May 11

Well, my first full day in Korea I decided to be extremely tourist-y. But hey, I was a tourists. I rode the subway to the heart of Seoul and walked around until I found a palace.

I was able to join an English tour group and a lovely Korean lady guided us around the maze of ornate buildings, briefly explaining the necessity of each.

Cool.

I then paid 10,000 won (don't worry-- that's like $9) to ride the enchanting Seoul City Tour bus. It was actually nice because it allowed me to figure out places I wanted to go later.

I then proceeded back to meet Katie and we were off to a three story mall to eat some more Korea food. Not like mall food; like delicious meat stuff. The restaurant was in the third floor so during dinner we had a romantic view of the city of Seoul. I feel like I've been on better "dates" with Katie than I have with most of the guys I have hung out. (Obviously, men need to step up their game. Ahem.)

On our subway ride back this creepy man talked to us. I swear, I am ALWAYS the person that random people talk to. I have NO idea why. People that know me tell me I look pissed off all the time; how does that seem approachable?

Anyhow, this man could not REALLY speak English and we certainly could not speak Korea at all. Oh, but that did not stop him from trying. Twelve subway stops later, we finally left but not before he could make us tiny paper cranes. I guess he just carries oragami paper in his pocket.

We threw the cranes away.

Call us hateful, I don't care.

May 12

So, in Korea there are a lot of English speaking people to, you know, teach English. They come from all English speaking nations. Well, there's this cool website called meetup.com that has different groups that allow people with common interestes to meet us.

Katie's friend Alicja (yes, that's how you spell her name) likes biking. So we went biking.

At first I thought, no big deal. I go to the gym sometimes. It can't be that bad.

It was that bad. I have since come back to America and started going to cycling classes just so I don't die next time Katie takes me on a bike ride.

The bike ride was like 30km.

No.

The ride was hill after hill after hill.

Some of the hills were like 85 degree angles.

I kid you not.

At least I felt like burned calories that day.

That's a plus.

The only plus.

Oh, I guess the scenery was nice. I was too busy dying to notice too much. My bad.

However, the night was a lot of fun. We came back to Katie's apartment and got ready. I didn't really want to do out but I caved. We went to Hongdae. It's a real happenin' scene. We went to a park and drank a bit. We saw some people Katie had previously met and we all went to a bar called Papa Gorilla. It was packed. But a lot of fun. We danced on a stage. True story. Some Canadian taught me how to "walrus" beers. There's a picture. We were out until like 4 am. I swear.