The Sculls Do Daegu

Wednesday the 23rd of April TJ and Ashley left Canada and embarked on the crazy trip to Korea. They arrived here late Thursday night and Jay and I met them at the bus station. This was the beginning of an awesome two weeks. We took them for their first Korean meal at 3am as they were starving from the day of flying. We headed down to our local 24 hour gimbap shop and ordered up some bibimbap and ddeok beok ki. This was the beginning of Ashley's love for ddeok and TJs attempt to try all the Korean food he could! We went home to catch up with each other and then catch some zzz's before work on Friday. Luckily for me my last class on Friday was cancelled so I got to come home early and hang out. Our plan for Friday night was to head down to grab a bite to eat and then hit Commune's to introduce TJ and Ash to downtown Daegu (or maybe to introduce Daegu to them!) We ended up being a little late and not being able to hit the restaurant we wanted (because in Korea most restaurants close around 10 and seeing as we work until 10 it makes it difficult to get a decent meal after work). So we moved onto plan B: Billibow.

For those of you who don't know what Billibow is, it is a combo of billiards and bowling that is just amazing! As long as you are eating or drinking you can play free!! We ordered up some pizzas and Hite and hit the lanes. While we were there the bartenders put on this flare bartending show involving fire and everything! I took a video, if you want to see it check out my (Gar's) facebook. From there it was on to Commune's for trivia night. Again we were a little late so we didn't get to play but we sure did get to have a good time! By the end of the night everyone was singing along to the tunes and then we decided to move the late night party to Thunderbirds for a couple of games of foosball then on to the gimbap shop for some food... its like the days/nights never end here... until the sun comes up!

The plan for Saturday was to hit up Woobang Tower land and then our friend Lindsay's going away rooftop BBQ... Due to our late night (or early morning) we decided that rollercoasters and cotton candy could wait until later in the week... we had a pretty quiet morning and then headed on over to Linds' place. It was a tad chilly to be hanging out on the roof but we all braved the weather and had a great time. A bit later on in the night we hit up Old Skool downtown but all in all we had a relatively tame night... We wanted to be well rested for our softball game on Sunday!

Sunday was the big game... the Green Goblins (that's us) vs the Thunderbirds... a win here would put us in a tie for second place... haha yeah we are really serious about this stuff ;) No seriously though, we packed up a big towel, some food and beers and headed down to Duryu Park to spend the afternoon in the sun. It was a gorgeous day, perfect for some ball. We played a huge game and came out on top with our cheering squad helping us along the whole way! TJ and Ash managed to get some great action shots and we decided it after the game we would head down and grab some Shabu Shabu for supper with the group. Shabu is very thinly sliced pieces of meat that you cook up in this boiling broth in the center of the table with a bunch of veggies an ddoek. You then can place in on little ssam (lettuce leaves with rice) and kinda eat it like a lettuce taco (that is probably the stupidest description ever but you get the point). We have a favourite Shabu place over in our neck of the woods but seeing as we had a pretty big group that was interested in coming we decided we would move to the more central location of... you guessed it.... downtown. The food was good (but not as good as our place haha) and TJ had the opportunity to down a big plate of seafood (he had Nick and Tae to share with). After Shabu we wandered around downtown a little window shopping and then headed home.

Seeing as Jay and I had to work all week, TJ and Ash were on their own for Monday to Thurs. They ended up wandering our neighbourhood on Monday, checking out all our local fruit and veg vendors, the local shopping and the sites. Tuesday they attempted to make their way out to Mt. Palgongsan (somewhere we haven't even been yet) but were thwarted by the sheer difficulty of making your way in a city where you don't speak the language. They ended up back at Duryu Park and explored all it has to offer (bicycle rentals, a small Buddhist temple, little walking trails). So Wednesday we got all the directions sorted and after a lovely lunch of Sam Gap Sal (long pieces of pork that kinda look like bacon but thicker which are cooked on an inverted wok type thing in the center of your table along with veggies and served with a plethora of side dishes) they headed up to Gatbawi (a Buddhist shrine on Palgongsan). The hike was more difficult than many of the guide books made it out to be so TJ hiked the last half of it by himself while Ash went back down and explored the temple area. Wednesday night we hit up a little bit of Western food at Pizza Mall where you can apparently buy your own beer and bring it into the restaurant because they don't sell it there. Or at least that is what we thought you could do and no one seemed to tell us we couldn't! Then it was on to Commune's open mike night to see some of the local talent. We tried not to stay out too late but this is Daegu. Thursday we hit up Hami Mami's for the best Western breakfast in the East and then TJ and Ash headed over to Woobang Tower land for a day of fun. They ended up doing the bungee jump off the tower!! Crazy kids!

Friday we booked off for our trip to Busan so Thursday ended our week of the Scull family in Daegu.... Check out the next post for our trip to Busan!