Hong Kong

Yay! Hong Kong is booked and ready for October!! ^^ Going with my friend for 5 days!! So excited! Drinks by the harbor <3

Seoul grand park

I went to Seoul grand park zoo this week. I am never going to a zoo in Korea again :/ The animals do not look healthy at all. Their fur is dull and the gorillas had loads of fur missing. Some animals looked like they had gone a bit mad. The worse bit was seeing the smaller moneys who were in a concrete cage with nothing to play with and no heating. They just all cuddled together in the corner. In about 5 cages there were wolves. In each small cage there was one wolf who wasn't moving as they had no-where to move to. They also did not have a pack (I think wolves are pack animals like lions but maybe I am wrong. Just what I saw on Nat geo wild). Also, people kept throwing junk food to the animals. WTF!? Yeah, lets get them sick!! Stupid idiots! Sorry for the outburst, but I get angry where animals are involved. If you can't look after them, then don't have them.
It probably isn't as bad as I am making it sound and there are probably worse zoos in the world. Some animals looked healthy. I just think for a developed country, they need to do more research in to the animals needs. Animals just seem  low priority here.... It cost 3000 won to get it. Which is nothing. If they charge even a bit more per ticket then they can provide for the animals better. At Chester zoo (In the UK) you expect to pay about 12-15 pounds (20-30,000won) I think. But I don't mind as the animals have stimulation to keep their minds working and they look healthy. They also have bigger cages.

I'll stop talking about this subject as I get angry ><. I will talk about the amount of people. You could not see the animals. Of course there would be children at zoos but there were thousands of them and their parents let them loose. Plus, the god dam pushchairs were everywhere. Instead of leaving the empty push chairs on the footpath, they used them to block the view of the animals. And at least three times I saw grown children over the age of 5 in pushchairs!! Are you kidding me?! They couldn't even fit in the thing. Either they came out the mums womb as a 3 year old or they have been taking steroids.

I know I am moaning lots and I like kids...but when their parents can control them. So, I guess I hate the parents not the children :).

On a funny note. We saw a Korean Barbie n Ken. She was one of those Korean girls who talks like a baby. Normally, I would ignore this even though it pisses me off, but the fact she was banging on the glass trying to wake the gorilla up annoyed me. The sign saying "Do not bang on the glass" was right in her view. As for her bf. He wore a thick layer of foundation. So much in fact, he had a foundation line. Plus he had eye make-up on! haha!

I'm in a moaning mean mood hahaha ^^

Pictures of some of the more healthy animals.....







Mt. Inwangsan and siteseeing.

On Saturday, I met my friend Sally for lunch and coffee (well tea). I am offically addicted to chai tea. My friend Julia got me addicted to it at this one cafe, so I took Sally there ^^. It isn't a chain which is nice :).

In the afternoon I had the horrible job of defrosting my freezer. I have been putting it off since a moved here ........ a year ago. Yeah, I will do stuff. It just takes me time *cough cough*. But this weekend I had finally emptied my freezer so I couldn't put it off anymore *blah*. So yeah my Saturday afternoon isn't that exciting to read about to be honest but it was busy *cries*.

So on to Mt. Inwangsan. I went there on Sunday with my friend Paul. It was a shame as the weather had been nice on Thursday- Saturday but on Sunday it started raining and going cold (we had 3 days of cold but it's back to warm now! yay! Spring!!!).

It's not big at all. We did it in just over an hour inc eating lunch. I warn you go to the toliets at the subway not during the hike. OMG!! I hate public toliets normally but these ones were the worse I have seen in Korea. In the ladies there was three toliets and one of them I refused to enter for reasons I will not disgust you with. The second locked and the third had a guy in it I swear. I waited for 20minutes and whoever was in there wasn't leaving and I swear that was male coughing!!!!!!!! Gave up at the end! I haven't seen toliets that bad since I used public ones in China or the ones at car boot sales in England!

I will change the subject ;).. So to get to the entrance you need to go to Dongnimmun station exit 2 and take your first left down a side street. Keep walking..... and keep walking past the new apartments......keep going up hill (there are signs) and you are there. I swear getting there counts as the hike, but they built apartments at the base. The entrance should look like this:

You can go in any direction when you get to this point, as they all lead to the same place. We went up the white stairs to our left going through some houses. You will reach a bronze bell half way up the stairs and a temple. The temple looked closed when we went and not very templey (if that's even a word haha).

You carry on going upwards for about a minute and you will see Guksadang, a shamanist shrine. There was nothing going on the day I went, but I heard sometimes there are rituals happening outside this shrine.

I will warn you! There are birds everywhere!!! Hundreds of birds who all seem to have made this mountain their home.

 You then turn left at the split path. You should see a giant rock on top of a hill. This  is Seonbawi rock. Pregnant women pray here as the rock is said to have the power to give sons to pregnant women

There was a couple praying here when we went. We took the door to the right as advised on the tourist website and that led up to the top. Seriously we didn't even break a sweat. Going around the rock was scary as it is smooth and there is a steep drop. I wouldn't go on really windy or rainy days ><.

Lunch was a proper Korean hiking lunch. Kimbap! There were people having picnics everywhere even though it was cold.

Since it only took an hour we decided on having a wander to an area Paul had heard about -Pimatgol. It turned out Pimatgol was no more. It is just some pillars either side of a new modern alley with a signing this is where is used to be..... Don't try and find it! It's not worth it!!

We went to Gwanghwamun to gt the subway and for the first time I went to the actual square. So, of course I did the tourist thing and had photos taken and went to the museum haha!

Cat cafe part 4

Yes, I went to the cafe cafe yet again! This time I had a good reason. My friend from England is travelling through Asia and she loves cats, so she asked me to take her.
On that Friday, all the teachers returned to school and I had to decorate my classroom ready for Monday/ prepare my powerpoint. I could of done this during the two weeks I was deskwarming, but the whole school was too cold then and it was warm on Friday <3. My classroom is sooo big. It's really two big classrooms so it took 4 hours to finish decorating. I actually didn't have a spare minute to myself on Friday!! >< Blah!

So back to the cat cafe. I metmy friend after work and took her to the cat cafe (which takes ages to find thanks to the small streets and the hundreds of people). I think it'sthe 3rd or 4th side street on your left as you walk down from exit 6. You will see this guy at the foot of the subway........



The cat cafe was the same as the last 3 times :/ but it was nice seeing Sarah :D. It cost 8000won to get in with a free drink.

Here are cat pictures.....




Seoul forest!

Yay! It's finally Spring! The weather literally changes overnight here! On Tuesday it was freezing, but by Wednesday, the sun was shining. Yay!!

Last Thursday (1st March) was a national holiday (I never know what the holidays are for ~ I don't even know half the British holidays are for to be honest). I decided to go for a wander. My friend had a idea of going to Seoul forest so off we went (after a lie in bed, naturally.....).

Seoul forest isn't really a forest. It is like a giant park with trees all lined up and a road running through the middle. It's great for familys but they should of called it a park.... The park for kids was one of the coolest I have seen for kids. It reminded me of Telford park in England. I saw some of my sixth graders (the cute ones).

It might look better in the summer when the trees have leaves and the "forest" didn't look so naked. We wandered over to see the deer. I was the most space I have seen an animal have since I have arrived in South Korea. It was nice seeing the deer and I think places like that are good for kids.

We wandered over to the insect section which had no insects but just a lot of plants and some animals that were in cages far too small for there size. It was free though. There was also a giant cage full of rabbits etc.

Yeah, there is not much to write as like I said above, Seoul forest is not a forest. We wandered along the river after and ended up drinking some beer/alcho pops by the river. Though the weather was sooooo good. It was beer garden weather in the UK <3