Andrew's Travel Blog: 대전에있는 주말

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

대전에있는 주말 - Daejeon, South Korea

This past Monday was Korea's Memorial Day, so we had a three-day weekend. It was awesome and a much needed break. Things have been going great at school, but repeating phonic sound all day long is not the most rewarding thing. I feel like I felt when I took my first Spanish class; a foreigner yelling at me in a different language..I get it.

But since we had a long weekend, a friend of mine from Inje was going to visit his friend in Daejeon (Day-djan, -dj like the /J/ sound in the word 'judge') a five-and-a-half hour long bus ride. Not the best bus ride, but Daejeon was fun. I don't like to quote Wikipedia often, but according to them, Daejeon is the fifth largest city in Korea with a population of almost 1.5 million. It has it's own metro system.

The second we boarded the bus in Inje, my friends says to me, "oh, I don't have a phone, so I don't know how to get hold of my friend was we get there." I thought, 'oh great, I know exactly how this trip is going to end." But we ran into little things like that the whole time, and that's what makes traveling exciting.

So we had to call another one of our friends from Inje, because she had this guy's phone number in Daejeon. So once I got his phone number, I saved it in my phone. No problem. So once we arrived, we met up with the guy from Daejeon and we boarded the subway, but my friend from Inje had trouble getting through; his card wasn't scanning. So we called someone over to help. Then my friend looked down and noticed that his name was on it. Usually those cards don't have your name on it, so he finally realized that he was trying to use his bank card to get through the metro. Needless to say, I laughed really hard. Then we went to a popular shopping part of Daejeon and looked around a little. We also got something to eat.

After that, we went to our friend's apartment. It was very nice. Most of the foreigner apartments are nice, so that's a good thing. After getting settled for a while, we went out for the night. We went to one bar and played pool. Daejeon was a fun city with lots of buildings and lights to look at at night, but the streets are really dirty.

The next morning, we woke up and walked around the city. We were gone most of the afternoon. We walked and saw some tall buildings (which you don't find in Inje), we went to Expo Park and to a soccer game. First, Expo Park is an area where there is a huge science museum, art gallery and a theme park. In 1993, Daejeon was home to Expo '93. They had a science theme, and ever since then, they have added more things to this park, including the art gallery and the theme park. There were many things to do there, but we were running out of time, so we were in a hurry.

After that, we went home to eat and shower quick (the humidity was terrible down there), then after that, we went to a soccer game at the FIFA World Cup Stadium. Daejeon hosted the FIFA World Cup in 2002, and Daejeon's professional soccer team was playing a game against Japan. They guy who we stayed with got free tickets from his school, so that was quite an experience. I have never been to a soccer game before, and although Daejeon lost (I think 2-1) at least I got to see three goals being scored. The crowd went crazy. Even on the close goals. Plus, the two South Africans I was with are really into soccer, so they knew more about it than me. I enjoyed my time though.

Then, we went back to our friend's apartment and ate some more. Then we were going to go out again, but I feel asleep at 11 o'clock and didn't wake up until the next morning. Needless to say, I was tired. I still got to see everything I wanted, so that was awesome. Then we had to make our way to the inter-city bus terminal and make the five-hour trek back home. Not fun, but I tried to sleep as much as possible because we caught the 4:30 bus, so add 5.5 hours and that takes us to ten o'clock. I think we arrived home at 9:30, but we were pooped. Great trip though. Better than staying in Inje. It's nice to escape for a while.