Saturday with Ssamzie

Well, I met up with Sam today. :-)

I took the subway to Jeongsalban, which is way north, to meet Sam. While I was waiting for him to meet me, I took a few pictures (see below this post). We were near a Lotte deparment store, so we just walked along the street vendors. Sam wanted a smoothie, so we stopped at a little stand. I watched as he tried to order a smoothie with strawberry and banana. The guy thought we wanted two smoothies cuz apparently each smoothie only comes with one fruit choice. Well, Sam paid for two smoothies and got one smoothie with both fruits. Heehee...smoothies here are watery, but I'm sure that's a good thing for a country where I think many of the population is lactose intolerant. So we sat down outside and sipped on the smoothie while Sam smoked a cigarette. We chatted about random things...what we liked about Korean people...what we were gonna do...that sort of thing. I suggested that we go into the shopping mall and look around...maybe I'd find some little presents for people back home. Well, we walked around for awhile and checked out some shirts before getting down to the basement where there's a food court and food market type area. I love how Korean people sell stuff here. They just yell out what they're selling and it's all bustling and such. Oh, and I pinpointed why I give the people I care about little physical hurts. I forgot that Korean women do that sort of thing. Like if they think their kid is being really cute, then they exclaim, "oh, you're so cute and I love it" at the same time as lightly hitting them on the head or spanking. Or there's that knuckle to the head as well. Anyhoo, my mom sure did that to me...more so when I was young, of course. Heehee...fun stuff. Anyhoo, back to the subject. Sam and I wandered about the food areas and decided to eat some nengmyun (cold noodle soupy dish with vegetable slices, meat and hard-boiled egg). It was alright, but definitely food court type quality food. So we walk around some more and Sam gets a toothbrush. I get some chocolate. We leave, and Sam's craving some ice cream, so we decide to hop on the subway into central Seoul area and wander around more. About 40 minutes later, we're at Gwanghwamun station, and I walk Sam through Kyobo bookstore before wandering on the streets. On the way to Bandi and Luni's, we weave our way around Insa-dong, this "hip" district where lots of young people congregate...lots of neon, shopping and eating...Sam and I go to the big McDonald's and buy a BigMac meal, just to see how authentic it is. Well, folks, it was just like what we're used to in the States, but priced a whole lot cheaper. :p So Sam and I continue meandering in a big circle and finally end up at Jonggak station where Bandi & Luni's is located. We go inside the bookstore and just chat for awhile...our conversation somehow meandered into Hollywood celebrity gossip at some point...and we agreed that Japanese people are kind of weird. Oh, and Sam decided that the girls in Korea were in general prettier than the ones in Japan. :-) The bookstore starts getting ready to close for the night, so we walk back into the subway station and Sam buys his ticket to go back to his brother's place. I decide to wander a little longer, so I walk around for a bit more, sat down and did a crossword puzzle, then went to a different subway station and bought a ticket back to my aunt and uncle's. And so I'm back and posting on my blog like a good blogbot.

No major plans for tomorrow, but I'll be sure to post more stuff up after it happens later. Okay, time for a little light reading and sleeping for me...