Colleagues

Highlights continued from day to day as on Monday Christoph & Ann had an 18 hour stop in Seoul on their way back from Australia. We met up in the evening for a Korean BBQ dinner, a quick stroll through the city and finally a drink in the bar of the Samsung tower. Only negative part of the evening was that at the end of the day I had to find out that the bathroom in their youth hostel room made mine here look pretty pathetic...

River cruise & concert

On Sunday I managed to convice everyone to go on a Han river cruise, or rather a 70 minute boat trip. Weather was wonderful, but the view was not a impressive as I had hoped, since it's hard to see past the first row of buildings. The view of Yeouido was already worth the trip, however. And, of course, the boat ride got us closer to the olympic park, where Jeannette & I had tickets for the Lady Gaga concert!!! It was amazing. First, the olympic park was quite nice and the olympic hall turned out to be nicely cooled and rather crowded. Then came a pretty decent Korean singer for 30-45 minutes and finally Lady Gaga. The crowd was in a fantastic mood: jumping, dancing, screaming, singing along and Lady Gaga, well - what can you say? The music is way better than I expected and even her outfits were more crazy than I would have imagined. All in all an awesome show. I hope I'll manage to visit another music event before I leave. Btw: if you are wondering, what happend to my camera, that I can take such awesome pics of Lady Gaga on stage, the answer is: nothing. They were taken by Jeannette :)

More Germans

First off: I have not died nor lost connection to the internet, times were simply a bit busy in the past weeks and I'll try to catch up on the blogging. First thing that happened was that finally some other Germans arrived here, more precisely five DAAD students. Jeannette works in the same group as me and also came to visit the office on her first day. Thereafter, we met the others for some mandu. The next day we toured around Seoul, found cool bathroom signs in the Deoksugung palace, saw the changing of the guard including traditional musicians playing on huge mussel shells. Then we toured the Seoul plaza, the little river and the Insadong area to finally return to Nok-Du for some dak-calbi :)

Culture day

On Sunday it was still greyish with the permanent threat of severe rainfalls, so I decided for a more or less indoor tour. I started by taking the Metro to seodaemun, where the independence park and gate, honoring the Korean freedom fighters against Japanes oppresion, are located. Close by is the seodaemun prison history hall, a former prison complex built entirely out of red brick by the Japanese to imprison, torture and execute members of the Korean resistance. As is apparent from the description of the events that have happened here, wounds caused by the Japanes rule have not yet healed. Next stop for me was the Deoksugung palace, which turned out to be the main palace, that I have already visited during the my first conference tour here. Since I was also surprised by heavy rain, I decided to explore the palace museum instead and have a traditional dinner in the cafeteria. As on Saturday, the weather cleared in the evening and I took a stroll along the Cheonggyecheon stream only to find a photo exhibition regarding the Korean war. Quite fascinating black and white pictures probably taken by someone accompanying the NATO forces. All in all a very instructive day.

Rainy days

I was wondering when I would find out why this is called the rain season in Korea. Saturday I found out. When I left my apartment it was pouring. Despite my umbrella, remaining dry was impossible. Streets turned into rivers and there was no sign of stopping. Staying indoors seemed like the thing to do, so I headed for the COEX to visit the aquarium. Despite the fact, that the rain had pretty much stopped when I arrived, it wasn't such a bad idea at all. The aquarium featured all kinds of things from piranhas over moray eels, beavers, sharks and lots of little colorful fish to crocodiles actually getting along well with giant turtles. Not to mention the fancy Korean burger place 'kraze burger' not too far away from its exit ;)

Random little things

It may seem hard to believe, but I do not spend every day exploring yet another amazing temple, shopping center, recreational area or district of the city - especially on weekdays ;)
So I figured it might be worth pointing out a few of the little things that make the days here different from those at home. The first is simply a quite improvised street sale of melons. The second is - since I decided not to spend so much time on food - one of my most favorite drinks. Iced Kiwi juice. It consits of ice and at least one full kiwi and maybe more depending on where one buys it. Certainly tastes very fruity or better: kiwiy. Third is one of many impressive-looking motels, which seem to pop out all over Seoul at night. Fourth is a royal seal of some sort. It made it into this blog to mention the fact, that official documents here are not signed by the person occupying the required position - for example the dean of a university - but instead carry a seal corresponding to that position. Looks a bit more stylish than a simple signature.