Visiting Olympic Park

Sorry that I haven't been blogging very often. As I guessed it would be, blogging is much harder to do when you aren't stuck in front of a computer all day work, trying to avoid doing work. But I'll be better - at least one entry a week, if not more.

It has been in the high forties here for the last few days, which has drawn me away from my winter hibernation behavior. As I despise being cold, since I arrived I have spent a lot of evenings and weekends hiding in my room trying to avoid going outdoors. But spring like weather is here (for a short while at least), and yesterday I finally made it out of my apartment for a visit to the Olympic Park, site of the 1988 Summer Olympics. As a lover of all things Olympics, I've been pretty anxious to check out the park, so yesterday afternoon, I strapped on my tennis shoes and took a nice little jog. Of course by "nice little jog" I mean "painful experience that highlighted just how out of shape I am." But at least I was on my way to an Olympic adventure.

Once at the park I wandered in the front entrance and first found myself surrounded by strip malls of chain restaurants - not exactly what I was looking for. Then, as I progressed further in I came upon a giant cement plaza packed full of people. So basically I'm thinking - leave it to Seoul to call a bunch of cement a park, and sweet Jesus, isn't there any place in this city that doesn't have a mob of people packed shoulder to shoulder. However, I quickly realized that this was not your typical gaggle of Seoulsters. (I considered using Seoulites and Seoulians, but I like Seoulsters.) This crowd was made up almost exclusively of 12-15 year old girls running in large packs, screaming and laughing. At first, I found this unexplained phenomenon very scary, as it is intimidating to have packs of wild Asian girls screaming and running right for you. It reminded me of the time when I was three or four and I was feeding the ducks at Milham Park. I was enjoying my time with the friendly little ducks, when suddenly this overwhelming raucous started behind me and the noise just kept getting louder and louder as it grew closer and closer. When I turned, I saw a huge pack of geese running for me, honking at the top of their lungs, and it was clear that they were going to take me out to get my bread. So I did the only logical thing. I screamed, dropped my bread, and ran to my dad for protection. Luckily, at Olympic Park I didn't have any bread in my hands, and I was a good bit taller than the running girls, which had not been the case with the geese. I soon discovered that the proverbial bread the girls were seeking was Big Bang paraphernalia. Now Big Bang is the "Best Korean Hip Hop Band," and apparently, they had a concert that night at one of the Olympic stadiums. (I highly recommend checking out one of their videos). The girls were running through the plaza collecting Big Bang stickers, buttons, and what appeared to be a plastic, Big Bang torch. Once I realized that there was no threat of being trampled, I found the whole thing very entertaining and stood and watched the melee for at least 20 minutes.

After I had exhausted the entertainment value of absurd, boy crazy, teenage girls, I continued through the plaza and found just behind it, a huge park full of grass, trees, and little ponds and streams. Turns out there is a little bit of nature in Seoul, and I thoroughly enjoyed my afternoon wandering around the park and taking in the sites. I also enjoyed watching people stare at me, as if I were some kind of natural wonder... if I were at a state fair the sign would read - Giant White Woman Who Walks Twelve Times Faster than Everyone Around Her, Only $1 to See Her! My favorite part of the whole park, however, was the garbage cans. I realize that this a strange thing to enjoy, but the Korean's have a way of making things entertaining. The garbage cans were grouped in sets of four, each with pictures to identify what should be placed in each bin. One had pictures of plastic items, another had pictures of tin and aluminum cans, and there was also one with paper products - this is all seemed rather logical. However, the remaining bin, which I assumed was for general trash had pictures of three of the least likely items I can imagine you might throw away. There was a tennis racket, a baby bottle, and what appeared to be a spoon with a smiley face drawn on it. Who is throwing these things away, especially at a park?

So that was my excitement for yesterday. Today, I finally made it out to play frisbee, and it was awesome. As I write this, I'm pretty sore, but it was well worth it. Got to play, got some exercise, made lots of new friends, and I'm already committed to playing in two tournaments this spring. After playing, six of us went and got some stellar Indian cuisine, chatted, and smoked a little hookah. It was a very productive day.