July 21, 2014

On Friday we had a training day with our school and it ended up being a pretty long day. So we were ready for a chance to relax and explore our new city, Goyang, over the weekend.

We did a little exploring around our neighborhood, Hwajeong. We took Truman to a park that’s across the street from our hotel and let him walk around and smell.

First morning walk in Korea!

Going for a walk in a nearby park

There is a main pedestrian thoroughfare with shops, restaurants, and residences. It’s called Rodeo. We walked up and down that quite a bit over the weekend because it also leads to the subway entrance. Truman attracted a lot of attention as we walked through Rodeo. People were either really excited to see him or a little scared. There was also a lot of pointing and laughing.

On Saturday evening we ventured to another part of Goyang – Ilsan. We went to a gigantic outdoor shopping mall – La Festa – to look around and have some dinner. We ended up at Kkanbu Chicken, a chain of fried chicken restaurants (there’s one in Hwajeong too!).

Welcome to Goyang!

Truman met another long doggie!

Korean fried chicken!!

On Sunday we ventured back out to Ilsan and took Truman with us for his first subway ride! We walked down to the Lake Park which is where Goyang hosts its annual flower festival at the end of April. I can’t wait to see the festival next year! It’s a rather large park and we didn’t make it too far because it was pretty warm and Truman was getting tired. So we’ll have to go back another time, maybe rent some bikes and ride around. There are great bike paths and plenty of benches to sit and enjoy the scenery. It’s definitely a park we’ll visit often as it’s only a few subway stops away from our neighborhood.

Truman’s first time on the subway!

Goyang – the city of people more beautiful than flowers

Going over to Ilsan Lake Park

Ilsan Lake Park

Rose Garden

We were all getting pretty hot by the time we left the Lake Park so we went to grab some food and cool off in the shade. We had our first street food and relaxed outside a convenient store with a tallboy. (Several small convenient stores have tables and chairs set up outside.)

Some chicken!

Then we ventured back to our hotel where we encountered a problem with Truman.

The popular pedestrian boulevard in our neighborhood – Rodeo

A little water park in the small park near our hotel

Even though we had been told that it was alright for Truman to stay with us, one of the hotel workers didn’t end up liking it. She thought Truman would create a problem for future guests with dog allergies. So he was kicked out on Friday afternoon while we were having our training day at school. Over the weekend we figured we could sneak him in and out – which we did until Sunday afternoon when the same woman was at the desk again. So for a while we were up on our school’s roof trying to come up with another solution. (Our school’s VP thought Truman could just stay on the roof for the rest of the weekend. She was trying to be helpful, but it wasn’t a solution I was comfortable with.) Thankfully, the other foreign (Canadian) teachers at our school helped us out and let Truman stay at their apartment Sunday night and Monday. We really owe them!!

Hanging out on the roof

Rooftop of our school’s building

Wondering where Truman will stay

On Monday evening (tonight) we moved into our apartment so now we don’t have to worry about where Truman will stay! Once we get settled I’ll put up some photos of the new place.