Are Chuseok'n To Me???: Episode II

    When you travel over 6,000 miles from home to another country and it turns out that someone else from the very same town you left has made the very same journey, it's pretty obvious that you should meet up. This was the case for me and my friend from high school, Alan. He was actually the first to make the journey from home, he has been in Korea for nearly three years now, but once I arrived, I wanted to be sure that he and I got a chance to hang out being that we are once again living in the same country, yet so far from home. Chuesok was the perfect opportunity for a meet-up and so Wednesday afternoon, I headed up to the greater Seoul area for lunch with Alan. We went out for burgers (Yesss! It's amazing what you don't realize you miss until you're confronted with it!) and caught up on what each other had been doing since the last time we had hung out. Then after lunch he was nice enough to take me on a mini-tour of Seoul, stopping at a few main sights along the way. It's great if you have the chance to tag along with someone who's a veteran expat - I had almost forgotten what it felt like to know where you're going and arrive at places on the first attempt without getting lost or confused! 

This is a statue of the man who invented Hangul

One of the two large palaces in Seoul

Very cool aqueduct designed by the current president during his time as mayor of Seoul

Sweet pagoda on a random street corner in the middle of downtown. The "modern meets traditional" mixed architecture here is so cool !

Then after sight seeing for a few hours, we met up with a few of Alan's friends at a western bar in Sinchon, which is a district of Seoul. 

One of the main drags in Sinchon

The bar is owned by a Canadian guy (which is actually super common here apparently because I have already been to about three Canadian-owned western bars since I've been here) and the people we met up with were friends with him apparently, so it was kind of fun to get to hang out with the owner. The only thing was.... I was the only girl in the group so it was a little lonely for me, but I knew that all my single girlie friends would love it so I sent out a text and a short subway ride later, Rachel, Alex, and Jodi arrived, ready to pull an all-nighter in Seoul!

[Now... let me take a moment to explain to you the logistics of a night out in Seoul. Rachel and I both live in towns that are about an hour and a half south of the city by subway. Unlike New York City, the subway here shuts down every night between 11:30 and midnight for cleaning and maintenance, and it does not open up again until between 5:30 and 6am. This means that in order to successfully complete the hour and half journey home before the subway stops, you have to end your night early. Really early! As in like 10:30pm, otherwise known as right about the time when everyone else is just getting started. Therefore, if you want to avoid this bummer of a situation, the only other options are to either pay around 50,000 won for a cab ride home, or pull an all-nighter. To be honest though, almost everything in Seoul is open 24 hours, so staying up all night isn't nearly as difficult (or strange) as it may seem.]

    Now, I had not exactly planned on staying in Seoul all night, but now that the girls had just made the trek out there and the witching hour was quickly approaching, I decided, what the hell! I'll do it! And so it was decided. 

    We spent most of the night talking and laughing and enjoying each others company at the bar and then around 2am the guys decided to head home (must be nice to live in Seoul!) and we were left to figure out how to waste some time until 5:30. We decided first to head out in search of food, so we walked down the street a little ways and found a place that looked pretty decent, so we stopped in. It turned out that they specialized in a spicy tofu soup, so we each chose a variety we liked (pork, beef, kimchi, seafood, etc) and waited to see what would come. Once it arrived, the food turned out to be really delicious (and really a LOT) and we left full and happy. But it was still only 3am. What to do now???

    In Korea, housing is very small. Minuscule in fact. This means that the average person does not have a great amount of space in which to entertain friends and guests at their home. However, the Koreans, being the creative and brilliant people that they are, have come up with an ingenious solution to this problem - Bangs! No, I'm not talking about the horrible new haircut I recently gave myself...

Life lesson #168: Never cut your bangs on a whim. You will thoroughly regret it every time!

...I am talking about rooms. The word "bang" (pronounced bong) in Korean literally translates to "room". And there are all kinds of bangs in every city throughout the country - PC bangs, karaoke bangs, soju bangs, and most importantly, DVD bangs. These rooms can be rented out real cheap and they provide a place for you and your friends to get together and hang out since nobody really has the space to entertain at home. Also, many of them are open 24 hours, so it gives you something to do should you find yourself in an all-nighter kind of situation. Brilliance, I tell you!

    We decided we wanted to try out a DVD bang because it would be a good way to sit and relax and easily kill a couple of hours watching a movie. Our idea worked perfectly because these DVD bangs are ridiculously fun! They had a huge selection of English movies, and you get your own private room with a big comfy couch and a projector that displays the movie real big on the wall. It's literally like having your own private movie theater. Rad!

Rachel and I relaxin on the couch!

Soo comfy and ready to get our movie on!

The next two hours flew right by. By the time the movie was over, it was 5am and just about time to head over to the subway station to wait for our ride home. The train pulled up around 5:45 and the next thing we knew, we were looking out over the Han River at sunrise. There's definitely something to be said about staying up all night when you get to witness a view like that one. Amazing.

Han River at sunrise via Seoul Metro Line 2

 It was around 7am when I finally arrived home, tired and happy. I bade Suwon a quick good morning and good night and made my way to bed. All-in-all.... a very noodle salad* kind of night! 

Good morning sunshine at Suwon Station

...Stay tuned for the next episode of Are Chuseok'n To Me??? when Laurie falls in love!

*A line from "As Good As It Gets" that I adopted and began using (despite the fact that no one ever got my reference) back when the movie first came out. It was originally quoted as "Good times, noodle salad" until I'd used it enough that my friends became familiar with it and I shortened it to just "Noodle salad" because the "Good times" part is just implied.