63 빌딩 | 63 Building

Our friend Katie got us in touch with her friend Louise, who had only very recently moved over to Seoul. On her list of "things to do" she wanted to go up a tall building, so I found the 63 Building.

It's a modern landmark overlooking the Han River, built for the Seoul Olympics. It has all kinds of credits, including being one of South Korea's tallest buildings, previously the tallest building outside of North America (the 63 in its name refers to its 63 floors), and the tallest gold-clad structure in the world. Yup, that faint orange tint in the picture above should actually gleam bright orange-gold on a sunny day, especially at sunset. I'd love to see that one day!

We met at the station and headed towards the river, following my (probably poor) directions. After a while, we saw the 63 Building, rising up out of the mass of apartment blocks and started to head towards it. I'm not sure how, but every time we seemed to get close, it would suddenly be on the other side of us, as if it were deliberately avoiding us.

Which is ridiculous, but still.

After a bit of confusion as to where we should buy tickets, we worked it out (which included queuing to grab a ticket which would in turn allow us to...queue up...to buy a ticket?), grabbed tickets, and went up to the observation deck.

It was kind of strange to see everything looking so peaceful and still.

There were a lot of people up there, including a school trip of elementary-age children, so it was a little crowded but we still had plenty of time to wander slowly and take a good look around.

The building is surrounded by sweeping, open spaces and wide roads that make it look like a kid's play mat from up high.

The observation deck goes 360° round the building, letting you see Seoul from all directions.

인천대공원 | Incheon Grand Park

In an attempt to explore the city we live in a little more (considering we keep going into Seoul, ah the joys of being spoilt for choice), Nick took me to Incheon Grand Park, where he'd been on a school trip once or twice before. I didn't realise there was such a huge park just a short bus ride away!

It was still a little chilly (back in mid-March!), but nevertheless, we packed a picnic (by which I mean we bought a load of food from the Paris Baguette by the bus stop while we waited) and stuck it out in true British fashion.

To be fair, despite the overcast sky it wasn't too dreary.

Cute croissant pastry rolls

We wandered around investigating for a while. The park is really lovely, and HUGE, with big sweeping paths and a little lake in the middle. We didn't explore too far, so we didn't see everything, but it was nice to see what looked like a little open-air art gallery in one part, and an arboretum in another!

One building we DID go into was the park's hothouse, which was (as you'd expect) lovely and warm, filled with all kinds of interesting plants. It was really refreshing to see so much green after the dull winter stretching on for seemingly FOREVER.

스튜디오 지브리 입체조형전 | Studio Ghibli Exhibition

Party Trick: Taking reallllly flattering photos of people.

We were told about the Studio Ghibli exhibition aaaages ago, and went "it's okay we'll get round to it later on. It'll be less busy that way." It was on for several months, so there was no rush (especially as we were hoping to get tickets for the Ghibli museum in Tokyo).

Flashforward to a few weeks ago and I suddenly remember its existence. We check the website, and lo it's the last ever weekend that it's running for. Of course.

As luck would have it, it coincided with a time we'd arranged to meet up with our friend Nicolette (another south coast buddy), so we all met at Yongsan iPark mall, where the exhibition was apparently hidden away.

Unfortunately, iPark is both enormous and really confusingly laid out. We got lost, quite frequently (as documented in the above photo), even though there were maps dotted around. Maybe it was just us, because nobody else seemed to be lost.

As you can expect from the title of this post, we did actually make it eventually, paid our money, and went in.

Google GIF magic

The first thing you see as you come in is a big animated model of Howl's Moving Castle, complete with clanking, groaning sound effects from the movie. It's so nice and really got us excited for the rest. The photos are pretty self-explanatory, and there are plenty of blogs online that probably did a better breakdown than I can, so I won't bother saying too much.

Calcifer! Eggs! Bacon!

Eli Came To Stay

Thought I'd show you what a Korean copy of Harry Potter looks like. It's CUTE!

As we were feeling pretty exhausted from Tokyo and the subsequent onslaught of visitors, we decided to not go anywhere for Seollal, the Korean Lunar New Year holiday in February, and just spend the week relaxing.

I tend to get a bit antsy when we don't do much because half of me feels like we're wasting time, but it was also pretty good for my health, because I did feel a big difference when I eventually went back to school.

Anyway, our friend Eli came all the way up from Jinju (on the south coast) to hang out and spend a couple of days with us!

On the main day of Seollal, we went to Gyeongbokgung, as there was apparently something going on there, but by the time we got there we were really hungry. And, like Christmas Day at home, almost everything is closed. Gah.

After a lot of searching, we found a donkatsu place and I burnt my mouth on cheese. As usual.

Obligatory "why" photo. Eli hasn't faced the horrors yet.

By the time we'd finished searching and eating, it was kind of...actually quite late. Oops. So the museum had started closing up and everyone was leaving, boo. I felt a bit bad, considering Eli told us he hadn't ever looked around Seoul aside from the glimpses he'd seen at orientation, but there's always time for more!

While we were waiting to cross the road, I snapped this photo of two young girls in their traditional hanbok, taking selfies together which I thought was a really cute contrast of old and modern. I posted it to instagram and they actually found it, haha. They were really lovely and it was a nice coincidence!

Small Update

Just a little update about a few things that happened throughout February and the start of March.
The main thing being it's really cold and a few sprinklings of snow.

For 4 days.

I managed to get ill enough that I napped in the medical room (far bigger and nicer than the ones we had at school and not at all scary) and my head co-teacher, also a little worse for wear, took me to the hospital.

The custom here seems to be that you go to the 'hospital' (now that I've been to a few, as well as a proper, big, 'general hospital' I'd be more inclined to call it a 'clinic') for any little aches and pains. You also see a specialist, rather than a GP, and they get right down to it before it can get any worse, which I do like.

Anyway, the ENT doctor diagnosed me with everything under the sun (slight hyperbole. Early onset flu, bronchitis and a few other things), but with all the Korean to-and-fro it felt a lot worse. Either way, the meds did the trick and I'm really very glad I went.

"Welcome to Hell"

My 6th graders graduated without me really realising, and everyone else was kind of busy so I didn't get to see them ㅠㅠ but at one point I saw a load of posters lining the way to the hall where the graduation would take place, all congratulatory and encouraging for the new MIDDLE SCHOOL times. Except this one, which took a more pessimistic tone. As they say (apparently) "Middle school is where happiness dies and sadness begins".