A Little Seoul

My first weekend in Seoul was an interesting experience, with ups and downs, highs and lows. The lows primarily consisting of my catching a brutal cold and spending my Sunday with Julia dragging me around trying to find appropriate cold medication. Which was greatly appreciated—thanks darling. :)

Thankfully, the ups far outweighed the downs.

Saturday Julia met me in Bundang so that we could visit her friend Juni who’s in a hospital here. As it turns out, he only has to sleep in the hospital. Despite having a broken back. Seriously. He met us at a restaurant with another one of Julia’s friends, Matt, where we proceeded to drink the biggest pitcher of beer (mixed with soju, of course) that I have ever seen. And to eat what look like dried minnows. Well, they’re definitely some kind of little mini dried fish, but I’m not sure exactly what. Minnows is that best I can come up with. Either way, it’s an appetizer of sorts, and I ate it. Definitely. I even have proof!

We then went back to Julia’s place, where I got to meet a bunch of her friends, and some of her friend/ colleague’s (Ashley) friends as well. It was a great party, with a ton of expats from all over the world. Eventually we took the party to Hongdae, a sort of clubbing district in Seoul. There I was introduced to the one and only robot bar “Vinyl”, where you get your drinks in a Ziploc baggy that you take away; the Rocky Mountain Bar, where I played endless games of drunken darts, without ever actually winning a single game, and finished the night off getting our groove on to the sweet sounds of Cyndi Lauper at the 80’s Bar. Ok, so that wasn’t ACTUALLY the end. The end was the delicious Dok-Poke-Ee (think noodles of a sort in a spicy red sauce that you buy from street vendors and eat with a toothpick. It’s basically Korean drunk food...) and a drunken cab ride back to Julia’s luxury long term stay hotel.


Then I woke up at seven, which is a god forsaken time to wake up when you went to bed at four. Not to mention, when I woke up, I was sick. Really sick. Nose running, sore throat, coughing sick. Which means that I also woke Julia up at seven. She insisted she didn’t mind, but everyone minds getting woken up after only three hours of sleep. However, she was a great sport, and I will be forever grateful.

She then set off a on a mission: to find me Kleenex, before I ran out of toilet paper, and something to help with the...nastiness... all while showing me around Insadong.
Insadong is this really cool market-type place. They have a little bit of everything Korean, and you can bet that, if you’re lucky enough to receive gifts from me when I get home, they most likely will have come from this place.

After shopping for a while (without finding cold meds... it just so happens that drug stores and hospitals are closed on Sundays here...) we decided to hang out in this cool little park while we waited for Ashley and Steven (American expat) to meet us for lunch. There’s a really cool pagoda in the middle of the park, and while we were sitting there this really sweet Korean man starting chatting to us. He was probably about 75, missing most of his teeth, and tickled pink that he got to talk to a couple of Western girls and practice his English. In fact, that happens a lot here. People are really excited to speak English, so you start having the most random conversations with the most unlikely people in the most interesting places!

Anyway, we spoke to this man about the American presence in South Korea, and about interracial dating and marriage. Solid, intellectual discussion. And then he dropped the bombshell. “You look like Grace Kelley,” he told me. Despite being sick, carrying around a roll of toilet paper and blowing my nose constantly, this man compared me to one of the most beautiful, elegant women to ever grace the silver screen (and the throne of Monaco). I don’t care if he was lying through his non-existent teeth: that man will forever be one of my favourite people.


Following our lovely chat chit (a little D.C. for a few of you there), we met up with Ashley and Steven for the most amazing vegetarian meal I have ever experienced. Ever. And I’ve eaten a lot of good vegetarian food in my day. I won’t say more about it—if you want more info, you’ll have to come visit. Ya, that’s right. I’m willing to resort to bribery.

Upon completion of our delicious meal, Ashley and Julia promptly put me on the subway headed straight to Ori Station with explicit instructions to go to bed. I, of course, obeyed submissively. Despite an hour and a half ride home, I was in bed by seven.