on the road: epilogue

Here are some highlights from the last few days:

On Sunday we found ourselves in Sokcho. We went to another raw fish market and feasted on (you guessed it) raw fish for lunch. Then we drove back to Seoul. My previous sentence contained only 6 words, and is a very deceiving way to describe our odyssey. Imagine taking about 10 hours to travel about 150km. All I can say is that Suk Ja's brother is a very patient driver.

Monday was a study day. I ran up Namsan.

I met an old friend yesterday. We met in Ehdae and then walked to Shinchon. Ehdae and Shinchon are both university districts, and so they've got some nice CD shops. We went to a Starbucks in Shinchon and chatted for a long time. After that we went shopping. Shopping isn't the best word. Perhaps it would be more accurate if I just said that we went from CD shop to CD shop. I was very happy to find the new Seotaiji CD at one shop. The guy wanted 12 000, but my begging and pleading got him down to a remarkable 11 500 (that's about 0.80 CDN). I would never dream of bargaining at a retail music shop in Toronto, but bargaining is quite prevalent here. After I got back, my wife asked me what we ate. I told her that we just had coffee and she couldn't understand seeing someone after a year and 'only' having coffee. My in-laws had a nice laugh, but I had the last laugh because it was a really good cup of coffee!

Today I studied into the afternoon. Then, I ran up Namsan and explored Myeongdong, Jongno, and Insadong. I'm going to run a half-marathon in Shinchon on August 22nd, so I guess you could call this training. The good thing with running a half-marathon in Seoul is that taxis are quite cheap here.

Ciao