"Me and My Gang"

It was yet another eventful weekend. I ♥ autumn! Although the trees have just started to change enough to notice, the cooler weather has finally arrived. I'm pretty confident that my heating bills will be low though, as my apartment gets a ton of sunlight and I still keep my windows open for it to be a comfortable temperature for me.

Friday night was date night, so Hwayoung and I went to Gangnam and we got Chinese food. (There is something glorious about how the Chinese fry their rice, versus the blandness of how Koreans "prepare" theirs). We rented "No Reservations" which I've seen before, but then again, I've seen just about every movie that has been put out in the last 10 years given that I don't watch Korean TV and need to be entertained in my down time.

Saturday night I met up with some of the GEPIK teachers that I have met over the course of the past (almost) 5 months. We decided to go to Namsan Seoul Tower - the famous "space needle looking thing" that I keep posting picture about but never get to. Finally, I made the trek up the mountain (ok, so we took the bus), and paid our 7000won for the ticket to the observation deck. The Tower's website can be found here.

I apologize for my lack of photographic ability in shooting in dim lighting and the dark.

 

Seoul looks amazing at night, I hope you can at least get a little taste of what this ginormous city looks like when lit up like a Christmas tree.

Not my photo - but I felt you should get to see a better one.

I took a video though, that seems to be better than the photos for some reason

Afterward, we headed to Hongdae for a nice Galbi dinner (marinated beef), and Hwayoung (who had to work) met up with us.

On Sunday, the two of us wanted to check out the Seoul Design Olympiad 2009 at Jamsil Sports Complex (Olympic Stadium). We had seen promotions for this, and both of us are interested in art and design. The Olympiad is a global design festival to celebrate and embrace the designation of Seoul becoming the World Design Capital of 2010. Seoul is an amazing place for design schools, and I wish I had the talent, money, and knew Korean so I could attend one.

 I had a really good time considering we didn't even get to see some of the main events (as the lines were horrendous). Instead we stuck to the exterior levels and saw some really cool and unique designs and some amazing ideas put into action. The theme of the event was "Go Green", and the designs usually reflected how to make eco-friendly or sustainable energy designs. Overall, a pretty cool event. And FREE! Check out some of the photos - links are at the bottom of the page.

This is one of the food presentations - all the foods were fake models. So realistic though!

All the photos from N'Seoul Tower and the 

Seoul Design Olympiad 2009 can be found by clicking the links or photos.