oh man, you should hide those

last week most of the students were in holding. holding is when the parents tell their children not to go to the hagwons and other area specific after school programs, so they can cram for finals. i only taught two classes, but it worked out good because i was able to do some preparations for the next session which starts in two weeks.

the best dish i've had here was a sesame noodle soup, i don't remember what it was called. it had kind of fat noodles in a sesame based thick broth with some seaweed. i thought it was similar to fettuccine alfredo, but better, with more liquid than noodles. this is dubu kimchi. dubu is korean for tofu. this was the spiciest kimchi i've had. it was really good, maybe because it had pork in it. i just ate around that though. usually if you go somewhere and have a beer they serve little rice snacks like chips. this was the first time i had seen the colorful ones. i thought fruit loops, i tasted fruit loops.
saturday i went to bundang again, but this time i went to the area called yatap and this is what i left with.
my coworker hyunjoo was going to take me to seoul and show me around, but first she was going to get a facial, so i went as well. i was looking around and saw these cups and asked if i could get a back and neck massage and if i could try the cups. obviously i couldn't see the exact proccess, but i'll do my best to explain. first my back was oiled down and massaged by hand, then a flame was used to create suction in a large cup which was moved up and down my back. next 18-20 cups were placed on my back using the same flame action and left for about 5 minutes. then the cups were taken off and reapplied, except this time they were cold and wet, and left for a few more minutes. then they were reapplied with the heat. it was finished up with more hand massaging. i enjoyed it and will probably have it done again.
after that we went to an area in northern seoul called insa-dong. walked around, went into a couple art galleries, had some tea. then we went to gangnam in southern seoul. it is a heavily populated area. all of the streets were super crowded. we ended up in a hooka bar called rainbow, had some beer and a cinnamon hooka. delicious.