What happens in Itaewon...

My birthday started rather mild, beer, soju, Game of Thrones (omg that ending), but the rain couldn't stop us from getting out and about for the night. 

John and I team up with a couple guys from the hostel - Daniel and Leigh, an American and an Aussie, to hit the town. Daniel we met at the hostel last year, along with a few others we still keep in contact with. Somehow, a plan was forged over soju last night to come over here again next year and all get together to relive the good tines. 

So we all hop in a taxi to Itaewon and hit up the red light district. Daniel gave us a guided tour of where it's ok to be, and where it's not. We were only having a look around when one such lady of the night wrapped her arm around mine and proceeded to try and pull me into her illicit sex dungeon - well that's what I though she was suggesting, my Korean is not quite that good yet. After tearing myself away, I was assured that she was not all she appeared to be - and so that's how I was accosted by a lady boy. 

Beers, whiskey (in the form of birthday shots courtesy of some Canadian pilots we met) and some games of pool had me quite drunk by 1am, so in the taxi we went back to the hostel. The others stayed out a bit longer in the more local bars, whole I showered and slept. 

Not bad for a Monday night, really. Now, we recuperate before going out to meet some friends again. The plan was to hang out along the Han river (a popular social gathering/drinking spot), but the rain has washed that plan out. I'm sure no good can come from whatever we end up doing anyway. 

Trifecta

We began yesterday with the previously mentioned tacos and beer. Late lunch consisted of chicken and beer, then we topped it off with pizza and beer at a hipster pizzaria. 

Hostel mates decided we couldn't stop drinking until midnight, when my birthday rolled around, so we powered through a few bottles if sojuice, ever offering some to the new entrants of the common room. 

Today, we're going to watch game of thrones over food and drink at the hostel, and no doubt end up on the town to party for my birthday (29, but Koreans add one, making me 30 in Korean age, omg!)

Hitting the ground running

A whirlwind journey puts us at the hostel come 4:30 on Saturday, and we're told the common room is out of action due to flooding. Only thing to do in 30 degree heat is go find us some beers. 

Of course, we got lost for 20mins and thus had no time for pre-meeting beers, and thus waited at the train station for Yunni snd Gina, two friends from our last trip. 

A couple servings of fried chicken, several bottles of soju, and a couple jugs of cold beer hit the spot. We had died and returned to chicken & beer heaven. 

One restaurant wasn't enough though - we follow this up with two cocktail bars before returning to the hostel, more alcohol in hand. I don't remember how clean the common room was to start with, but we and a few other guests certainly made a mess. Friendships were made and forgotten in a haze of alcohol. 

Today, we are recuperating, with tacos. 

What goes down, comes up

Made it to Hong Kong after copious amounts of Jack Daniels. The layover time in Auckland was all of 25 minutes after landing to when we had to board, which left us worried as to getting to the international airport and getting through customs in such a short amount of time! We managed to squeeze a Hawaiian BK chicken burger in before boarding, which didn't stay down for long after the inflight meal :S

Hong Kong customs pointed out it wasn't a good idea to take a bullet shaped key ring through the X-ray scanner, but let me take it anyway. 

Now I'm hungry...

Chch airport

Here we go!

Trouble already...

First sign that everything is not going according to plan - John stayed up until 4am drinking/cleaning, put his head down for a quick nap before his 7am flight down to Christchurch, and proceeded to sleep through any and all alarms he had made.

A couple hundred dollars later, he has now arrived here in Christchurch, a few hours behind schedule.

I think I'll triple check my ticket now...

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!