Friday night and Seoul 1.0

This weekend has been adventure filled to say the least...

Friday night, 10 foreigners from the Gwangju area met for Thai food.  It was a great time and it was so nice to meet other foreigners!  The Thai food was great, I enjoyed (!) a few mugs of beer and good conversation.  After dinner, I was "initiated" into the group by drinking an alcohol that was housed in a big jar with what I think was ginger root.  They called it medicine.  Everything in Korea has a healthful or medicinal purpose whether they say spicy food is good for digestion or seaweed is good for circulation (or something like that...), and I don't what this alcohol's healthful purpose was, but I think I'd rather be unhealthy.  This stuff tasted like really bad Jagermeister...  Not my scene, but it was on the house and now I can say for sure that I have tried it.  Next, a couple of us ventured to my building to watch Emily's hapkido (a Korean martial art) class.  It looked like fun and a good workout and I'm thinking about doing it, but it is offered five nights a week and I don't know if I want to commit myself to getting my money's worth...  After the class, we went out for another pitcher, had a kimchi pancake (I can't remember the Korean name...) and more good conversation.  All in all, a great night on the town!

Saturday, I met Liz (we met at the Korean consulate in Chicago when we were going through the interview process to get our E2 visas) and her boyfriend Barry in Seoul.  They teach preschool in a new city that is on the west side of Seoul.  This was my foray into using public transportation in Korea, or pretty much ever, and it went really smoothly!  Emily had shown me where to get on the bus and explained everything.  The method of paying for public transit is super slick!  There is a small credit-like card called a T-money card that you can fill up with money and each time you get on and off a bus or subway, you swipe the card and it reduces your balance accordingly.  When your balance gets low, you just reload it.  Most convenience stores are able to reload them and there are also machines in the train stations.  Super easy!  After I bought my T-money card, I walked to E-mart to get on the bus because I wanted to make sure I got a seat on the bus for the nearly hour-long ride.  (There is another stop that might be a little closer, but Emily told me that sometimes the bus is filled up by the time it gets to that stop and i would have to stand for much of the ride if there were no available seats.)  I walked up to the shelter and waited.  For 20 minutes.  A bus is supposed to come every five or ten minutes.  I finally realized that I was in the shelter for waiting for a taxi and the bus shelter was down the street. A couple of minutes later, I was on the 1113-1 bus to Seoul.  Once I got to Seoul, I had to take a subway to the place where Liz and Barry's bus would drop them off.  I followed the crowd who had gotten off the bus with me, unsure of where to find the subway station entrance.  Sure enough, the crowd was all headed toward the subway as well.  I followed the (English!) signs to find the train I needed.  Eight stops later, I was at Gangnam station, which is where I was meeting Liz and Barry.  I was 10 minutes late because of the taxi / bus shelter mix up, so I when I couldn't find Liz and Barry at our meeting place, I was nervous that they had left thinking I wasn't coming.  I decided to wait for half an hour just in case they had gone into a shop or cafe.  After 20 minutes, I was contemplating my next move (I didn't just want to come back to Gwangju after traveling for so long, but I had no idea what was in the area and I didn't want to stray too far away from the station by myself...)  Then, all of sudden, here comes Liz and Barry!  (They had arrived at their bus stop just as a bus was pulling away and had to wait 20 minutes for the next bus.)Hooray!  The next several hours were a fantastic introduction to Seoul:
First, we went to a cafe that specializes in fish pedicures.  We got a cup of coffee/tea/smoothie respectively and enjoyed some complementary toast and jam while we waited for our turn at the pedicures.  When it was our turn, we rolled up our pants, washed our feet off in a tub and proceeded to our fish tub.  The whole premise of a fish pedicure is that there are fish in this tub that eat the dead skin off of your feet.  So, for 20 minutes and 2000 won ($1.75ish) fish feasted on our foot skin.  It was awesome!  It took a little while to get used to the feeling of tiny fish surrounding on my feet and between my toes, but after a little while it just felt like a whirlpool jet stream.  (I took a picture of this whole process, but you can't see the fish, so it's not worth posting...)  I know it sounds super strange that fish ate the junk skin off of my feet, but it was seriously cool.  We were in the tub with the smaller fish, but next time we meet, we're getting serious.   The other tub has bigger fish that don't full as quickly, so they do a more thorough job.  The smaller fish mostly tickle your feet, but we were told that the bigger fish do a little more than tickle.  I'll report back next time about the big guys.
Next, we met Janine, another teacher at their school and headed for Itaewon which is an area with a lot of western-style bars and restaurants.  We met up with Janine's friend Jillian, who was celebrating her birthday.  We went to an Irish pub for drinks, dinner and a couple games of darts.  Good time.
Next, we went to World Cup Stadium for a soccer game.  It was Foreigner Night, so along with our 10000 won tickets we got a free beer and hot dog.  We must have redeemed our hot dog vouchers in the wrong place because instead of the western style hot dog that we saw most others enjoying, we got two hot dogs on a stick, two Korean style corn dogs and two deep fried fish cakes.  We enjoyed the game (Seoul won 4-0) and enjoyed some quality people watching too!
Next, we ventured to Hongdae, which is a university district and another place where a lot of westerners go to party.  It had been raining pretty much since we got off the train at the soccer game and many of the sidewalks here are made from a stone kind of like marble that gets really slippery when it gets wet.  I experienced just how slippery it was in the subway station as I walked in, lost my balance and fell flat on my back.  My glasses flew off my face and everyone rushed over to make sure I was okay.  A nice Korean girl handed me my glasses, I got up and we were on our way.  (My tailbone is a little sore, but nothing a few tylenol can't cure...)  Once we got to Hongik, we bought drinks on the street at a place called Vinyl that sells their drinks in i.v. bags (YES.  in i.v. bags, with bendy straws).  Then, wewalked to a park where there is often music to enjoy our drinks.  In Korea, there are no open container laws, so everyone literally walks the street and takes the train with a beer or soju (rice alcohol) in tow.  It's so weird to walk around the street with a drink in my hand...
Next the whole group was going to a nightclub to further celebrate Jillian's birthday.  Liz, Barry and I weren't really in the mood to go clubbing and we certainly weren't interested in the 15000 won cover charge at the door, so we opted to go get some food and a drink and have a chat instead.  We found a nice cafe and ordered some alcoholic Korean rice juice (I can't remember the name but it is sort of like a rice beer, but a little sweet) and had great conversation about several deep subjects.  We were hungry but the menu was all in Korean, so we wondered around looking for a nice place to sit down and eat.  The first place we went sounded good because it was called the No Mess Kitchen.  We wandered up to the second floor of the building to the restaurant, but upon entry they told us they were closed.  The next place was a Japanese place and the menu was also all in Korean.  Barry was so desperate for food that he just pointed to something on the menu and was about to order it when a busboy came over to help us translate,  He informed us that Barry was about to order fried crickets.  New place.  After lots of wandering around at 2 am, we found ourselves in a hookah bar on the fifth floor of a building, eating a little, drinking a little (at this establishment, everyone was required to buy at least one drink regardless...) and smoking guava flavored hookah (a traditionally Middle Eastern flavored tobacco).  It was a great place, the people were really nice and we enjoyed ourselves until about 4 am.  Since the last bus back to our cities runs at 11 and another one doesn't start until 6 am, we had to stay in Seoul for the night, so we decided to just stay up and get on the subway shortly after it started running again at 5 to make our 6 am buses.  We had about an hour to kill but wanted a change of scenery so we went to the neighboring restaurant and ordered a seafood pancake to share.  Once we were done with the pancake, we walked to the nearest subway station and hopped our train.  Sixteen stops later, Liz and Barry got off at Gangnam Station to catch their bus.  We said goodbye and vowed to meet up again next weekend to celebrate my birthday.  They were so fun, laid back and up for anything!  Perfect Korean adventure companions!
Next, I had another eight subway stops to get to my bus stop.  Once I got out of the subway station, I wasn't really sure where to get my bus.  It had dropped me of on the street when I arrived and I wasn't completely clear on where to catch it to get back to Gwangju.  So, after a couple of minutes of wandering around, somehow I found myself at a large outdoor bus stop that housed several different lines.  I found the line I needed and waited for awhile.  To make sure I was in the right place, I stopped a man, pointed to the line I needed and said, "Here?"  He said yes, but I'm pretty sure he had no idea what I was talking about because after about 10 minutes, my bus was nowhere in sight.  Somehow, I spotted buses on the other side of the subway station that looked like a better bet.  Sure enough, my bus pulled up about a minute after I got to the other side of the station.  Perfect.  I was home by 8 am and took a nice long nap.
We had such a great time, but I'm not sure I could handle the Seoul nightlife on a regular basis!  Everything stays open and hopping until about 6 am.  Even the subway ride home was crowded to the point that we didn't get a seat for the first couple of stops.  As the nightlife is winding down and people are going home, other people are getting up and traveling to go to church or work out.  This city is literally never asleep.  It baffles me!...Quite a bit different from Welch Ave. in Ames - that's for sure!  At 4 am as we ate our seafood pancake and watched people out the window, it looked like it was 11 pm and things were just getting started for the night.  What a place!
Needless to say, today has been a lazy day.  I slept for awhile, watched a movie and read quite a bit.  One more week of teaching before my week off for Chusak (Korean Thanksgiving).  I've been told that much of the country shuts down for the week (even ATM machines are turned off, if that tells you anything...), so traveling is a little out of the question.  I think Maria (one of the foreigners I met at dinner on Friday) and I are planning to walk around Gwangju and explore what our city has to offer.  I also might wander into Seoul one of the days, but laying around and thinking about lesson plans should probably be done too...  Regardless, I'm looking forward to a nice nine day break!