- Welcome -: Korea7

Today started out slow~

The first half of the day was spent relaxing in the guesthouse before taking a stroll through Hongdae (홍대).

I walked past where street performers usually gather and stopped to see what the big group of people were looking at. A girl group! I don't know who they were or whether they were "just" (and most likely) amateurs trying out their luck but they had a group name and united greeting down already!
There were, however, too many people out there for me to be able to watch them easily and it was time for food.

I had late lunch at the Japanese restaurant I frequent, using the 30% off coupon they'd given me when I ate there the previous week.

For my next adventures, I walked to Sinchon (신촌) in hopes of a random street festival. There was no festival but I stayed and listened to these two guys for a while.

Although there was no festival, something was going on that day. Tents were lined up and big group of university students were gathered. Under the tents were tables where you could participate in small games.

I played a game where I had to repair a pair of broken chopsticks, pick up something, and put it in a cup within 30 seconds or so. I had the right idea of what to do but did it slightly wrong in the beginning until a couple of cheering Koreans beside me ~~hinted at what to do~~ lent me their wisdom. Thanks to them, I emerged victorious and receive this pack of "sunflower seed chocoballs" as my prize! I was also handed a heatpack by some other students in front of the tents.

This is another thing I love about Sinchon. Whenever there's something going on and it's cold outside, there's a big chance you'll find people handing out little heatpacks for you to put in your pocket and stay warm with. In the summer, I was also at an event where they handed out water and a kind of vitamin drink.

After having been tricked into a short conversation with two cult people (the guy looked super cute., what a shame), I continued towards Ewha in search of funny couple clothes for my best friend Emilie and I. Sadly, my search was unsuccessful.

But I did find this shirt with some super strange Konglish (bad English, Korean style) and bought it. It's become one of my favorite shirts.

I also HAD to take a picture inside this shop. Last summer an maybe even before that, I saw SO many people walking around in blue shirts with the IKEA logo on and I would wonder if they'd ever make a Danish equivalent. WELL LOOK WHAT I FOUND! A LEGO SHIRT!!!! I was so excited!!!!

The other reason I found this shop really cool was that they didn't have any dressing rooms - instead they had a tent (the black thing in the background).

I can't remember what I ate that day (I'm writing this post almost 9 months after it happened) but I must have eaten either too much or just something bad because I started feeling weird as time went by. But alas, I still had more things to do!

When I got back to Hongdae station, I was met by the sight of queue forming in front of the elevator. The escalators were being repaired.. at 6.30 in the evening. I came at a lucky time because soon after, a huge line formed behind us.

After a small break at my guesthouse, I headed back out to have dinner with Jasmin's boyfriend, 재봉 (Jaebong). Jaebong wanted to eat with me and Jasmin had said go for it. We liked to think of this as a 'boyfriend quality check.' Also, I was going to pick up some things from him for her.

Jaebong treated me to buffet in a place called Ashley, located in Jongno Tower (종로 타워).

Jongno Tower is the building to the left with the lit up shape on top, which is actually another restaurant.

It felt like one of the more fancy buffets because of the decor inside. I also happened to accidentally grab what was probably meant to be a decoration (the purple, spiky thing), thinking I could eat it. Woops.

They had this big Halloween-themed area with a big cake that looked like a spider!

Beside it was also a cookie monster cake. I just wanted to eat it because it was blue.

Oh and there was ice cream!

I guess we left around closing time. There had been a lot of people when we were there but here it looks like we're some of the last guests.

In true Korean fashion, we went to have something to drink afterwards.

I had some fruity tea and Jaebong drank this nicely decorated coffee. That Christmas tree cookie was super cute!

It was now around 10.30 and time for me to return to my guesthouse. I'd made plans to go out with Delphine, the most amazing (Belgian?) girl from my hostel and some others.

Jaebong had forgotten the gift for Jasmin so we planned to meet up again another day.

When I got back to Hongdae station, it was ten minutes to midnight and the escalators had now been fixed. Talk about working fast. Sometimes when the escalators are broken here in Denmark, it takes days to fix. Whether this quick way of fixing things is great or not can be discussed but I'd like to stay positive in this case.

I'd considered staying home but the sickness had stayed away (except a false alarm at the subway station) and this was Delphine's last night out before flying to Japan so I wanted to go.

We went out a small group of people from our guesthouse and our 'sister guesthouse' but got split up pretty quickly. I mostly remember spending time with Delphone, a super tall Dutch guy, and a cheeky Swedish boy, who went around telling people that he was Danish for some reason. I definitely had a friendly feud going on with the latter two.

Also, look at this cool car we saw outside!

Delphine introduced us to Club Gabbia (힙합클럽 가비아) in Hongdae, which was probably the coolest place we went to that night. The music was really great and we had a blast.
Tall Dutch Guy (we just called each other by our nationalities) was a total bro all night. When I suddenly felt sick while standing in line outside, he made sure I was okay. And when I got back up after having thrown up in the bathroom, he had a piece of gum ready. Good Tall Dutch Guy.
After that I didn't feel sick at all so I'm almost certain I might just have eaten too much or something wrong.

We went a few more places and at some point were walking outside when I spotted a familiar face - it was the guy I handed the food to last night! He recognized me too and next thing I knew, he had stepped down from the curb he was standing on and was hugging me while thanking me for the food! It was adorable!! Aaaah!

Here's a sign we saw outside the last club we went to. Although the language is a bit funky, I'm happy they're even making signs in English for partying foreigners.

The entrance rules at this place were so strange! We could get in for free but ONLY if we stayed until 4am. The place died out around 03:30, half an hour after we came so the remaining half hour was just spent waiting. When the clock hit 4, we were out of there!

Delphine and I got back to our guesthouse and decided to just eat breakfast while we could since breakfast was only provided until 9 or 10:00 and there was no way we'd be waking up before that once we went to bed.