I Speak French

Outside my school a few days ago, I saw a man in a giant-headed chef's costume making balloon swords and dueling children while somebody on a PA system screamed about something. I have no doubt that if I knew what the hell was going on, I'd be far less amused.

This vacation has so far been awesome. I'm really digging getting to know the area without having to worry about, well, going to work every day. I've been hanging out in the park playing guitar and one night a woman sat down on the bench with me and started clapping. It took me about half an hour, but with my limited Korean and her limited English (assisted by her son who she kept calling on her cell) I learned that she wanted to sing along while I played Korean pop music and she learned that I do not know any Korean pop music on guitar. While on the topic, please follow this link for a taste...

As I mentioned previously, the Science Museum outside Anyang is freakin' awesome, so I wanted to return. Unfortunately, no one told me that museums in Korea close on Mondays. Above is a picture of me outside the museum. Sigh.

Thus began several days of exploring Seoul. My traveling companions suggested we check out the Seoul Tower, highest point in town. Definitely worth the sky-gondola ride up. An interesting tradition at the base of Seoul Tower involves couples bringing a padlock, writing love notes on it, and locking it to the fence surrounding the tower. There are hundreds of thousands of padlocks. It is really a fascinating sight.

Now, in order to get to this and the other fascinating sights I will write about in subsequent posts, one must ask for directions. Remember how it took me half an hour to figure out that Korean woman wanted me to play music with her? Imagine trying to explain that you want to take a bus to the largest water park in the world. Luckily, Seoul has white people wandering around. The thing is, they're mostly Euros. So far my piss-poor French skills are getting me further in talking to strangers than my English. I've met Belgians, Swiss, Dutch, and actual Frenchies. We speak French and point a lot. I suppose I did meet a guy from Texas, but with him I pretended to be French-Canadian.

A lot has happened in the last couple days, so expect another few posts soon...