The last few days

Well now, where to begin.

Friday night was party night. After the events of a couple days prior, wherein we had 8-10 people sharing drinks in the hostel, and being incredibly noisey as we did.so, we'd recruited two americans to come party with us at the club. Brett and Alex, plus our Israeli friend Ofiel.

After being huddled into a group of westerners he door to the club, frisked for weapons, and told very specifically by the stabvest wearing guards that this was not going to be a big night, and that we are not to start a fight, we finally got into the club and proceeded to have a big night, and a free bottle of NZ Pure.

Dancing with koreans is a bit weird. As Ofiel put it, you dance with the guys, copying their moves, and they get off on it. This in turn then allows you to dance with their girls/friends, having now successfully joined their group, like a virus attacking a cell, and corrupting it with good old kiwi goodness.

Getting home from the club was the trouble, as we all left at different times. I somehow managed to get a taxi driver that misunderstood where I wanted to go. Instead of taking me to Hongik university, I was taken to Konkuk university, a considerable distance away. This is why you don't fall asleep in the taxi!

So after finding myself on the other side of town by mistake, I stayed awake until 6am when the subway opened up again, and finally got into bed at 7pm. J had not long gotten to sleep himself. Queue round two the next day.

Saturday, J, Elyce, Axel, and I, looked up something called Hash Harriers Seoul. This is a bunch of guys that go for a run/walk somewhere, then get absolutely shit faced afterwards while singing an all manner of manly, crude (amazing!) songs. Unfortunately, as we brought a girl along, we had managed to violate some sort of 40 year rule on their not being any girls on this manly, manly trip. So, we did our own little walk, up Namsang Park, to check out Seoul Tower. Damn that was a bitch of a walk uphill. J's foot being swollen didn't help matters either. Getting home we find some new americans - Darren, Daniel, and Mauricio, that Shin (our hostel host) had partied with the week before. So, being the kiwi's that we are, we immediately all got into 15 bottles of soju to get the night going. These three were all military folk, who were due to go back to being "shit on" monday by their superiors, and were ready to go hard one last time.

Later that night we had a birthday party for Julie, a Londoner. Noise control was soon knocking down the door to let us all know the folly of our ways. During this time, I then began trying to orgnise meeting up with D, a friend who had been to Korea with me before. He'd flown in from Aussie that night, and we were set to have dinner with a couple of our Korean friends.

During all this, the party was moved out of the hostel and into town. I had somehow lost sight of the group, and was left to head back home! That was fine though, as I managed to meet up with Axel and Elyce who are also staying at the hostel, and we three went to dinner with my korean and aussie friend.

Sunday was the day of rest, and the group of us from last night went out and got burgers for breakfast. These weren't any burgurs though - they were the size of boston buns, which we decided to turn into birthday cakes for myself. The shop assistant actually ran out to get birthday candles for us so we could enjoy ourselves. Good times.

Sunday night was spent farewelling some of our new friends, and waiting on K as usual.

Pictures to follow soon!

Size does mater

The world 'Big' doesn't quite encompass Seoul. Immense is a much more fitting word. Coming from Christchurch, there's something to be said for the enorrmity of the buildings here.

They are so ridiculously big, that it's almost dizzying to look up at them. I discovered this sensation during a walk around City Hall when the sun finally showed itself. Navigating from the subway stations is incredibly easy, and I tend to use them as a base/focual point when exploring, so that I can find my way back. The above picture is City Hall. Interestingly, we arrived at the same time a protest was building up, and could be heard from blocks away.

The view from a skywalk between two young, hip focused department stores. It's surprising what kind of price ranges you can find between the upper and lower tier of shops.

Walking the markets was an exercise in saying "No, Thank you" as we westerners look like easy sells to a lot of the probably professional wares hockers. Alex, an american from the hostel, and myself had a good look around. Gungnam style socks for $1? How can you not endulge.

Temperature hit at least 30 that day, and we called it quits after a couple hours.

Troublesome Travel

It all started with a change in flight times. Instead of leaving at 5:30am, we were now due to leave sometime before 10am. All good, despite only finding out about it the night before.

So we turn up at the airport, and they can't find any record of us for the day. "Are you sure it's the 25th?," asked the check-in assistant when we're at the airport, ready to go. Turns out we were actually suppose to depart on the 26th. My mate (K) immediately offers to let us punch him in the face for the trouble and mistakes.

 Flash forward 12hrs, and we get an extra confirmation of our tickets to make sure there won't be anymore problems. Unfortunately there is a very big problem - my name is spelled incorrectly. Shaye Antony Holmes, ready for departure! Without a correct name on the ticket, it's impossible for me to get on board a plane, and it's proving impossible for expedia to contact each airline to get it changed. We had to cancel the flights before midnight in order to still get a refund, and rebook them again the next day. However, it'd take 3 business days for the refund to through.

We scrounge up another $5k between us to rebook more tickets, while the refund money is still in the air, scheduled to depart on the 27th.

We're at the airport again, and K loses his passport immediately after using the self-check-in kiosks. We spend the next two hours looking for it without success. K heads of to internal affairs to get an expensive new passport minted, but we quickly encounter a new problem - he's not even scheduled to fly that day. Somehow, his ticket has been cancelled, and he's not feeling too good about the whole situation anymore.

Flash forward a few days, and the original refund money has now gone through, and he's set to join us in Seoul a full week after we all intended to leave initially. In the mean time, J and myself have found the hostel (after a $15 40MB data pack to aide us), ventured into the subway system to find one of the big department stores (540 shops contained therein), gone out for dinner a couple times, and explored the university district in preparation for the big nights to come.

Most importantly though, is relaxing with one of these nearby.

The first week's stay

Roughly our first week of stay will be at the Hongdae Kimchee Guesthouse, in a room not unlike the picture. It's ideally located, as the AREX express train will travel to a station 5 minutes walk from the hostel. 60,000w is about $65 NZD, which will be split between the three of us. Certainly interesting getting a quote for 360,000 cash upfront payment!


http://www.kimcheeguesthouse.com

Why am I going back? Well...

Having stayed there for 4 months previously as an exchange student, I told my mates about how great it was time and time again. Now, that's spurred us into taking a boys trip to South Korea again, and then hitting up Japan while we're in the area.

At the end of my previous journey, I slapped some music on a slideshow of pictures I took while there to commemorate the trip. Two years on, I still watch this video to remind myself of the fun I had, the friends I made, and how much I'm looking forward to going back again.