Another day but another two years older! Although I arrived in Korea just 3-4 weeks ago aged 25, I am now officially 27. Sucks!
It turns out that the day you are born you are considered 1 years old. Then every New Year or birthday (depending on how traditional you are) you add another year on. I'm not sure I'm keen to be this close to 30 just that quickly.
My birthday was on the Monday and so we went to Seoul for the weekend. It was totally amazing and I was a little dumb founded to start off with. The scale of the city is just crazy. For example, according to Wiki the Big Smoke has a population of around 7 mill and a density of 4761 per square kilometre. Seoul on the other hand has over 10 million but 24.5 million if you include the surrounding overspill within Incheon and Gyeonggi (population density 17,288 per square kilometre). It's definately the biggest city I've ever been to.
I can't post pictures until we get the internet at home (which should be soon as we now are officially registered aliens - quite a relief) but the temples were awe inspiring, the river beautiful and the views from Namsan Seoul Tower just incredible.
Just after dark (it was 32 degrees in the day) we started climbing the steep steps up to Seoul Tower which is an observation tower located on Namsan mountain right in the middle of Seoul. It is 1574ft above sea level and has a staircase of more than 800 steps. Yes - I did almost die but it was absolutely worth it. I can't wait to show you some photos - the river is lit up and there are amazing skyscrapers in all directions.
On Monday night, two of the Korean English teachers that I have made friends with took us to dinner as a birthday treat. The food was fabulous (indoor pork BBQ) and it's nice that they make such an effort with us.
The following day we met up with a gang of other foreigners within Hongseong (South Africans and Americans) and went bowling. I put in a spectactually bad performance peaking at 27 points when everyone was getting more like 100 but it was good fun anyway.
All in all, I really missed everyone but there is so much to see and do here and everyone tries so hard with us that I had a great birthday
It turns out that the day you are born you are considered 1 years old. Then every New Year or birthday (depending on how traditional you are) you add another year on. I'm not sure I'm keen to be this close to 30 just that quickly.
My birthday was on the Monday and so we went to Seoul for the weekend. It was totally amazing and I was a little dumb founded to start off with. The scale of the city is just crazy. For example, according to Wiki the Big Smoke has a population of around 7 mill and a density of 4761 per square kilometre. Seoul on the other hand has over 10 million but 24.5 million if you include the surrounding overspill within Incheon and Gyeonggi (population density 17,288 per square kilometre). It's definately the biggest city I've ever been to.
I can't post pictures until we get the internet at home (which should be soon as we now are officially registered aliens - quite a relief) but the temples were awe inspiring, the river beautiful and the views from Namsan Seoul Tower just incredible.
Just after dark (it was 32 degrees in the day) we started climbing the steep steps up to Seoul Tower which is an observation tower located on Namsan mountain right in the middle of Seoul. It is 1574ft above sea level and has a staircase of more than 800 steps. Yes - I did almost die but it was absolutely worth it. I can't wait to show you some photos - the river is lit up and there are amazing skyscrapers in all directions.
On Monday night, two of the Korean English teachers that I have made friends with took us to dinner as a birthday treat. The food was fabulous (indoor pork BBQ) and it's nice that they make such an effort with us.
The following day we met up with a gang of other foreigners within Hongseong (South Africans and Americans) and went bowling. I put in a spectactually bad performance peaking at 27 points when everyone was getting more like 100 but it was good fun anyway.
All in all, I really missed everyone but there is so much to see and do here and everyone tries so hard with us that I had a great birthday
- despite my sudden advance in years.
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