Seoul Nightlife

Hey everyone,

Sorry for the lack of update, I have been spending the last few days in Seoul and I recently traveled with Josh to Busan, where Josh is currently teaching.

Last I remember, I mentioned the events that took place Thursday night and Friday. Since I met up with Josh, we went to Hongjik University area, where you can find many bars and clubs. Friday night happened to be "Club Day," so they had a special $15 fee charge for all clubs; so, you could get admission into any club for a flat fee of $15. I really should have waited to drink and party hard for this night, but seeing as how I did so the night before, I was somewhat of a lamer Friday night with Josh.

No worries though, Josh is a very laid back and cool guy. We ended up sitting outside a club, chatting for a couple of hours. It was funny, because we both had a bottle of this rice wine which we hardly touched. In Korea, they call it "makali."

Next to that, we took a taxi that night to head to another area in Seoul called "Itaewon." On our way to this place, we sparked up a short conversation with the taxi driver.

Before I begin, I should say that taxis in Seoul are some of the nicest taxis I have ever rode. First off, the car has a built-in screen monitor which acts like a GPS system; Josh joked around and said it looked like an old version of "Grand Theft Auto." Second, the cushioning is all made of some kind of synthetic leather which is fairly comfortable. Quite a change of comfort, especially coming from taxis in Tianjin.

About taxi drivers in general, they are super crazy when it comes to the actual driving. Much like China, they don't seem to adhere to many of the road rules and will often pass red lights when there is no oncoming traffic; according to Josh, this is very common in South Korea. Josh said that once, a taxi driver even made a left turn on red! Yeah, pretty crazy.

Well, the taxi driver seemed willing enough to make friends with us, despite the great language barrier. First, he offered both of us Korean cigarettes, and then he made an interesting comment about Josh. He looks into his rear-view mirror, and says "Hali Pata." Huh? Oh! Josh looks like Harry Potter!
Haha, really though, this isn't the first time a Korean has said Josh looks like HP.

Next day (Saturday), Josh and I made it out to one of the many palaces in Seoul. He and I walked around and did more catching up. Josh mostly talked about his recent travels through Europe, and told me some of the places he recommends. Of these places are Austria, Germany, Czech, Hungary and Turkey. I'm already thinking of doing such a trip with Lily someday :)

One experience Josh tried in Europe was "running of the bulls" in Spain. According to Josh, this was something his friend Nick really wanted to do, and also something very frightening! He was telling me that there is no strategy other than: avoid getting hit by the bulls! Josh said that all he remembers was, in a flash, he saw the bulls up ahead of him, barely getting their horns on one guy.

So, later that afternoon/evening, we met up with one of my new friends in Seoul. Her name is Cathy and we met on the bus ride from the airport to my hostel. She was very nice and helpful. She told me that she studied in Australia for college and that she had recently visited her parents in Tianjin.

In any case, I told her that I'd love to see more of Seoul and eat some good food, so we arranged to hang out Saturday. With Josh, we all met up at Burger King and then took a taxi to some area near Seoul Tower. She took us to a place that was highly recommended. For good reason, the place seemed more traditional, where one could sit on the floor.

We had a bunch of food starting out with many samplers. One thing Koreans like to do for meals is have many small side dishes, consisting of kim chi, and other vegetables with different spices; there are also different meats and fish too. I wish I could remember the Korean names for these small side meals...

For the main course, we had bulgogi, panjeon -- which is some kind of pizza/pancake -- and some type of egg meal. It was all very delicious!

After dinner, we all made a long walk over to an area where we were able to take a cable car up to Seoul Tower. Seoul Tower was a lot of fun; it itself was very beautiful, but the tower also offered great views of the city. Apologies, but my camera did not come out with very good shots of the views we had from the tower. Really, you guys will just have to come out and visit when you get the chance ;)

One cool thing about Seoul Tower was that it had a circular walkway, where you could see all sides of Seoul. Much more, it also had different cities and countries listed on the glass, corresponding with the direction of these places. So, there was one place in Argentina which is about 19,000 km from Seoul Tower; pretty long.

Afterwards, we all walked back down, rather than hitching a ride on the cable car again. It was actually a wonderful opportunity, because the weather was really nice that evening. We all also got to talk more and share with each other our dreams and accomplishments. Cathy was telling me that her boss is Irish, so she has to speak in English every day for her job. When I asked her of her goal, she said she would like to be a good mother one day. I said I want to be a travel writer...

We landed in "Namdaemun" market after visiting the tower. This was a lot of fun, we saw tons of people and side shops along and in the middle of the street. One section also had a stage where people were performing, doing singing to performing dance routines. From one of the vendors, I ended up buying some cute bunny slippers for my tuzi (Lily) hehe ;)

Later that night, after we parted ways with Cathy, Josh and I went back out to Hongjik University area for a special night with George Acosta. It was perfect timing, because George Acosta -- a famous DJ from America -- happened to be performing that night in Seoul. What's more, he was playing on the opening night of a new club called "Blue Spirit."

It was an awesome night, because there weren't many people and the first two drinks were free! A couple of times I shook Acosta's hand and the rest was spent taking photos, watching Josh dance and filming part of the show. All in all, it was a very special evening, watching a popular Florida DJ play a lot of oldschool trance.

Well, there is more to tell, but I will save it for next blog!

Until then, here is a link to some of the pictures I have of Josh and I in Seoul: http://utexas.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2335460&l=8ef19&id=7936253

Love from Busan,
Mike