The end is nigh

Our last weekend in South Korea went as you would expect - drunken nights, and sleepful days. We bailed on our initial plans if seeing a huge night market in Dongdaemun on Friday (in favour of sleep), partied hard Saturday, and again bailed on plans to visit the huge communications tower in the middle of the city. We saw Trasformers instead. 

Saturday, both John and I took separate taxis to get home due to being drunk and lost. In either case, 1km down the road was really as far as they needed to take us before we recognised where we were. We'd have been embarrassed if we weren't stumblingly, sluringly drunk. 

Tonight, after transformers, we went to hongdae park one last time with some soju and coke. It was fairly quiet, so we didn't stay long. A few of the group went to a club, but sensibility prevailed in my case, thinking I should get an early night. Yet, here I am at 4:30 unable to sleep. 

We fly out of Seoul at 3pm Korea time (6pm NZ) to Hong Kong, and have a night flight back to New Zealand, arriving in Chtistchurch about 2:30pm. It's just as well we're going, because we're just about to run out of money. I foresee even more noodles in my immediate future. 

We've had an amazing time here, and will miss our adopted family of fellow hostel goers. David, the manager, probably can't wait to see the back of me. Something to do with all my terrible Irish impersonations. Diddlie-dee potatoes. 

We'll return again to catch up with old and new friends alike, but until then, it's cheers to you, Korea. 

Gombae. 

We cried, we crawled

We headed 9 stops down the line to the Dongdaemun Design Plaza for a little girlish indulgence. The film sets for the Korean drama John and I watched we on display there, so we figured that we'd complete the assimilation and go have a look. 

The plaza itself is seriously strange, with a futuristic twist. 

Inside we were greeted with imagery and media of our intended expo - many of the more dramatic scenes evoking all too fresh memories of the series. Below are shots of the two lead's bedrooms. 

The series used effects similar to those in the Matrix movies, wherein dozens of cameras take a picture from different angles to create a 3D image.

We took a couple photos using this, which were collated into a short movie by the staff for download. 

The expo even had a chicken and beer cafe inside, which was a prominent feature if the series too. Naturally, we had to partake. 

Later that night, John had his sights set on a pub crawl. My heart wasn't in it initially, but with all the effort he had to go through to get it sorted for the hostel (first pub crawl event via them), I had to give him props and come along. 

Unsurprisingly, this is where we met the only other Kiwi we've seen on this trip. Paul, a teacher, had been here for 5 years, and already seemed like he had preloaded a few drinks before meeting. 

I'd heard stories of the Adios drink, so naturally made john drink one. Drinks seemed to magically appear from all angles. The crawl itself was 4 bars and a club with a big screen. 

Illuminated devil ears, foam sticks, flag/ears, and other Korean paraphernalia we all on hand for the party leading up to the game, cheer leaders included. 

Come 5am, the club settled down and everyone watched the Korea vs Belgium game.

Korea fever subsequently died down. 

Eye of the beholder

Today, we met with Yunni and Gina to visit the Trick Eye and Ice museums, conviniently located in the same building (along with the Love museum, but that may take more convincing). 

Being the giant freezer that it is, it reminded me of home. 

It was refreshing after the 28 degree weather we'd forged through to get there, detouring for some BBQ on the way. 

Next up was Trick Eye. There are a lot of very weird scenes to take pictures of in there, for all if which I maxed out my crazy meter to make some of the strangest poses imaginable. 

Haha a bum. These are on the backs of most of the seating. Truly a fun place to visit. I'll add some more pictures after I receive them. 

Plans to visit namsang tower in the centre of the city had to be abandoned due to time constraints. Back on the to-do list it goes, for action during these quickly diminishing last few days. 

Turkish Delight

Unfortunately, we did find somewhere to go drinking at 3am, which is where my story last left off. We shared some drinks with some extremely touchy-feely Korean dudes until about 7am, as it was time to get some breakfast courtesy of Burger King.

Fast forward a few hours, and we haven't had nearly enough sleep, but we soldier on and meet a Turkish friend of mine from when I studdied in Korea. She works at a popular Turkish restaurant in Itaewon (the foreign district), and shouted us a lovely lunch there. 

Lamb was the order of the day. Delicious. Apparently Koreans don't generally like lamb due to its (divine) smell. 

Next stop was the mosque, the major point of prayer in Itaewon for the Islamic community. Due to their beliefs, my friend wasn't actually allowed inside with me, due to that area being designated for men. We somehow skirted the dress code. 

After saying our farewells, we promptly return to the hostel and straight to bed until about 9pm. Still not feeling particularly wonderful, we place our faith in hair of the dog, and cruise through to about 2am, when yet another plan is forged. 

Younes, the frenchie that was leaving later that morning/day, was in gangnam and keen to hit up some karaoke. We debate it for a while, due to how far away it was, but the soju gets the best if us and we find ourselves paying for a taxi across town (still only $15). 

After some prepatiry drinks at a restaurant, we attack the karaoke room come 5am for an hour. I had to refuse any continued singing to get us out of there at a not too horrendous time (again). Even then, we didn't get back to the hostel until 7:30am. I failed in that regard. 

Sleep was short and sweet. John and I had to get up at 11am to check out of the room we had been in, and into another, before we attacked this new, sleep deprived day. 

Coronarita

Sometimes, something looks more delicious to the eyes, than it tastes to the tongue. Today, we found such an item. 

It had been raining with some serious thunderstorms most of today. A few if us in the hostel watched a movie or two to kill the time. No one was really keen on venturing out into the downpour. 

Dinner time rolled round (after having arisen around 2pm), and our second taco experience in Korea (while still avoiding Taco Bell) featured something I had read in one of the Seoul tourist magazines at the hostel - the Coronarita. A margarita with an upsidedown corona beer in it. What could possibly go wrong?

We ordered some tacos and nachoes to go with our monstrous mistake of a drinks order. For some reason, it only dawned on me that a margarita would contain tequila immediately as the first drop hit my taste buds. I'm not a praying man, but oh dear god what had I done?

I regretfully, yet dutifully, finished the toxic drink. Served me right, but hey, better to regret such decisions than to have never lived at all. 

Back to the hostel after we finished for some refreshing Soju and cola. Turns out when you spend $5 on alcohol, and share it with others, they become your permanent drink servers. We seldom had to get up for another drink after that. 

John and I have been planning our final week in Seoul, hoping to make better use of the time than we did in Busan. 

The rest of the week is booked up with activities and meeting with friends, not for the sole purpose of drinking either!

We depart this coming Monday, arrive home Tuesday, and to my horror I'm back at work on the Wednesday. Forget being unproductive, I'm probably going to be sweating alcohol as I try to stay awake throughout the day. I could have sworn I had the Wednesday off as well, but no matter, it's still a short week. 

As John put it, we're going to need a holiday from our holiday after all this.

It's now 3am, and we're heading out to a bar or something with a couple others in search of a quiet drink or two. Hopefully darts will feature! We have a 1pm appointment tomorrow/today, so we can't be out too late. 

Well that escalated quickly

There is a part timer here at the hostel that works Saturdays, Hannah. She's a cute girl, very fun, very Jesus. Christianity is a big thing over here.   

The day had started as any other - John sleeping the day away, poweraide, chicken and beer - elementary things. 

Hannah invited some of her fellow church goers to the hostel. Nice people. One had a guitar and took requests. Good fun, singing and some light drinking. Robin, this dude from Germany who is a part if some Youth With A Mission group, then whips out his guitar, and in no time at all, the common room is filled with the sound of feel-good praise music and singing. Honestly sounded a little brain washy. 

John and I, feeling a tad awkward, decide its time to go out. The Christian band had moved on by the time we left, but came back briefly to try and sway us with blessed sweets.

Off to the park we went, scoring a large beer from the convenience store, to mingle. Out of nowhere came a bongo drum line, and the crowd quickly gathered. 

The music quickly took hold, and drunken party goers quickly descended to dance to the rhythmic beats. Part of the fun included their giving one of the drums to those in the crowd to join in! Our man Younis from France was the lucky first recipient. 

After picking up a couple souvenirs from the local stands (one had a huge hello kitty towel that I wanted (for my Neice) but it was not for sale), we went to that damn Thursday bar again. It was packed. Not so much a bar any more than a club. I somehow ended up with a large feather in my hair as we danced. Don't ask me how. 

Street food was the order of the hour, whatever hour it was. BBQ chicken kebabs!

Time flew by, and I hit the hostel at about 4:30, greeted by a couple guests watching the football. Germany was playing Ghana. After Ghana had scored, I sent a drunken email to a certain work colleague (classy I know) proclaiming Germany's lack of any chance at winning. After reading this, maybe they'll understand how that email came about. They drew in the end, so technically I was right!

TGIF

Busan has possibly been our greatest failure when it comes to doing/seeing anything local, so we made an effort to change that today, our last full day in the city. 

I had to take a picture of this picture of where we went, as it would have required a horrendous journey to get far enough away from Shinsegae to get it all in the frame. 

Shinsegae Centum City is colossal. 14 plus 2 basement levels are connected directly to the subway station, in addition to a subterainian cinema complex and numerous other large department stores. We went looking for the beer festival that was suppose to be occurring, without luck. 

What we found on the 10th floor was and outdoor children's playground and zoo. 

Numerous dinosaurs lined the area, leading up to a great view off the end of the park. 

We returned to the hostel for an extended rest, before hitting up the beach for a midnight swim! Those we had spoken too earlier all said it was too cold now to do so. They obviously don't know a) how cold NZ is, or b) we had been drinking, and are crazy foreigners. We were mildly worried about the cops turning up, given as there was a sign that said "Swimming something". My Korean isn't quite good enough to know exactly what. 

Come 2am, it was off to Thursday Party bar one last time for darts and drinks. John thought he had me dead to rights, before I shocked us both with a hat trick on my final round to win the game. John's win rate remains at about 1 to 5 so far. 

Off for a feed at 4am, but to our dismay, the chicken joints had closed kitchen! Some pork and rice soup was our only reprieve, before heading back to the hostel, ending our last night in Busan. The nearest club had also closed shop, much to my relief. 

We really ought to have accomplished more here, but that just means we'll have something left to do next year. 

Checkout is in 5hrs. Alarms are set. Tomorrow, we attack Seoul, yet again. 

Is it Thursday yet?

Last night, we hit up Thursday again for more beer pong. We really need to stop going there, as it's too easy to drop $100 on drinks when you're having fun. 

Later that night/morning, we hit up the street vendors for snacks. I (think I) had a battered and fried jalapeño, sausage, and chicken-something. Half the fun is not knowing. At 50c a piece - why not have a punt?

It's the third day in Busan now, and we still haven't really accomplished anything except drinking too much, spending too much, and sleeping half the day away. 

So at the crack if 2pm we got out of bed and bought some soju. Standard really. Come 10pm after a mild drinking session, we went to the beach to swim! Not usually the sort of thing you do after drinking (and we didn't even wait 20 mins first), but it was 21 degrees at that stage, and still is as I write this now at 4am. The water was great, really refreshing, despite thinking I would develop an ear infection due to how much water I thoughts had gotten into my ear. It's happened before!

After showering back at the hostel, we played some jenga with a few fellow hostel goers. Build it, and they will come, as the saying goes. We strategically left the ready-to-play game on the bench directly in front if the entrance to the common room. We rebuilt the trap several times while releasing our captives and headed off to our love-to-hate bar (now) Thursday Party. There were a couple of familiar faces, but we stuck to the dart board this time. 

I staged an epic comeback and thrashed John in every game, despite how evenly we were matched most of the time. 

We have one more night in Busan, but hopefully we will actually get something done during the day here. We plan to attack Centum City just a few subway stops up the line, the worlds largest department store, before getting sloshed and fare welling Busan come Friday morning. (probably at Thursday Party bar). 

Train tickets back to Seoul are expected to be around $55 for the 3hr trip, of which we will probably sleep through, as we have to check out by 11am. Far too early for us...

Busan, whosan?

We didn't really expect much to become of tonight, but when has that ever stopped us?

A jaunt through the market left us nearby our favourite beer pong bar - Thursday Party - to which we had to patron. 

John was far too sober, and thus too accurate with his shots. Somehow, we recruited a couple Koreans, of which if was impossible to explain the rules to, for several more games. Both John and I had to to barf in order to keep playing. Such a sorry state of affairs. 

Worse still was fighting them off if of us later on. We all went for BBQ, which was great, but Mr Korean refused to let us go after the meal. 

30 mins after everyone else was smart enough to go home, John and I had to convince the Korean dude to taxi home by himself, while we walked home. He wasn't too happy about letting his new bff's go, but we managed, and got to the hostel by about 5am (Tuesday morning).  

Time to sleep in. 

Daejeon, Daejeon

An hour on the KTX on Friday and we found ourselves in Daejeon. $25 and speeds up to 300kph make for a quick trip. 

Friday night was spent resting, lamenting the theft of our power adaptor from the hostel. Saturday, we met with our friend Yan, and she helped us purchase a couple new ones. Some more cheese beansu went down well and cooled us off. 

It was then back to our hotel to change and get ready for a night out. This is where I find the adaptor at the bottom of my bag, hah hah. We started with a very cool BBQ place that let's you bring your own meat. Of course, this makes the butcher located downstairs the source of choice. 

We were then taken to a traditional tea house on the outskirts if Daejeon for some Lotus Leaf tea. The place would make a great date spot. I felt very special. 

Next, we hit the town to visit my old haunts, Yellow Taxi and Sponge Bar. Great to see the old bars again, though Sponge had turned into something of a club. Home by about 5am. 

It's Sunday now, and we met with a friend from the university, Hyung Min. She shouted us lunch with a surprising twist - spicy chicken with cheese! Not bad at all. 

After that, we walked up to the university dormitories, something we had to do many a time after having gone to the local restaurants and bars when I studdied there, and checked out the local sculptures along the way. It looked as though they were building a few more dorms too. 

After walking back down the hill, we retreated from the heat back to the hotel. We failed to find anywhere to do our laundry this time, and we've resigned ourselves to doing it at the new hostel in Busan tomorrow. Feeling kind of dirty now. 

For tonight though, we will hit up one more favourite bar to say hello to the owner, Mr Lee, shoot a tequila (even though I hate it, but it's tradition) and listen to some Bob Marley (traditions rarely make sense). 

Edit:

I was shocked and appalled to find that our intended destination, a bar called Santa Claus, had bee replaced by a bank. We drowned our sorrows with Long Island ice teas and played a few rounds of darts, before going for some chicken and beer. 

Preparing for takeoff

Accommodation is all booked and waiting for us in Daejeon and Busan. 3 nights Daejeon, and 4 in Busan. Saturday and Sunday we have planned to meet friends at our favourite haunts. I'm just happy we didn't have to stay at a jimjilbang (open spa/sauna) for the duration. Would have been 5x cheaper, and 100x times more restless though. 

John and I were watching our first and favourite k-drama series until 8am, as usual. We found out that the actual movie sets for it have gone display in Dongdaemun, a half dozen subway stops down the line. When we get back to Seoul in a week, we plan on checking them out, to further cement our Korean assimilation. 

At 11 am, I decided it was too hot to sleep and went to check out the shops, planning future purchases for when we return (and for when my pay comes through, running on fumes here!). I'm heavily in overdraft to the Sleep Bank, and that bank always collects in the end. I image I'll coma out for 16hrs one of these days. 

One thing I did buy though, is a couple volumes of a Korean comic/manga/man what that I've only read through in English. I will surely be the envy of my nerd friends. 

Being our last night in Seoul, we having a couple drinkies to get us in the mood for whatever plan gestates. Sickness be damned. Surely the purifying qualities of Soju can act as medicine!

Drama, the good kind

Pretty quiet past day or so. John and I stuck inside from the rain, nursing our broken immune systems. 7 days of drinking had to have some kind of negative effect I suppose. 

We stayed up until 9am watching movies, most notably a Korean rom/com with no subtitles. Surprisingly enjoyable, My Sassy Girl was an immensely popular and high grossing movie when it was released over a decade ago. 

A few hours shut eye and we've moved into K-drama territory, powering through half a dozen episodes via streaming. My Love from Another Star has some serious humour, in addition to its neat effects and gripping plot line. One episode is all it took to hook us. 

We will probably power through until daylight, then go out for some breakfast. 

Party in the Park

We decided to have something of a farewell party for Peter, one of the volunteers here at Kimchee. As per usual, this consisted of a stupid amount of soju - I opted for 2 1.8L bottles from the nearby mart for 9000 won, which works out to be half the price of getting it at the local 7/11, and only $11 NZD. 

At around 11pm, we sallied forth from the hostel, and found ourselves playing the game of kings:

10000 won for a game, which includes the beer. 

Charging on, we congregate in the park as so many others do to chill out and drink with strangers. It's not hard to find people that speak English, and while I do enjoy trying to speak Korean, it makes everything a lot easier. Surprising to see cockroaches there, but then again, considering how dirty the area is, maybe not. They went crunch under foot. 

Being the gentlemen that we are, John and I walk some random lass home, for the second time in recent nights, and get back to the hostel about 4:30, with snacks. 

Lunchtime today (yes, it was actually an acceptable time to still be considered lunch) consisted of traditionally fried chicken, curtesy of KFC. John then bailed and went back to bed like a nanna, and is still there as I write this at 6pm. I then went to have a look at the local chain department store, Lotte World, to check out the bookstore and clothing shop. Found a number of Korean Language study books and some survival guides, but nothing that really too my interest at this stage. May pick up a couple neat looking t shirts from the Uni Qlo store, after having lost what I had got from there in Japan. The dress shirts are far to trendy for me though. 

The rain seems to have dissipated and the thunderstorm rolled out, but I doubt I will get up to much more today. John and I need to book our accommodation for Daejeon and Busan this weekend, as we checkout on Friday. Busan should be easy because we are there on weekdays, but Daejeon could be a problem this weekend due to lack of hostels, and late booking. 

Murdered in Gungnam

We started with the best Korean pizza/pancake in town, and the praise for it is not undeserved. It was complemented by various other battered/fried veges and mushrooms too. 

 

A couple beers and soju later, we head to a very cool and popular restaurant a few train stops away. 

This place was packed. Good music, good atmosphere, good food. Most amazing though was the beer pourer. You would put you glass in, and it would tilt it, pour it, and give it back to you, with just a touch of head on it. 

 

We were given a numbered buzzer, which we could just show the cooks, and have them buzz us to know when the dish was ready. There were dozens of them in the central strip of the restaurant, all with examples of what they'll cook on display. 

Jake had missed his last train, and we managed to convince him to party. Next, we head to the local NB (Noise Basement, club). Things were pretty mild until a Korean hiphop duo get on stage to perform. The crowd surges forward, and I promptly lose track of John and Jake. 

I don't understand a word of the performance, but the crowd is electric.

A couple hundred dollars between us of jäger bombs later, and we emerge from the club at about 4:30, get back to the hostel about 5:30, and while I don't actually remember going to bed, wake up to the sound of the kimchee staff cleaning the room. Who the hell is cleaning the room so early? They've never done this before, we were thinking. 

Turns out it was 2pm. We managed to crawl regretfully out of bed for an hour, only to go back and rest until about 8pm, and emerge for chicken and beer at our local restaurant for breakfast/dinner.  The day has been wasted, really. All the drinking must have weakened my immune system, as I seem to have caught Johns cold to boot. 

And that's Gungnam.