Bit 'o this, Bit 'o that

This weekend was the last in January, marking the beginning of the end of our long, hard, cold - did I mention bitter - winter. And it's hard to motivate yourself to do much outdoorsy stuff when you have to layer even your underwear. So instead of coming up with some super plan for exploring Korea I went with the 'bit 'o this, bit 'o that' approach, and focused on the more important thing in life.....friends.  Ahhhhh!

So I jumped on a subway to Seoul to see Kiki, my most outrageous  and creative of Korean friends. Our first stop was to give blood. Kiki does it all the time apparently. So before I knew it he was hooked up and draining away which I sat there chewing my thumbs thinking that I should really give blood but really didn't like needles.

It turns out that I couldn't give blood anyway. A foreigner must have lived in Korea for more than one year (tick) and be fluent in Korean (oh dear....).... so that was me out. Dammit! (cough cough). I wonder why speaking fluent Korean makes your blood more worthy.....

After shouldering our way through some political protests in Hongdae, next stop was walking on water. The Han River flows through Seoul just like the Thames through London.....but much, much larger. So it says a lot about the temperature here to say that the Han has been largely frozen over for the past few weeks....so of course, I wanted to go throw stones and jump on it. There's something wierdly satisfying about standing on a frozen river, just like dipping your fingers in hot wax, it's pointless, it's kind of painful, but is wierdly exhilarating. Woohoo! Good job we didn't stand on some of the non frozen bits..... 

That evening, we had a dinner date at an old friend's house from home, Mr Chris Brady. I don't know whether it's because we were three Brits together, but it turned into a very British evening. Wine, pasta, Planet Earth, discussing what a tragedy it will be when David Attenborough dies, more wine, guitar, singing, more wine, making up songs.....it was very nice evening. 

The next day, Lee and I headed into Bucheon and munched down some Kimchee Jeegay and all it's wondeful sidedishes in the underground food court. No meal is over 6,000 won (£3) and with all the open fires and frying pans it's pretty toasty.

After eating some and shopping some, we met Will & Yungjong for the cinema, and then some quintessential Korean activities....arcade games and shooting ranges! Korea has a great love for arcade games of every kind imaginable, so we took full advantage, before heading home in the evening to have potatoe and shrimp pizza..... yes, Korean food gets even wierder..