Bamboo Forest

About two and a half months ago Jean, Cha'man and I went to the Bamboo Forest at the Taewha river. It was an awesome day for that time of year and we had to take advantage of it. So we decide to hop on a bus to the forest. It's probably just 10 minutes by bus from home. The bus that we got on was really full and we had to stand. There were a few high school students sitting and we were standing next to them when an old guy started shouting at them. The only words we could make out were 학생 "hakseng" (student), 외국 "waeguk" (foreigner) and 안자 "anja" (sit). They didn't look very pleased and started getting up. We realised that the old guy wanted them to get up so that we could sit down. The more we told them it's okay the more the old guy went on in Korean, insisting that we sit down. Eventually we did. We asked Cha'man what the man had said and he told us that the man wanted the students to give us their seats so that when we go back to our own countries we would speak highly of Korea. Probably 5 minutes after we sat down we had to get off the bus anyway.

Bamboo panda pose.

The forest runs along the river and it's huge. It has a few paths going through it, but we stuck to the main one.
It is truely beautiful. After every ten steps we found a bench and sat down to relax in the cool air, wishing we were pandas living in the forest. It would be panda heaven!

While sitting on one of the benches a couple with a little girl, probably about 2 years old, walked past us. the little girl was so intrigued by seeing two foreigners with a Korean that she literally turned around and started reversing after her parents just so that she could keep staring at us. At that moment a boy on his bicycle was driving past and he almost wiped out trying to miss the little girl and stare at the same time. Cha'man kept telling us how all the people are staring at us, but we have gotten so used to it that we don't even notice it anymore. Well, except when the people stop in front of you to stare or when little kids start reversing while staring and then wipe out against a parked car.

When we exited the forest at the other end we walked past a group of kids playing basketball and having fun. A few girls came running up to us and shoved a cellphone in Jean's hand so that she could talk to one of their friends. Jean tried to talk to her but all she heard was breating. The poor girl probably got a panic attack. We wallked around for a while and then turned around to go to the busstop and when we walked past the kids again I asked them if they wanted a photo with us. They almost jumped out of their skins and immediatly lined up for a photo. The girls even took photo's with Jean on their cellphones.

Kimchi!

Then we took a bus to Shinae and decided to go to a multi-bang. That is a noraebang, pc-bang and Wii-room all in one. We played some Wii there and Cha'man totaly kicked our asses in everything, escpecially in boxing. When wrapped up the ass-wippin' at the multi-bang we were starving so we went to Samsan-dong to a galbi restaurant and had some delicious galbi-jim. Then we tried to go on the Lotte Wheel, but we got there like 2 seconds after they closed for the night. So then we voted for Ulsan Grand Park. Hopped on a bus, hopped off, and guess what? Closed, again. Luck was clearly not on our side anymore so we called it a night and went home. Despite the two bummers at the end, it was an still an awesome day.