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!