Lesson 26

Korean parents love it when you take photos of their kids.

The Han River is one of the major rivers in Korea. Our plan for the day was to go on the Han River tour, take photos, and check out the scenery. I almost didn't go and part of me wished I hadn't... it was about 20,000 won down the drain. The only good part was a friend we made right before we went home. We went to Yeouido where the 63 Building is. The 63 Building was the tallest skyscraper in Asia when it was built in 1985, but now it's merely the third tallest in Korea.

The 63 Building and Yeouido skyline.

Shannon told me the best time to go is at night because the bridges are all lit up and everything looks a million times more impressive than during the day. We got to Yeouido at about 5:00. Shannon and I suggested we get dinner (since everyone was hungry), then catch the boat around 6:30. We were shot down.


The boat ride was pretty mediocre. Imagine taking a boat along the Passaic River past downtown Newark during the day. Now replace the taller buildings with communist era apartment buildings. That's what I saw this afternoon. There was a massive fountain at the part of the river where the boat turned around - the water was shot at least 100 ft. in the air, but even that was boring after about 30 seconds.

Check out that sexy skyline.

Shannon and I were more amused by all the cute little Korean kids running around the boat. One couple saw that we were watching and had a camera, so they pointed to the camera and tried to get their kids to smile. Parents in America would sternly tell a stranger to stop photographing their child, whereas in Korea the parents tell their child to pose for the camera. Check out these little munchkins.

Future Miss South Korea.

Their parents were trying to get them to make a heart with their arms.

Kelsey occupied herself by taking pictures of a cute little Korean boy. The kid wasn't older than 4 years old and was trying to take pictures of Kelsey with his mom's cell phone. He would get this really serious face, then the phone would make the shutter sound and he would start cackling, then run up and down the boat, laughing and falling all over himself. He did this for about a half hour.

Anyang!

0.5 seconds before bursting out into laughter.

We spent the rest of the ride taking photos of the kid (we named him "Anyang" - "hello" in Korean) and playing with him. At one point he was so excited about his photo of Kelsey taking a photo of him that he went tearing down the deck, face-planted beautifully, bounced back up (like a Bobo Doll), and continued to run, laughing hysterically along the deck to his mom. She just picked him up, turned him back toward us and set him loose again. Anyang followed us when we got off the boat too. We found the Korean "Whack-a-Mole" and he came running up to us, hit things with the Whack-a-Mole mallet, and ran away laughing. For the rest of the evening, whenever we heard a child laugh we thought Anyang had found us again.

After the photo-shoot we went to a little noodle place to get dinner. Erica (one of the girls from English Group) tried to help me order noodles (spicy with vegetables) from the menu. She didn't tell me that the noodles were cold. I essentially got kimchi noodles which I took two bites of and threw it out (a waste of 7,000 won) . So I got gogi mandu (meat dumplings) and broth instead. When in doubt, gogi mandu. Always.

EDIT: Added a video of Anyang chasing another child with his mom's cell phone.