Suwon

Woke up this morning in Suwon and it was snowing!

We arrived last night, easily following Penny's perfect directions on how to get here. The taxi driver had a few words of English, and formed the impression that we were English teachers, and insisted on us using his phone to phone our "contact". So I rang Cam who managed (impressively) to talk enough Korean to him to reassure him that we were going to the right place.

Penny was doing her private tutoring, so Cam, his friend Nathan, Bill and I went to get "Chicken and Coke in a cup" snacks, and then all the boys had haircuts across the road. They could choose from 9 possible styles in photos on the wall. Bill went for "shaggy medium", and although Cam and Nathan just asked for trim I wonder if they did give Nathan "middle aged"!

Dinner was Korean BBQ at the restaurant across the road, run by the father of one of Nathan's kindergarten kids. The food was great, and we were given 2 lots of free meat, a free beer, and $2 off the bill. Then home for a quick game of High School Musical UNO before bed.

We are pretty comfortable in their wee apartment, with 2 extra beds, one for me and one for Bill.

Today Bill and I spent the morning exploring just around this little area, getting money etc, and playing in the snow. Met Cam and Penny for lunch, of Korean soup and sushi which was pretty good, and then headed off to the Fortress. It had stopped snowing by then, but there was enough lying around to make it really pretty. We explored the central palace, then climbed up to the highest point on the wall, and admired the view. Surprisingly it really wasn't all that cold, and we had a lovely walk round half the wall, finishing up having a go at the archery place, where we found that we were not nearly as useless as the American before us! Bill got 3 out of 10 arrows into the target, and although I didn't get any in several of mine made glancing blows on the target.

It was getting a bit cool and dark by then, so went to Home Plusu shop and Bill bought himself a new PSP game, for half what he reckons he would pay at home.

People here have been so friendly and nice to us. An old chap at the palace, who spoke very good strongly American-accented English that he learned from marines, wanted to sing Pokarekareana with us. And a taxi driver who spoke no English at all, who was a 5th dan in tae kwon do, offered to take Bill to tae kwon do lessons (at least that's what we think it was - Bill wrote down the phone number he was offered anyway!)

For the weekend we are going to a place where we can do mountain walks and they have thermal pools. We are staying at a little hotel owned by the parents of one of the teachers at their school.

We are just waiting for Cam and Penny to come home and then we are going into Seoul for dinner. It's so good to be here with them both, and they have gone to so much trouble to give us a good time.

Dinner at gorgeous little Italian restaurant downstairs in a bar in Seoul - sitting on the floor Korean style, eating pasta and steak (and pickled turnip!), and drinking Argentinian red wine.