6 To 6 in Seoul

So, the big weekend adventure...or perhaps a challenge. First some preface information - Our dorm, and more specifically the Yonsei program leaders thought it would be a good idea to have a curfew set for 12 pm. The dorm closes and you can't get in or out past that time until 5:30 am. I guess it is suppose to discourage us from staying out late but in fact, it just encouraged us to stay out ridiculous late.

The adventure/challenge: stay awake/entertain ourselves from the hours of 6-to-6.

More preface information: Friday night it was my friend Terry's birthday so we thought we would go out to the clubs and miss curfew. This Friday night also happens to be the "Club Night" in Seoul where you can pay for one club and get into a whole host of others for free.

The adventure began far too early at around 6:00 PM. We walked down to the iHouse (which fortunately for next semester does NOT have a curfew) to meet up with some of Terry's sister's friends. We then proceed to take the subways to an area called Hyunday, or something to that effect. One of Terry's friends wanted to go to this underground Japanese folk/electric singer performance which sounded cool so we all tagged a long (a group of about seven of us now). As with most entrances in Seoul the place looked dark and foreboding on the outside but once we went down a couple flights of stairs a door led us to this amazing cement/modern architecture performance space. The artists was crazy, but cool. He periodically played the guitar with everything from a shoe to his chin, and did a lot of hopping around the stage. Still the music was very impressive and he had some amazing guitar solos.

After listening to the music we found a quaint restaurant to eat, not knowing it only served seafood. I was feeling ambitious so I ordered 낮지 비빕밥, which is actually octopus with rice and hot pepper sauce. The octopus was not actually that bad, just a little slimy but what got me was how spicy it was. I only managed about half before my mouth was burning too much to eat more.

When we finished it was around 9:00/10:00 so we slowly started walking to the area where a lot of the clubs were located. The first one we stopped in was actually one I had already been to early this week, N.B. It was pretty quite at first because we were early but after two hours around 12 the place was jammed packed. A lot of Koreans, a lot of hip-hop, and an overall great time of dancing. When we left that club after three some hours of dancing we were amazed to see how much the city area had changed. Waiting outside of the club was a line of people that stretched a good 100+ people back waiting to get in and the streets were crowded with youngish Koreans going out. I guess the Club Day event is fairly big because the next five some clubs we entered were all equally packed and finally around 3:30 am we stopped trying.

By now we had met up with some other people from the Yonsei program who were also out and we decided to take a taxi back to the Yonsei University area to stop by the McDonalds which is open 24 hours. We arrived and ate a little but then four of us decided we wanted to do something beside sit for the next hour and a half so we walked a little ways to a DVD 방. 방 stands for room, so a DVD 방 is basically a business where you can rent out little rooms which consist of a big couch and a movie projector. We picked Bridget Jones II and all promptly fell asleep on the couches. That is all of us expect Chikae who was smart and slept from 5-9:00 PM before going out. When the movie ended it was about 6:30 AM so we took the bus back to the North gate of Yonsei where we meandered back to the dorms to crash.

Thus, I successfully completed my first night out in Seoul. Hopefully not something that is repeated too often because I am still recovering from the hours on feet and almost 24 hour no sleep. Oh...and I'll add pictures of the adventure once I learn how to use my cellphone.

A Quick List of Accomplishments in Seoul

~Opened a Bank Account with amazing simplicity - Somehow they understood what I wanted to do even though I probably broke a record for "the most un/wrongly conjugated of verbs ever".

~Went to a Night Club - I went with Chikae, KaNa (a friend who is Japanese, and speaks only a little English and almost no Korean, which leads to some interesting conversations), and Felix. We all thought the club was called Envy, but it turned out to be NB. The music was only hip-hop but the crowd was of decent size and young.

~Took my first class of Taewondo - I was a little ambivalent at first because it meets three times a week (as opposed to the other classes which are twice) and because it meets in a gym which is extremely humid. However the teacher turned out to be very joy able and energetic.

~Got Passport Photos - again an adventure where broken Korean was used.

~Shopped and Walked around the Shincheon Area - many many neon signs, 노래방 (karaoke bars), restaurants and two giant department stores.

~Met up with Korean Wes students, a total of 7. It was good to see familiar faces.

and more, but this is just a quick list.

Entering Seoul + Field Trip

Fast forwarding a little but still not in the present...

I arrived in Seoul on Friday around 5:45 PM. The plane ride surprisingly was not too bad. Korean Air had a huge selection of movies/in flight entertainment to keep one busy with. So I got lured in and did not really touch any of the five books I packed with me. I sat next to this older Korean couple who were very cute. I think it must have been one of the few times they had flown on a plane because the older gentleman wanted to switch seats in order to be next to the window. I gladly accepted so I could more easily go to the bathroom. They also proved to be the first subjects for the I-can't-speak-Korean-what-is-there-reaction-test. I am pretty sure they thought I was Japanese...

At the airport Ju-Young, one of my Mom's grad students met me and did the very Korean mother thing to do, feed me at once. After a delicious dinner at an airport restaurant we started the hour and a half drive to Seoul. It was def. night time and the city was lit up much like LA. Commercial neon signs in Korean were everywhere. Seoul had a very different feeling from New York City. It felt darker but safer as you would see old ladies walking around at 10 PM.

We checked into the dorms, which I must say are spare but still provide everything that you might need. I still have yet to meet my room mate even though it has been three days now. I'm beginning to think he does not exist. Anyway, to the field trip.

Bright and early Saturday morning we were loaded onto a bus for a lovely six hour drive to the Gyeongbuk area. Actually we first stopped at a fake Korean Folk Village. It felt a little like Disney World with the commercial venders trying to sell you stuff. However I did see two women doing this interesting see-saw jumping acrobatics. It was pretty amazing how high they went and what they could do before landing on the small platform again. I guess they did it in order to look beyond the castle walls where they were trapped. Um...sounds like Korean patriarchy to me.

Once we arrived in the Gyeongbuk area we had a nice big dinner at the hotel. The hotel itself was actually fairly nice, I think in Korean standards it was a five-star. Relatively big and with decent entertainment during the evening. That first evening we had a lesson in the art of fan painting, where I managed to pull of this masterpiece. Later night I met up with Chikae, who made friends with a couple of Japanese women, and we got some Shochu. We checked out the hotel's night club where was of course populated with students from the field trip. The club had a very select number of songs with amounted to the Black Eyed Peas and other pop hip-hop groups being put on repeat. Still, it was nice to relax.

The second day of the trip felt a little too full. We visited about six different places (a Buddhist temple, another Buddhist temple called Bulguksa, an ancient observatory called Cheomeongdae, Tombs in the shape of Mounds, a 3-D Movie Theater, and the Gyeongju National Museum) with a wake up call around 7:00 AM. Sadly most of the places did not allow pictures but I shot what I could. Although I must say after a while the places began to look the same. Still, I must say it was an interesting experience and allowed a lot of us to mingle/get to know each other better.

The last day of the trip was pretty calm, another six hour ride back after visiting the Hyundai ship building yards. It was perhaps the fastest tour known to man as they took you into one room where the claim to fame was a dancing robot hand, and then loaded you onto the same bus for a 15 min. tour of the ship yards. The ships were massive and they had interesting techniques for building them. As in they built them underground and then flooded the area with water after everything was finished. We arrived back at Yonsei in the evening, where I pretty much crashed from the trip.

<------Lanterns at the first Buddhist temple. Inside the temple was a massive Buddha with a diamond in its head that I guess when the sun hit it right cast a reflection onto monk plaques above the Buddha.





The entrance to a larger temple that was more like an enclosed city. There were many minor temples within the walls.

LA - Where the Sun Always Shines

I arrived in LAX to see Meredith and Meredith's Mom waiting to give me a massive hug. It was amazing to see Meredith after such a long time. After a minor crisis of a missing bag (which was found after some searching), we drove back to Meredith's house. I must say, I know LA is known for its vastness but it hits you when driving around and flying over. Everywhere there seemed to be some sort of commercial business and advertisements/billboards (also interesting that many signs were in Korean so I got the sense that I was already in Korea). The city also felt different from most big cities I have been to because nothing is built up. You could see the open blue sky from anywhere you were. It was also a surprise to see mountains from behind the smog, which serves as an elegant back-drop to the city

We began our adventures that night as Meredith successfully drove through LA traffic to get us to a place to eat. I forget the name of the place we went but it essentially it was Greek fast food. The next day we headed out to the beach where we walked along the pier and I swam a little in the ocean. I forgot how much I enjoyed just wading in the waves, there is something invigorating about it. However the highlight of the trip was seeing a big group of dolphins out in the water. They jumped, flipped, and generally entertained the rather large group of beach goers whose attention they grabbed. Also they were quite close to the beach, enough so that when they jumped you could see the distinct white underside.

After the beach I went out to dinner with Meredith's family. Everyone seems to be doing fine and even though they are in the new environment nothing has changed a huge amount. I spent a fairly quite evening with Meredith awaiting the twelve hour plane ride to Korea. Overall a relaxing downtime before the beginning of the next adventure.

Korea Here I Come!!

Oh lord, at LAX sitting for the hour and half until I board the plane!! I have some good pictures of L.A. that I will put up. The short of it: Sunny, Beaches, Meredith (best friend from high school), and too much food. Overall it was a nice way to relax and keep my mind off of things. Still, about to go to Korea! Dear me.