Trip to Suwon

After a decent week of work with no glaring problems, I had a pretty big weekend for the first time in awhile. It was big because I finally did something a little different.

On Friday, I just hung out with Vicky for a couple hours. She went to Hong Kong for the weekend to see her sister. Her sister has been in the Philippines for the last three months, and has a weekend or so in Hong Kong before coming home.

So Vicky's family took advantage of the proximity and took the four-hour flight to Hong Kong for the weekend. It's funny to think that in the time I could go to Hong Kong from South Korea, I could be simply traveling from one end of the US to the other. It makes you realize how expansive our country is. Even people who never travel outside of America have an incredible opportunity at the vast space and diversity in our own home. Think about it.

So on Saturday, I took a trip to Suwon to see my Korea best buddy, Chris, a Boston guy whom I met at Jungchul when I first arrived. He just came back to Korea about three weeks ago after about four months at home. I've never been to Suwon before, so we thought it would be fun for me to head out there for the afternoon.

Well, Suwon isn't ridiculously far away, but there's no real direct route from where I am to Suwon. That's simply because I'm a bus/taxi ride away from a train station.

So I hopped on the 65-1 and went to Juan Station. That took about 30 minutes. I then hopped on the subway, transferred in Guro, and made my way to Suwon. The train ride rook about another hour. All-in-all, after 90 minutes and $3, I went from west of Seoul to south of Seoul.

The fun part, for me, is that it was the first time I took the train by myself. I know guys who speak and read no Korean, and take the subway all the time. But I was hesitant to do it alone. But as I should've expected, there were no problems at all and it was a breeze.

Chris has a really nice situation in Suwon. He's working at a public school and they seem to really take care of him. His new apartment is miles better than mine, and the neighborhood he lives in is clean and seems nice.

We went to a high school near his house and kicked the soccer ball around for about 90 minutes, and we got lunch at a kimbap place near his house. It was a lot of fun.

After that, we hopped back on the subway and came back to Incheon, where we relaxed for an hour or so before heading out to InHa to have a couple drinks. We met with my one college student, Jess, and she invited two of her friends.

Chris knows three of my four college students because he taught them before I did. He introduced us all and convinced them to keep their study session going under my guidance. Thanks to him for that. Haha.

We only stayed out until about midnight, but we had a really fun, laid-back time.

I did pretty much NOTHING today and it was great. I like to think of Sunday as my rest day, otherwise I'd be in big trouble come Monday morning. So I got some groceries, did my laundry, updated the old blog and, unfortunately, followed as Pitt lost in the NCAA basketball tourney.

That's the only sad event that happened this weekend. And I'm not even a little bit upset about it. Go figure. I think I've gotten over my little 6-month slump that I hit, and I'm really starting to take everything in stride.

I hope all is well back home. Love you guys!