VACATION!!!!!!!!!!

So, vacation pretty much rocks so far. I went to Seoul last week, and it was great. I stayed with Cameron, a friend from Queen's. It's been too long since I have had overly intelligent conversations about music (needlessly wordy, really) and way too long since I have been to a decent pub.
On the way to Seoul, in Naju station, I met an old man who had fought in the Korean war and then served with the Americans afterwards. His english was really good, and he was quite funny. His grandson was with him, and he went to Yeongam Boys' High School. His english was not so good, but it was nice to have someone to pass the wait for the train with.
The first night, I had a few hours to kill by myself. I was studying the subway map in the bus station, literally ready to pick a destination based on how coo the name sounded. Seriously. You’d be surprised what you will find.
Some guy came up beside me, and asked me where I wanted to go. I said I didn’t know, and asked him to recommend somewhere. He said I should check out Namsan tower, “a very tall building”. I went to the subway stop he recommended, but went against his advice of getting a cab. I found a sign that said “NamSan Park” and pointed right. I went to the next right corner, and found no more signs, so I backtracked. It turned out that the turn was a staircase between two buildings. I got up there, and found that there was another street level four flights above street level. I don’t know how that was even possible, but when I looked to my left between buildings, I saw little neighbourhoods about fifty feet below me, even though if you looked straight, it looked like any other level downtown street!
I finally found the park, and climbed about halfway up NamSan, which I should have known would be a mountain (san means mountain). The tower came into view about midway up, and looked like the love child of the CN tower and a Christmas Tree. Here’s a picture:

All-in all, it was a good night. I finally met up with Cam, had some dumplings, and then met his roommates and chatted until we finally gave in to exhaustion.
His roommates seemed nice. They all work at a Hakwon together. They get paid a little more than I do, but they get much less vacation (10 days, no choice, versus my 25 that I choose, plus no classes during the school breaks, which is when Hakwons have more classes). I was relieved that Jessie and I had not taken the original Hakwon position we had looked into. It sucks to get up early, but we have a great apartment, sympathetic employers (in spite of the complaining) and a lot more freedom than Hakwon employees.
The next day we ate ethnic foods for lunch and dinner. It was so nice to have a variety of food. The food here is always the same, so schwarma for lunch and Nepalese for dinner was a really nice break.
In the afternoon, we went to Jongmyo temple, and it was great. It was eerie, because you would be in Seoul, with car noises, people yelling, loud city background noises, and then suddenly, you went through this gate, and it was silent. Nothing but the sounds of your feet crunching on the gravel paths, and birds chirping. It was very nice, and not busy (a Thursday afternoon), and very very tranquil.
We went to three really cool pubs that night.
The first was about the size of a trailer. You walked in, and the door almost hit the DJ stand. There was a wall of CDs, and a guy just standing there smoking, and putting on his favourites. He was the owner, as well as the whole staff. Easy job, considering there was no service. You just walked to the back and grabbed your own beers out of the fridge while he threw on his favourite tracks. There were little slips of paper to jot down requests, or you could just doodle, and then tack it up on the walls.
The second was this really chilled-out living room. Except, instead of a couch, it had several tables that you sat at on the floor. We had a glass of wine, decided it wasn't really what we were after, and moved on.
The third was this awesome little lounge called "Liquid". They played loungey jazzy electronic music ("bossa", according to Cam) and it was basically the coolest place I have ever been. The music was great, the atmospehere was very relaxed, and the drinks were unusual/awesome.

I got back on Friday, and Jessie had just gotten back from her camp at Nam-Yang. We were both a little worried that the teachers at the workshops would be really unmotivated (in the style of Jessie's usual workshops), but Jessie says that they are in fact really fun and involved in what is going on. So, we both had a lot of fun. Jessie kept saying that she felt like she was a don, I guess camp seemed a lot like how I had described the activities I used to do.