Seoul, Korea (7/9- 7/12): Weekend Trip to Seoul - Day 3 - 6

I am at Incheon airport at the moment, waiting for my flight back to Beijing. Just wanted to write up what happened during the rest of my Korea trip ...

It turned out that there was a problem with Jisue's new apartment and she wouldn't be able to move in until Monday night. Also, she was going to be spending Sunday with her mom, sister and aunt so I was on my own. I spent most of the afternoon at Kim's working on my parent's website project and then went out for a bit to get some food and met up with Jisue to watch "Pirates of the Carribean 2", which wasn't too bad. But what a cliff hanger. grrrrr... We also went to her favorite restuarant "Bennigan's" for dinner, which wasn't too bad. I'd heard so much about it, nice to finally see it in person.

Sunday night I went back to Kim's and Jisue went to her sister's (where she was staying while she was momentarily homeless). Monday I got up and worked on my computer most of the afternoon and in the evening I went to Jisue's new place to help her, her sister and her brother in law unpack her things.

Her new place is really nice. I was pretty impressed. In Korea you don't pay monthly rent, you pay a lump sum for 1 year and at the end of the year you get your money back. You're basically giving the landlord the money for one year to invest and do what they like with, but they're obligated to give it back at the end. This means you don't have to worry about rent once you've moved in to a place, but it also means you have a huge amount of money to come up with at first. But once you move in, saving money becomes relatively easy since you don't have anymore "rent". Anyway, her place is in this new high-rise "office-tel" in a nice neighborhood, right next to the subway and lots of restaurants and stores. It's a studio on the 11th floor and super modern and nice. Makes me want to move in to one too.

Monday night I crashed on her couch and Tuesday while she was at work I continued my work on my parent's website. In the afternoon I took a break to go watch "Superman Returns" which I liked a lot, and then in the evening met with Jisue and her sister/brother-in-law for dinner. 5 days in Korea and this was the first time I got to go eat Korean food. That should be illegal.

Tuesday night I crashed on her couch again and this morning (Wed) I got up, went to Kim's to check out of my room, and then caught the airport bus to Incheon. The weather is super monsoony today so it's raining buckets and my flight is delayed. But I better cut this short anyway. The gate is right across from where I'm sitting, but I don't want to be struggling to stuff my laptop into my backpack.

Today it's back to Beijing and another week of training at Shi Cha Hai. I think I've pretty much lost anything I gained last week so I feel like I'm back at square one. However, I'm probably exaggerating. I can't lose it THAT fast and even if I've lost some of it, I think I'll still be able to acclimate faster than last time. And since my week in Beijing has a weekend in the middle of it, I should be able to get a couple days rest right when I need it.

China, here I come! (again).