This past weekend was of course Halloween weekend. Time to dress up, party, and look at drunk people act crazy in the streets while Korean people stood by watched with interest.
I headed to Seoul to party it up with Steph on Friday. This year’s costume was A Thief in the Night. Steph was a gothic bride.
Me as a thief in the night. I think I was watching TV when Steph took the picture.
Goth Bride with veil Steph
Goth Bride StephA sidenote: The MRT in Seoul is so confusing. I went the wrong way each time. Luckily, I didn’t get on the wrong the train, but their platforms are on different sides and you have to go out of the MRT and then go back in. It sucks.
I finally made it to Steph’s house where we put our costumes on (at least somewhat). People really stare at you when you are wearing costumes on the MRT so I kept my mask in my purse and Steph kept her veil in her purse.
We started out in Itaewon (pronounced E-tay-won, I think) where all the foreigner clubs are. All the foreigners and some Korean people were dressed up. Favorite costumes of the night were kimchi, a guy dressed as an old woman, a Swat team, and someone is a white fat suit (I had no idea what he was). The U.S. military base is there so we saw lots of MPs about. At first I thought it was a group in costume, but I took a look at their guns and they were real. We decided that being around them and drunk people was not a good idea so we headed into the UN club. For the people from Taiwan reading this: it’s like Vibe. Dirrty, Nasty, shoes sticking to the floor. Lots of people drinking and trying to dance. We got hit on right when we walked in by a Korean guy in a rainbow striped blazer. He spoke English so fast that I couldn’t even understand him. While talking to him, one of Usher’s old songs came on and I exclaimed, “This is my song!” (Steph will tell you that I say that about every song.) I pulled Steph to the dancing floor leaving behind Mr. Konglish (a mix of English and Korean). The music wasn’t bad. I did the Tootsie Roll dance (flashback to the 8th grade) and listened to random old school rap. Then the MPs came in and Steph and I walked out. No need to be in a nasty club with gun toting MPs.
Steph and I hightailed it out of there and caught a cab to Hongdae where all the university students go to party. We were only walking for five minutes until we saw a brightly lit bar. It had the Chinese character for Good in its name, but in English it went by Ho Bar.
The Ho BarI thought why not? It had three floors and was extremely nice inside. I thought it was going to be dingy, that’s why I picked it, but no. The bartenders were dressed up, but none of the patrons were in costumes.
The issue of the night was who was going to talk to the bartender to get a table. I suddenly couldn’t do it and Steph didn’t want to either so we stood for a good two minutes in the middle of the floor debating who had to go talk to the bartender while the bartender looked on, haha. Steph finally walked up there and got us a table (thanks Steph, just couldn’t do it myself) and our waiter appeared.
This is where things got interesting. He scared the living crap out of me. I couldn’t look at him. He was an angel I think, but his hair was so crazy that I just couldn’t deal. It was extremely short on one side and long on the other, plus he had crazy makeup to match. Steph did the ordering so we got a fruit plate (yes, they do fruit with alcohol here, but that is a whole other blog), a Sex on the Beach for me and a Rum and Coke for Steph. When the waiter came back Steph ended up with a Lemon/alcohol concoction. Let me just tell you that Sex on the Beach and watermelon do not mix. We later order sausages and fries which were very tasty. We spent most of our time watching Korean music videos and listening to hip hop songs.
At about 5 am, we packed it up and headed to the MRT. What is so interesting about this city is its so big that people will sleep in the MRT station until the trains start again the next morning. We walked into the station and there was a band camped out taking a nap, two people laying the floor sleeping, and a whole bunch of people just hanging around. It was wild. Steph and I got on the train with the most diverse group of people. Some were drunk, some were passed out (their friends carried them on), others were like us and waiting for the MRT to open, some were still drinking, etc. The best part was when we were changing trains. As we were waiting, a gorgeous Korean guy stood behind us. He wore the most wonderful black and white belted tattersall coat. He was well dressed from head to toe and still looked wonderful at 5:30 am. I disliked him right away, lol. I noticed immediately that he could understand Steph and I. His ears perked up, this face tilted towards us, his posture shifted. All signs that he was listening. I ignored these facts and just kept on talking. Here comes the best part. The train that we didn’t want arrived first (as usual) and a swarm of elderly people got off. But they didn’t just get off; they ran off and then ran up the stairs. When I say ran, I mean they ran. I was so shocked that I turned to Steph and asked, “What the hell is going on?” That is when tattersall guy leaned forward and said, “They are transferring.” I gave him a look that said, “duh.” (By the way, it wasn’t a “rude duh”, but a “you didn’t answer the question duh”) then looked back at Steph and asked her why they were running, but she could only say how happy she was that we weren’t on the stairs at that time. We would have been seriously injured, or at least I would have knowing my track record for injuries in Asia.
The rest of the way was uneventful. Tattersall guy stood near us on the train, but I lost interest because his belt was twisted and completely ruined his “I still gorgeous at 5:30 in the morning” look.
We finally got home and in bed around 7am. I passed out from exhaustion before Steph got out of the shower. We woke up around 1pm the same day and ate some breakfast (bread and a banana for me, rice for Steph) and headed out to get our hair done and to do some much needed shopping.
Steph has a hair salon right outside her house. It looked nice from the outside and was clean on the inside. They washed our hair and cut Steph’s and styled mine. The best part of it was when they blow dried our hair. Two girls did it at the same time. It was fast and awesome. The girl styling my hair aged me about five years, but I didn’t say anything. I felt bad that she had to do my hair since it is so unruly. In the MRT I was able to fix it and all was forgiven.
Steph on the MRT on our way shoppingWe were headed to Marks and Spencer, but never made it. It ended up not being where we though it was, but we did find an Accessorize where I bought new earring, gloves, and a purse to die for. Seriously, I love this purse. (Mom: the feeling was like when I saw the Coach butter colored purse.) I saw it and made a beeline for it. It’s a medium colored tan leather that’s just big enough for my things, but small enough that I don’t bump into people with it. Simply wonderful. On the way back to the MRT, we stopped in another shopping center and I bought a deep purple scarf and a teal/navy scarf. Quite gorgeous. Steph and I had to hurry since we were meeting her Korean friend at 8. Of course we were late (I am always late), but it wasn’t really my fault this time. A strand of hair decided it want to stick out parallel to my shoulder. Steph stood and watched me (laughing I will add) as I tried my hardest to make it stay down. After ten minutes I gave up and we left (we were only 30 minutes late by this time). I decided on the MRT that I wanted Korean BBQ for dinner, but that is nothing new. Steph has a couple of Korean BBQ places outside her building and I just love the smell. Steph agreed and told me that she was happy I picked the food because her Korean friend was seriously bad at making food decisions. (He compares to Jocelyn, Lindsay and I trying to make food decisions and that is bad.) As we starting walking we told Ireland Boy (his real name is Kyle, but who uses real names) to choose the restaurant. IB is just as bad at picking restaurants as picking a food genre. After a while we stopped walking and I looked at him and asked what does his stomach feel like? He didn’t know how to answer that question so Steph and I started a paper, rock, scissors game to decide. She was curry (we had started to debate the prospect of curry by that time) and I was Korean BBQ. As we were debating on which restaurant to go to, Steph turns to me and said that maybe if we were going to seriously drink we would need more bread in our bellies. (We forgot to eat after breakfast so we were very hungry.) So we changed our food genre again and picked Mr. Pizza. Neither Steph nor I had been there, but I was very excited. I just love their commercials with the singing crab and the girl from My Little Bride. We got rice battered chicken tenders to start (they were weird) and a Mexican pizza that wasn’t half bad. Steph decided that she wanted to go to the hof (like a pub, there was a toddler in there running around in the one we were located) that had a picture of the Taj Mahal on the door, but it looked a bit shady.
IB then took us to a traditional hof across the street and it was great. It was crowded and noisy. I loved it. We had rice wine (grain alcohol basically), three bottles of soju, and some kind of plum wine. They also gave us this crunchy snack that tasted like nothing at all, but was incredibly addictive. We also ate a pancake like thing and a sausage and vegetable dish. Koreans love to eat and drink at the same time. Good times. I even spotted a guy wearing a Baltimore Orioles baseball camp. The doorknob broke about halfway through the night so Steph ended up becoming a doorman for a bit until they fixed it.
Around 3 am or so, things got interesting. A fight broke out in the hof. This fight though was in slow motion. The guys were so drunk that they couldn’t do anything but roll off the table into the floor and fall onto a bench. Lots of pulling shirts and breaking their eyeglasses. I was able to go to the bathroom and come back while they were fighting, it took that long. Their friend just stood there and fixed the tables when they knocked them over. The police finally came and they got escorted out. By then they were friends again (only guys) and left peacefully.
We left a little after 5 am, but didn’t know if we should take the MRT or walk. As we were deciding several Koreans started to talk to us. It was the “Hello, how are you?” dialogue, but it was still funny. We even stopped a fight from happening on the street. These two guys in a group starting arguing and pushing and of course we stopped to watch, lol. One of their friends saw us and shouted “Hello” and everyone turned around and said “Hello”. They forgot about their fight (again only guys) and walked away singing.
I learned something that night. In Ulsan, I walk by this Loreal for Men ad almost everyday and I know the Korean man on it, but I can’t remember where I know him from. It has been driving me crazy ever since. I saw the ad after we left the hof and asked IB and he told me it was the guy from My Little Bride (one of my favorite Korean movies). The relief I felt was awesome. I hate the feeling of knowing something, but not knowing something.
Anyway, we ended up taking the MRT back and were in bed before 7am. We got up again and shopped, but shopped for too long. I almost missed my flight and it was the last flight out for the night. I did get awesome turtle necks though at Marks.
Today Steph told me that we should make each weekend a theme weekend. This was a drunken weekend, last time was an exploring haunts weekend, and next time will be birthday weekend. That should be fun.
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