Seoul Forest is dangerous...

...for bikers:

It WAS actually a really dangerous place for people riding a bicycle! I'm glad I was walking, I would have totally gone down those stairs!

As a sidenote: Korean girls like slides :) (took me more than ten minutes to make them try it...)

Seoul is beautiful!

Some of my seniors in my graduate classes and me went to Namsan (the location of Seoul tower) to first have a good dinner and then enjoy the view:

Night view from Namsan

We didn't go up Seoul tower, but I'll definitely go next time! The view was quite good, minimally foggy and I think Seoul is simply amazing at night!

Cherry Blossom Festival

Ever wondered why spring is supposed to be the most beautiful season in Korea?
Well, here is why:

Spring is cherry blossom time!
For around two weeks the cherry trees bloom in Korea and it is absolutely beautiful!
The weather was great so I went to a Cherry Blossom Festival together with my friend Sunny.

Sunny and me under the cherry tree

Because we went on a weekend and the weather was really nice it was a little bit crowded but there were some interesting people around as well, just like this old guy:

Hulla hoop madness

Sunny's husband packed a picnic for us and I think I ate the best sandwich ever :) I've to ask him for his secret (might have been the peanut butter...).
Now the weather is rainy again but I'm hoping for some nice outdoor days again (although cherry blossom time is now already over unfortunately...)

Sunday: Hiking on Seoul Fortress Wall

The Sunday before my laptop broke (yes, "the day my laptop broke" will be used as a fixed phrase from now on to refer to that terrible terrible time 10 days ago), I went hiking on Seoul fortress wall with my roommate Elena. The Seoul fortress wall hike can be divided into three sections and we decided to just take one of them (all three together apparently take around 8 hours to complete). Coincidentally we picked the section which goes through a military area so you actually need to take your passport or alien registration card with you. The area is under strict military surveillance because it is directly behind the Blue House. So actually you are also not allowed to take pictures (except at certain places with special signs). Good tourist as I was I took some pictures of the beautiful scenery, which was obviously a bad idea. There are many (inconspicuously dressed) soldiers and even though they didn't see me I was apparently caught by a security camera (which as I afterwards realized where everywhere). Someone radioed the closest soldier who came running and was very angry with me. But I apologized and promised to not take anymore pictures, so everything was finally ok.
Seoul fortress wall is going over some mountains, so the hike is quite exhausting and you have to climb an awful lot of stairs, but the view is really worth it!

Fortress Wall Gate

On the fortress wall

If you look closely you can see the security patches which you have to wear during the hike on this picture of Elena and me:

The two hikers

Next time we want to tackle the full three-sections course of the hike (the other two sections are not military zones so there will be more pictures as well :)

Saturday Afternoon: Trip to Suwon

So on the Saturday I was last blogging about, after taking the Blue House tour in the morning I went to Suwon in the early afternoon. Suwon is around 40 minutes by bus from Seoul and is one of its suburbs (quite large suburb I might add, with more than 1 million inhabitants). The last time I was in Korea I stayed in Suwon so going back there many memories came back to my mind. Many of the old shops are still there but a lot of things have changed of course. I met with Maria, an old friend from Sweden. We met around 4 years ago at Ajou University and she was staying in Korea for a long time, returned to Sweden and now has been back to Korea again for some time. It was really great to catch up. We first had sushi in my favorite sushi shop, which fortunately is still there (but unfortunately has nearly doubled its prices). Then we moved to a coffee place for more talking of course and afterwards went shopping. Later on we went to Janbeers, the bar where I used to hang out around 3-4 nights every week and had a couple of beers (with the small intermission of spaghetti in an Italian restaurant which is in the same building). Unfortunately I couldn't stay too long because I had to catch a bus back to Seoul in order to get the last subway back to Hanyang University (and I had to keep curfew of course ;)

Maria and me in Janbeers

I'm back!

Say hello to my new laptop and welcome me back into the land of the living (internet users).

So this is what I had the whole last week:

My "replacement" laptop

And this is what I have now: a Samsung QX410. I do love my new laptop so much!! It's incredibly fast (especially compared with my old laptop). I guess I save around 30 minutes of time every day which I usually spent on waiting for my old laptop to power up or open a program.
Now I feel alive again (and I realized that I might have a "minor" internet addiction problem ;)

Involuntary Blogging Break

Sorry guys my laptop broke today so no blog entries until I get a new one.
Hope to be able to post again soon but it might take some time :(

Saturday Morning: Blue House

The Blue House (or in Korean 청와대 Cheongwadae) is the office and official residence of the Korean president. Yes, like the White House in America. If you make a reservation you can go on a tour of the Blue House (completely for free). Before the tour you have to check in at a small booth close to Gyeongbokgung Palace (eastern parking lot) and many guys in suits check your passport and reservation.

The meeting-point for the Blue House tour is of course also blue

Then you take a shuttlebus to the actual Blue House which is very close (maybe 5 minutes). After getting of the bus you walk through a big door in the wall and arrive at a small inner court. Before being allowed to go into a small conference building you have to pass a security checkpoint where your bags are not only x-rayed but also hand-searched individually. You also receive a badge which you have to wear at all times! Before starting the actual tour you sit down in a big room and a short introductory video with a welcome message from the president and his wife are shown. The video is well-made but at one point ridiculously funny. It's about a typical day at the Blue House...the lights in the buildings turn on early because the people start working early and look who is that [the president moves into the picture, on a bicycle] the voiceover says "Look, it's the president, going to work on his bicycle." This even becomes more funny when you go outside and are told that this big space over there is a helipad "where four helicopters can take-off and land at the same time"...so much about the bicycle ;)
After the video you can proceed to go outside and everyone receives a small present. The children get a notebook (with the Blue House logo on it) and the adults get two mugs (with the Blue House on them of course). A note about the participants: we were maybe a group of 30 people. Around half of them were kids under 8, some of them couldn't even walk yet. I can't imagine why the Blue House is such a popular destination for families, but it sure is! Maybe the parents want to show their children where they want them to be in a couple of years. Anyways, the children made the tour quite interesting. We had around 10 bodyguards and one (seriously extremely good-looking) army general who tried to make us walk in a straight line and follow all the instructions. (yeah, good luck trying to make a bunch of kids staying in a straight line on a path...they sure have a tough job these guys). Apart from the bodyguards walking with us there were also many "guys in black suits" standing literally behind every bush ;) Taking pictures is only allowed in very few places and I really advice you to not sneak any pictures!
The first place where we were allowed to stop and take pictures was in a big garden where, allegedly, the president takes a walk in the morning and evening.

The presidential garden

A bunch of kids, me and my roommate in front of the umbrella tree

Small stream in the garden

One really amazing thing about the Blue House is, that there is a flock of tame deer roaming the grounds freely. As I understood they just walk around and graze wherever they want and they are extremely tame. They came so close to us that we could have touched them and even when we moved they didn't run away. Unfortunately the general told us not to touch them, but here is a picture of them:

The tour is only in Korean by the way but you can borrow an English audio guide for free.
We very soon arrived at the actual blue house where the presidential office is located:

The blue house

And maybe you can see it on the picture: the reason why the Blue House is called Blue House is because of its blue roof.
The last building we stopped at is the building for foreign visitors. As you can see it has a more Western type of architecture:

The tour finishes in around one hour and is really worth it. Even though you can't take pictures of most of the things and can't go inside any of the buildings its a really interesting experience and I found it quite fascinating! I can only recommend going there!

Opposite of the Blue House grounds is a small museum which is very new and modern. Everything is hands-on and a lot of fun.

Inside the museum

They even have a robot but when we were there it was unfortunately charging.

Robot @ lunch

They have pictures of all Korean presidents and display messages which foreign dignitaries gave to Korea. I found a very recent one from Horst Köhler:

But you can also find a message from Barack Obama and many more.

The highlight of the museum is probably a small blue screen room where you can take a picture together with the current Korean president:

Having fun with the president :)

Oh and you can sit at his desk:

The new president?

Afterwards you can take a rest in the G20 summit room because having fun makes you tired:

Miso Musical and Deoksu Palace

Today, instead of normal Korean intensive class we had a cultural experience class. So the whole language school (around 100 people) went to the City Hall area to a theater to watch a traditional Korean musical called Miso. Miso is about a tragical lovestory which finally of course has a happy ending :) The most amazing thing for me was the live music (on traditional instruments) and singing. The musical includes many traditional art forms like fan dance, samulnori (traditional percussion group) and drum dancing  .The guys get extra-points from me for skillfully embedding the Mission Impossible Theme once ;)
Afterwards we could go outside and take pictures with the performers:

Nihan, me and the percussion group

Only four other people from my class came and we decided to head out for lunch after the musical and picture taking.

My classmates and me :)

Our group included from left to right: Miji (from Japan), Dongkang (from China), Angelo (from Cote D'Ivoire), Yolim (from China) and of course me :)
We were walking around for a long time until we found a nice place where everyone wanted to go. I don't know the name of what we ate and I can only say that it included chicken, some kind of weird noodles, potatoes and carrots. And red peppers of course ;)

Angelo and me preparing to dig in

After lunch we walked some time through downtown Seoul together and then everyone went their own ways. There is a small stream going through the area and it is starting to look really beautiful now in spring.

In the middle of downtown Seoul...

...there is a beautiful small stream...

...and me :)

So you are walking through the busy and crowded streets, which often look like this:

Streets of Seoul

It's noisy and crowded, there are many people, the traffic is heavy...but you just need to take two steps through a palace ground gate and you can find a quiet and beautiful place with a peaceful atmosphere:

The palace I went to today is called Deoksu Palace and is located directly at the City Hall subway station. Even though it was originally only an aristocratic villa it became a palace in the 16th century. Unfortunately I wasn't able to catch a tour there, but I didn't mind wandering around by myself anyways. Spring is finally arriving here and everything starts to look really beautiful. Spring and fall are really the nicest seasons here in Korea.

Solitary atmosphere

Many bushes started blooming and even though the trees and everything else is not really green yet, the flowers make the grounds really colorful.

The weather was incredibly beautiful but still not many people were around. That's the good thing about going sightseeing on a weekday, I guess.
Only the skyscrapers in the background remind you of the fact that you are in an incredibly busy city with more than 10 million inhabitants.

With skyscrapers

Without skyscrapers

On the palace grounds are many smaller and some bigger buildings. There is also a Western-style building but because it is being renovated at the moment I couldn't take any nice pictures of it. Otherwise the mixture of architectural styles looks quite interesting. Here some more impressions from the palace grounds:

For me old looks even more beautiful than new

Beautiful weather

Old & New

Do you remember King Sejong? I've been blogging about him before. Here is the great inventor of the Korean alphabet again.

I wonder what book he is reading...

You can also see a Singijeon Launcher Carriage. The singijeon is a weapon which was invented in the 15th century. Singijeons are iron-tipped bamboo arrows with some kind of paper gunpowder rocket attached to the end. These kind of arrows could fly 100 to 150 metres far and with the Singijeon Launcher Carriage around 100 of them could be lit and shot at once.

Singijeon Launcher Carriage

After walking around the palace grounds once and looking at all the buildings I decided to stay there for some more time and enjoy the sun. So I found the most secluded benches of the whole palace grounds behind a small pond and sat down for an hour to read and take in the warm weather.

Waterspout

That's where I was sitting

At 4 o'clock I went back to Hanyang university to meet my language exchange friend Mini like every Friday but today we only met for one hour instead of two because she is really busy due to the upcoming midterm exams. 
For dinner I went to Hansot and got a takeout foodbox. It's really quick and cheap and quite decent but of course proper restaurant food is a lot better.

Hansot Lunch/Dinner Takeout Box