Friday morning we took the subway to Seoul Station to catch the high speed rail going south. By the way the Seoul subway is even more elaborate than Beijing's, but still easy to use.
We got on the KTX train going south to Osong station and beyond.
We got off at Osong station, 150km away about 45 minutes later. We were met at the station by my old friend David Farr. David has been a friend of mine since we were little kids, and now he and his wife Elizabeth are ESL(English as a Second Language) teachers for Korea University. We got a mini tour of the Jochiwon campus of Korea university, then went for lunch at a local traditional Korean restaurant.
After lunch we looked around the Jochiwon area. It is a good contrast to Seoul, small town and farming countryside instead of a massive urban center. They were just starting to flood the rice paddies, but hadn't started planting yet.
In the afternoon we caught a train back to Seoul. David and Elizabeth came with us to be our guides in Seoul for the weekend. They've been living in Korea for nine years and used to live in Seoul.
After dinner we decided to do something regular and go see a movie. We picked Avengers 2 (part of which was filmed and takes place in Seoul). The theatre we went to had assigned seating and we actually bought the tickets before dinner so we could pick any seats we wanted, we picked the middle towards the back. The movie was in English with Korean subtitles. Even a Hollywood movie can be a cultural experience. Avengers has been out for a while so not many people showed up, but those that did sat directly in front of us and behind us. Remember they could have picked any seats they wanted and they would have seen the ones we picked when they picked. Later Elizabeth said it was Korean culture. They wanted to clump together to be part of a group instead of sitting away from others as we would do in North America.
-David
Posted with Blogsy