Seoul!

For Chuseok (Korean Thanksgiving), I had 3 days off of work. I bought a ticket a few days before and was all ready to go. But then I went out the night before the bus, and woke up when it had already left. Not a good omen ha. Anyway, I switched tickets and arrived in Seoul pretty late. It took me forever to find my hostel, the directions were pretty terrible. The hostel was in Hogndae, which is a really popular area for nightlife. The place was crowded every night, even Sunday. When I finally found it, there was a guy sleeping in my room.l My unpacking woke him up, and I asked him what he was doing. He said he was jet lagged but wouldn't mind going out. Then the Russian girl who was staying there came in.

She suggested we go to Ho Bar. Ho Bar is a huge chain, but she assured us the one we went to was the best, and she was right. Of course I danced super hard. I got some free drinks out of it which was dope, and we got the whole bar jumping. There is one guy who works there whose job it is to blow a whistle and get people hyped, and I so want that job. Eventually she was like "lets go to a club" but instead she went home with some guy. We went to some other places that were ok but eventually went back to Ho Bar.

The next day, we walked around for a while, and stumbled upon one of the palace complexes. it was quite large, and there was an art museum as well. Since it was a holiday, they had a special musical performance. Some little kid kept staring at me like I was an alien, but that's not really anything new.  That night, we wanted to try some new places. We went around and found some cool places. We met up with some western guys who told us about a fun bar. Unfortunately, about 10 minutes after getting there, the bar got pepper sprayed and it cleared out pretty quick. I kept drinking but should have taken the hit when the staff started to put their shirts over the mouth and run out the bar. Eventually we went to a megaclub. it was crazy. It was huge, and I spent most of my time dancing on the stage. I danced so hard that I stopped sweating because I had sweated everything out. I had to leave because I was dead tired.

The next day we slept pretty late. Then we decided to go to Itaewon. Itaewon is a special tourism district in Seoul, and it has a lot of shopping and foreigners. We did some exploring and were looking to get some fried chicken, but all the places were closed. So we found an American diner where I got chicken fried chicken with gravy, which was surprisingly good. On the way back to our hostel, we met a Korean American guy. He told us to meet him that night. We eventually did, but we were both confused about the directions. When we finally met, thats when things got crazy. He was with another American guy who he met while waiting for us. He took us to a place with bottomless cocktails. There were some Korean girls at the bar that we were talking too, but there was some kind of misunderstanding and the Korean American guy was getting pissed because the other guy he had met wouldn't stop talking to the girls even though the guy at the bar said they were "married." Whatever. I left and we got separated, but we met back up at Ho Bar. Me and the Korean American guy were talking to some girls, and we ended up going to an all you can eat Korean BBQ restaurant. It was a pretty crazy night overall.

The day after that was Tuesday, my last full day and night in Seoul. After walking around Gangnam (Opa Gangnam Style!) for a bit, we went to a palace that my recruiter said was really pretty at night. She was absolutely right. It was all lit up and the place looked incredible. As we were walking around, it turns out they were doing a special performance that night. They did a lot of traditional dances, including a sword dance. It was an amazing performance, even though people forgot what to do sometimes. I was going to walk around more, but my buddy was cold so we went back to the hostel. It turned out that one of his friends happened to be in Seoul for the holiday, and we met up with him. After hitting a low key bar, we went back to Ho Bar. it was crowded, but we met some Korean-American girls and decided to go to a club. The club was even more packed. I still got to to dance crazy, of course. They even played Lil' Jon "get Low" and ya'll know how I get down to that. No booty lifts though. Then we went to a restaurant and got some food and soju. The girls left, so we went back to Ho Bar, but downstairs this time. It was really live. I danced with a bunch of people. My buddy was ready to go, so we had to dip out.

My last day, we just did some sightseeing and ate a little. But of course I missed my bus, and had to take a different one to a different town and take a taxi from there. Hopefully I get better at this making my bus thing which apparently I have a lot of trouble with. I have to go to work soon, but I'll post some pictures soon.