the zoo and afterwards

Today me and the other two foreign teachers from my school went to Seoul Grand Park...and it was loads of fun despite the constant downpour of rain all morning and afternoon. I can't say I was very impressed by the zoo itself; it was kinda run down and it looked like they didn't take very good care of the animals there (at least not like they do at the zoo in St. Louis). But aside from that and the rain I had a great time. When we were on our way out of the park we decided to take this sky lift thing back to the parking lot, which was really relaxing and provided an awesome arial view of the surroundings. After that I suggested we go to Kyobo Bookstore at Gwangwhamun Station in the city, so we took the subway and headed downtown. We bummed around there for a while just browsing and reading and then we left there in search of food. We ended up having an awesome dinner at this Japanese place near Gwangwhamun which was fairly cheap in comparison to the Japanese places they have in St. Louis. But I think it was about the best Japanese food I have ever had...oh it was so good... ::drool::

Ahem...so anyway...yeah. After that we walked around some more just window shopping and browsing all the various stores in that area. Then we decided to go to Red Mango which is this cute little fruity frozen yogurt chain they have here in Korea. As with all the food here, it too was delicious. By that time it was pretty late so I suggested we hop on a bus and take a nice scenic route home. Quite a fun day overall.

I was able to wake up before 11am today so I'm hoping I can force myself to get to bed at a decent hour tonight. Well we'll see I guess. Also, below I've posted some pics from these past couple of days. Enjoy.

Very soon I'm going to post an entry that features pics I've taken of all the really bad Konglish one can see everywhere here in Korea. Should be interesting. Heh heh heh....

an intersection near my school

a typical open-air market near Dongdaemun

a protest I came across while downtown yesterday

another farmers' market near Dongnimmun Station

a creek at the zoo today...looks like chocolate milk doesn't it?

some pathetic-looking turtle characters at the zoo

the bird cage

a beautiful view of the mountains nearby

a sinister-looking alligator hiding out in the plants

some weird monkey/sloth-type animal

a decent-looking tiger

the sky lift we took out of the park

a view of the park's Rose Garden below

our first course at the Japanese restaurant...pickled vegetables, garlic and peanuts (& a beer that Erin ordered)

Erin's California roll, served with udon

Amanda's order of sushi, also served with udon and shredded cabbage

my order of tonkatsu, served with udon, steamed rice, shredded cabbage, quail eggs, soy-marinated black beans and spiced squid---yum!

our desserts at Red Mango---double yum!

a pic of me sitting up by the windows in our apartment