A View from Songdo

On Tuesday I get off work at 6, my early night, and since it's still light at that time I decided to rush over to the park across from my apartment and take some pictures! At the entrance to the park is the map:

Yes, that's my reflection in it. I was only able to go through half of the park before it got dark, so some other time I will bring my camera and take pictures of the other half. So The main entrance (and where I'm standing) is at the bottom right of the map, where the little red dot is. I did a loop right after the lake where the big tan circle is and came back up the other side. So you can see it is a pretty large park by my pictures below, and this is only half of it!We have some random sand digging machines below:

And a pirate ship playground for the kids, with my apartment complex in the background:

The beautiful lake, and again you can see my apartment complex:

This was the big tan circle on the map, you can't really see how large it is by this picture but it's massive, and they hold concerts here on the weekends sometimes:

Ah yes, there are these exercise machines all throughout the park, so not only can you get your cardio in on the track, but also your strength exercise:

There is a hill they built is the park, the one I see from my apartment, so I ran up there and took these pictures. This is my apartment complex, called 1st World, and as you can see there are all sizes of buildings in it. Mine is the minature rectangular tan one:

Here's a closer shot of it, you can see that the first floor is all restaurants and bars on the outside, this is how it is on every building in the complex that faces the outside block. My apartment is on the second floor, and yes, the noise does sometimes keep me up. At night they have tables and chairs set up outside on the sidewalk so people are out these until 2:30 am sometimes! It's all older businessmen though, because the business culture in Korea is all about going out with your bosses after work and drinking, and you literally can't say no if they ask you because otherwise it's a sign of disrespect. Kids also stay up much later here than at home, so even around midnight there will be young kids out there playing on tricycles while their parents eat and drink. Even with all of that there's so much I LOVE about my apartment that I would never move even if someone offered me a different one. But needless to say I look forward to when the weather is cold and they can't sit outside, and until then I've invested in some earplugs that do the trick.

View from the hill again, but this time in the opposite direction, you can even see one of the mountains that surround the city:

Oh and here is the Songdo Convention Center, and you can see the edge of my apartment complex, and it's on the next block over! So close! They were setting up the small tents you see right in front of it all week, because for the next 2 weeks is the  World Beer Festival!

So there's half of the park at least

This week at work is going to be slightly crazy and different, Report cards are due for every class, and I have four hours of phone classes this week. Which is where we call the kids at home after we finish up with our classes (so 7:30 pm on up for me) and ask them questions. Weird and don't understand it, but it's also only once a month luckily! Also, new teacher comes from America tomorrow so I'll let you know what she's like!