Living for the Weekend: Blind Date, Namsan Tower, and North Korea

I am only a couple months behind on posting about this but March 22-23 I had a great weekend in Seoul. 
On my mission I got very close to my companion Elder Chung. He is in Japan right now but he set me up to go on a blind date with his sister in-law Jinsuk. (We had actually met once in the MTC but I can only remember ever having 1 conversation with her during that time.)
So Friday night I traveled to Seoul and stayed in a guesthouse, then Saturday I met up with Jinsuk in front of the King SeJong statue. 
(He is the super smart/ awesome king who invented Hangul, the Korean alphabet. They used chinese characters before, which would make my life significantly harder if that were still the case)

After that we went to a "Mexican" restaurant called "On the Border" (Funny because the next day I would be on the border, but I'll get to that later.)

Not the best picture of us but I wanted to show you what our "Mexican meal" looked like. It was really tasty. 

After Lunch we went bowling. I didn't know what to do for our date so I decided we would do the only thing you can do for a date where I'm from ;) haha. Most Korean's don't usually bowl very much so it was still interesting and fun for her... I think. We did skittle bowling so it was more fun. If you don't know what skittle bowling is, well it's the only thing that makes bowling fun when you're not a good bowler.

Aren't we cute!?!

After bowling we headed to Gyeongbok Palace to look around. Its a huge palace right in the middle of the city. Its where the kings and queens and other royalty used to live back in the day. Its a must see place for tourists in Seoul. Actually Obama went there when he visited Seoul last month. They still have guards protect the palace gates. Even though its a very popular site, Jinsuk hadn't been there for a really long time. 

It was a sunny day.

Inside the palace 

Where they used to have parties and dances in the middle of the artificial lake. 

The place is huge. Its like a giant park with a bunch of cool, old-school buildings in the middle of the city.

So that you can kinda see the sheer size of it here is a cool aerial picture I found online. 

( I will have to go there at dusk sometime) 

The Korean architecture and the colors they use are so pretty.

While within the gates of the palace, it's easy to forget that you are smack dab in the middle of one of the world's largest cities.

A cool building (can't remember what it was used for, a library or something)

The year of the Dragon and the year of the Horse. (Chinese Zodiac)

A giant museum with some really cool architecture. 

Captain Morgan...I mean America! Captain America!

(my student's call me Captain America sometimes)

By the end of our date we were exhausted from all the fun we'd had, and all the walking around we did. We both had a great time getting to know each other. 

After my date I met up with a bunch of TaLK friends who were in Seoul for the weekend. I met them at a restaurant where they decided we were going to hike up the mountain to Namsan Tower (Seoul Tower). I was very against the idea because I was exhausted and my legs were already killing me from my date and I thought there was no way I would make it up that mountain. Nevertheless, we set off up the mountain. It actually wasn't as far as it looked and despite the exhaustion I am glad we did it. Somewhere between the hike up and the the ride to the top of the tower my camera screen broke. So I can't see what I am taking pictures of now, rendering my camera all but useless. It still takes pictures but you can't see what they look like till you plug it into the computer. Anyway that was kinda a bummer but I had just bought a smartphone with a pretty decent camera so I am still able to take some pictures. 

Now that's Captain America!

 Once we got inside and paid for the elevator ride up, there was like an hour wait to go up to the top; so we bought some popcorn and took a couple terrible photos like this one. 

 View from the top.

One of the biggest cities in the world.

At the top

 After we left the tower we had to hike back down. That night I slept like a baby. The next morning we met up with our group and we jumped on a tour bus to go to North Korea!...Ok so not North Korea, but the DMZ (Demilitarization Zone), close enough. A big group of us TaLK scholars got together and decided to sign up for the tour together so we could get a group discount. So I got to check off one of the things on my Korea bucket list. 

Gettin' on the bus

At a park near the DMZ

A monument thanking the U.S. for their help and support in the war.

North Korean Money

(Actually I bought a North Korean 1000 won, so that's a cool souvenir) 

Everyone who was on the tour with us.

A monument at the third tunnel. 

(People from the north and people from the south trying to push the country back together)

The 4 km wide DMZ is chock full of mines, so you don't want to find yourself on the other side of that warning sign. 

A building on the DMZ where some South Korean soldiers gave us a presentation about the DMZ and the North. Notice it says "End of separation, begging of unification" Koreans really hope for reunification. I hope it happens one day but it doesn't seem like it will be anytime soon. Many people are very optimistic about it and note how the Berlin wall fell in one day. 

  

The furthest train station north. This place is practically brand new because they never really use it. They just have it all ready in case reunification happens tomorrow. 

The rail lines actually go all the way to Pyeongyang (North Korea's capital) but all trains from here leave toward Seoul for the time being.  

Think I'll just head to Pyeongyang for a nice day trip, wonder if their kimchi chigae tastes the same there?

When they opened the station George W. came and gave a speech and signed a concrete barrier. (it took him a while to figure out how a marker works though, silly George) 

Most of what I want to say about the tour my buddy Kendall already said on his blog post about it. I can't say it much better than he did so check it out:
 http://www.kmonnett.blogspot.kr/2014/04/dmz-just-remember-south-good-north-bad.html

Also it was a super smoggy day that day, darn you China!, plus my camera had just busted so I didn't get many pictures of the DMZ or places that we went on the tour. So definitely check out Kendall's blog. We hang out almost every weekend so his other posts have lots of pictures of me and info about what I have been up to as well. 

This is my new camera. 

Actually I bought this not too long after I got to Mokpo but I wasn't able to get service on it till much later due to some crazy unfortunate circumstances. However, it has served as a camera, my scriptures, mp3 player, and game system so it was still useful even before I had cell phone service. Also, random free wifi is abundant in Korea so it came in handy as my handheld computer as well. Hopefully, I will be able to get service on it in the States when I get back.