Seoul

Okay so I finally made it into Seoul this weekend - or a tiny section of it anyway. To do that I had to catch a bus to a nearby city called Bucheon, then take the subway into Seoul. Id already made a couple of trips into Bucheon, mainly because there's an enormous shopping centre there where I've got most of my basic items - plus i can buy cereal there, which is a bonus. I hadn't taken the subway in Korea before, so when I got to the station I spent a fair amount of time wandering around trying to figure out how to buy a ticket, which train to take etc. Eventually an American English teacher (there's a few of us around) took pity on me and showed me the ropes. He had some time to kill, so he came with me into Yongsun, which is where they have a huge (there aren't enough superlatives for the shopping centres in Korea) electronics market. The term 'market' is quite misleading, because it's set out all shiny and bright, like a David Jones or something but even brighter, and has about 6 floors of just computers, tv's, phones, cameras etc - electrical stuff. I even found a section on digital pianos, which was pretty exciting. It turns out I can pick one up for about $600, so I might do that next weekend, give myself something to work on while I'm here.
After Yongsun we went to a part of Seoul called Itawae (not sure of the spelling), which is where all the foreigners hang out because there's a whole lot of western shops and bars. The bonus for me was an english bookshop, which was insanely expensive unfortunately. It was really strange seeing so many westerners after being the only one around for a while. Itawae has a pretty bad name among Koreans as being dangerous, I guess 'cause a lot of the westerners - including army guys from the nearby base - hang out and get drunk and agro there. From the few English teachers I've met, going out and getting excessively drunk every weekend seems to be the norm here. I guess if I'd come here 5-10 years ago I'd be doing the same, but these days I'm more interested in the food, and seeing stuff - which I haven't done much of yet, but I'm determined to do something cultural next weekend, even if it's just to visit the military museum or something. I've got in contact with a few hiking groups, but I can't do much until I get my Alien Registration Card, so that I can get a Korean bank account. Hopefully that will happen this week, and I can say that I am officially an alien :-) By then it might have stopped raining too - it has been non-stop. It's still pretty humid, but nowhere near as hot as Darwin. I'm looking forward to fall, which is supposed to be cool but beautiful clear skies. Everything is very gray and dirty at the moment, which is making me pretty lazy.
The good news is that I did manage to find my way home from Seoul by myself, so I think I'm okay to get around now. Just have to keep getting out there!