on Friday to a very impatient Zach. We quickly decided it was time to have a celebratory beer out at any random bar. Unfortunately, I was very unfamiliar with the area of Seoul that our hotel was located. It didn’t matter, as any bar would do. After a few rounds and a quick catch up conversation, we headed back to the hotel to sleep. Little did I know, if I had I stayed out any longer I would have died from exhaustion to following day.

Our wake-up calls over the weekend from Mrs. Woods occurred around 8:15am and we had 10 minutes to get ready. Awesome. Awesome to the max. We had found out about a city tour bus that would leave us at the hotspots for us to do a ‘self tour’. A new bus was scheduled to arrive in 25 minute intervals. Rarely did we spend more than 50 minutes at any location. I think maybe once out of the twelve hotspots we stayed for more than two bus intervals and even that was probably an accident. We spent both Saturday and Sunday experiencing nearly everything the tour had to offer. I think the only thing that we didn’t do was visit the agricultural museum. Sorry kimchi, nobody cares about cabbage.

The most impressive hotspot was easily owned by Seoul Tower. Not only is Seoul Tower close to 800 ft high, it is located on top of a mountain. I would guess that if you added the total elevation from bottom of the mountain to the top of the spire Seoul tower would be much larger than the Empire State Building or even Taipei 101. The pictures were absolutely amazing. Here are a few:

The distant mountains on the right are in North Korea

That is actually how far away we were from New York and D.C.

For dinner on Saturday, I took everyone out to a traditional Korean style meal. Although it was a little mundane for me, as I do this literally every day, I enjoyed teaching a different culture to everybody. Although Zach definitely had a leg up from the ‘off the plane’ Americans, he still had a few Chinese hitches in his step. Honestly though, he understood and was able to adapt almost instantly.

After dinner it was time to paint the town. Because Zach and I only had a few days to see each other we certainly weren’t going to spend it in the hotel. While living in Korea I’ve become an expert at burning the candle at both ends. So that’s just what we did. I took him to Hongdae, where most bars were closed for the holiday, but this didn’t stop us. We both shared our feelings toward the Asian way of life and what it has to offer; how long we planned on staying abroad and where else we wanted to travel; things the United States should adopt from Asia. One thing that we agreed upon easily was the rapid assimilation of the major Asian cities to the Western world. It seemed that soon (as in 15-20 years) a visit to Seoul would be too similar to visiting NYC.

Overall, it was a really awesome weekend. It was a real eye opener which reflected just exactly how much I have been affected by Korean culture. Which is a lot, by the way. I am really looking forward to taking a trip to go see Zach sometime over the summer. I think after nearly 4 months I am finally ready to start taking a tour of other Asian nations. To get a closer view as to what Zach and I toured over the weekend, take a look at the photo album. Like I said, I took over 170 pictures. I won’t put captions on all of them, but I’ll try and separate them into categories for easy viewing.