Windswept at the World DJ Festival!

Well our Korean festival experience was certainly eventful! We arrived in Yangpyeong (East of Seoul on the Subway line) in the afternoon and made our way to the festival. Luckily Jack persuaded them to let us camp (as we forgot to book online) and we went through to meet our friends. We spent the evening exploring the festival and relaxing in the sunshine. It was fairly compact in size but had everything you needed for a good weekend! The night was spent dancing to music and eating delicious drunk food. 

 Sunday started of hot and sunny but soon changed. Some ominous looking clouds suddenly rolled in, bringing with them lightening, thunder, hail and an extremely strong wind. We ran towards our tent trying to save it from being blown away as other tents, stalls and trees around us were being ripped up. Fortunatley we were able to bundle, soaking wet, into a friends sturdy tent. Twenty minutes later the storm had disappeared so we surveyed the damage and found the main stage had blown over! No one was seriously hurt but some parts of the festival were completely ruined. At this point we weren't sure if it would be cancelled, however true to the Korean work ethic the rest of the festival was up and running by the evening! In the face of adversity we also met some nice people who we enjoyed Sunday night with. Altogether a fun and exciting weekend! When we got back of Monday we found out that the strange weather was caused by the the end of a Typhoon called Muifa from China.

The campsite post typhoon

The main stage after the typhoon

Some new friends!

Baseball Game!

I had my first experience of baseball this weekend at a Korean game between the LG Twins and the Doosan Bears. The game took place at the Jamsil Baseball Stadium, it was the 7th time in its history that the venue had sold out (which might say something about Korean baseball!). The atmosphere was great and we joined in on the cheering with our noise makers! The food and drink setup was brilliant too, there were hundreds of shops and restaurants so we enjoyed the game Korean style with some chicken and beer!

The view from our seats

Natalie and I with our noisemakers

The crowd

Cloud 33 Anniversary!

For our 5th year (!) Anniversary Jack surprised me with a trip to the clouds! Cloud 33 is a restaurant at the top of Jongno Tower with amazing views of Seoul. We dined like real adults in the atmospheric restaurant, treating ourselves to a delicious three course menu, they even had proper bread with balsamic a rare find compared to the usual sweet bread! :)

Jongno Tower is on the right, the restaurant is in the top section of the building which is lit up

Enjoying a glass of wine

Dessert

Seoul Friendship Fair

Every year in Seoul Plaza there is a fair celebrating different countries from around the world. We went along to enjoy some food (I had a sausage sandwich, which was great!) and some sunshine. However, I was not very impressed with the UK stall, which seemed to be just about the Olympics and Wallace and Gromit!

Seoul Plaza

UK stall

Enjoying a beer with Jen

Mountains and Makkoli

Last Thursday we had the day off so we spent the day with some of our Korean coworkers. We started off the day with a hike around Bukhansan National Park which lies just North of Seoul. Hiking around this area is an interesting experience, on one side you can see pine trees and rocky mountains and on the other you can see Seouls sprawling apartment blocks. We had a great time though and after headed out for Jimdak, a kind of chicken stew with vegetables and noodles, one of my favourite Korean dishes! We ate in Insadong, a popular tourist destination full of coffee shops, souvenirs and restaurants. Here our friend introduced us properly to Korean Makkoli, an alcoholic drink made from rice and wheat, it is a strange milky colour which doesn't sound appealing but actually it tastes quite nice!

View from Bukhansan

Insadong streets

Makkoli

Seeing Seoul

This week we had a few days off and as the weather has warmed up it was the perfect opportunity to do some sightseeing in Seoul. We started off with a walk along Cheonggycheon walking stream that runs through the centre off Seoul, after a stopf or some beer and soju cocktail we headed to Namsan Tower with some friends. Namsan tower is an observation tower on the top of Namsan mountain in the middle of Seoul from which you can see great views over the city, a good way to spend a summers evening! You can also add you own 'Love Lock' to the thousands already up there, this is meant to symbolize your everlasting love, although I have heard they often have to cut them off to make space for new ones ...

Cheonggycheon Walking Stream

Namsan Tower

Thousands of 'Love Locks'