Heart and Seoul

Today, Corey and I visited Seoul for the second time. We didn't make any new friends on the subway, but we did meet some fellow foreigners at the Chabad House. We went there in the morning for a schaharit service and kiddush lunch, but ended up staying until 3pm. The rabbi and his wife (and 4 kids) were very welcoming. The other foreigners that came for the service were also very friendly and shared lots of stories and advice. I won't go into too much detail about each of them, but they all had different reasons for moving to Seoul and unique perspectives on what it meant to be a foreigner and Jew living in Korea.

After lunch, Corey and I went out into the winding streets near the Samsung Museum of Art. It was too cold for my liking so we stopped into a tea shop. It turned out to be quite fancy and I spent the equivalent of about $5 on a tea. The cafe was pretty and warm though so it was well worth it.

When we went back outside after tea it had turned even colder. I was freezing in my dress, so I bought some tights from a woman selling them on the sidewalk. When I tried on the tights they were way too tiny for me to be able to even move, never mind walk in them! So I bought a pair of sweatpants, also sold on the sidewalk, and even though they were way too short and kind of (ok... very) frumpy, I was thankful to have them and be warm again.

With the cold taken care of, Corey and I were able to do a lot of exploring. We walked along Hangang Park, which is this cool sprawling bike and pedestrian pathway along the river. There are parks and built in exercise equipment at different spots along the way making it the perfect mix of fun and functional.

We wandered (in a circle it turns out) until we were at Itaewon, which is a popular place for foreigners to hang out and shop. It's close to the U.S. army base so a lot of people are ex-pats and you can hear English being spoken everywhere you turn which is quite a shock after hearing almost nothing but Korean being spoken in Incheon. We ran into a girl from the U.S. who helped us find our way to the subway while telling us that she works 11hours a day teaching English at a Haegwan (a private tutoring place where students go to get an edge on their competition [a.k.a classmates] in various subjects). I'm so grateful to be working at a public school! I really do enjoy teaching, but 11hours seems a bit crazy.