After being in Korea for two months, Aaron and I decided that it was finally Seoul time. I suppose the fact that my only American friend was in town for her last weekend (before going back to the black hole that is China) was a pretty good reason. Oh, and it was Aaron's and Brian's (a fellow Feinschule-er?) birthday as well. We rounded up our new found friend, John Howard, the Irishman, and jumped on a 3 1/2 hour bus to Seoul. The kind Korean struck once again and the dude (for failure of a better term seeing as how he was not a child but also not yet a man and young adult sounds too Twlight oriented for me) wrote down very detailed directions on how to get to Itaewon on the subway. We arrived in the foreigner section of Seoul with two things on our minds 1) hamburger 2) Guinness. We succeeded in the search for a burger and were soon sitting outside, stuffing our faces, and staring at more white faces in one place than we have seen since arriving in Korea.
Thoroughly full and happy we met up with Leigh (the one responsible for my delinquency in Busan) and her two friends from the states, Annie and Ashley. Thankfully they were smarter than us and had arranged a place to stay for the evening, so we wound our way down some narrow stairs and dirty alleys until we came upon the apartment. The room was surprisingly big and all six of us found a spot on the bed or in the corner to lay our heads that night. Seeing as how half of us were on the floor and the other half were on a bed that was harder than the floor we all decided that drinks a plenty were in order.
We started the night out by going down to an incredible University area full of shops, bars, restaurants, and thousands of people our age. Our quest for dinner took us down a a very strange path. We followed our noses to a restaurant that was packed (usually means the food is awesome) and stepped in to ask for a menu. The host explained that the only thing they were serving was cow guts. All of us rolled our eyes, thinking "yeah right, you can just say you don't want foreigners here, cow guts, pffft." But then when the exact same thing happened at the next restaurant and then the next, we realized something was wrong. Leave it to us to find the only street in Seoul full of cow intestine only eateries. We finally did find some delicious bulgogi (spicy pork that you eat with a plethora of dishes including rice, kimchi, garlic, bean paste, more kimchi, and lettuce to wrap it all up in) and soju.
After eating our fill we made our way to a fancy bar to meet up with Brian and the rest of his birthday posse. A few embarrassingly garlicy introductions later and we finally had our Guinness (never mind that they were served in baby glasses) and were ready to get wild. A couple of blurry hours later and Aaron and I found ourselves in a taxi heading home with Ashley, leaving John and Leigh to drink the night away (which they did admiringly well).
The next painful morning Aaron, John, and I made our way to a pub for a real English breakfast complete with hashbrowns, bacon, sausage, eggs, toast, and Irish coffees. I cannot stress enough how excellent that breakfast was seeing as how proper breakfast is very hard to come by here. Another 3 1/2 bus ride later and we stumbled into our small apartment with smiles on our faces and a very successful weekend under our belts. The spoonful of Seoul we tasted was just enough to convince us that we need to take many trips north to see all that the city has to offer.
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| Saw this gem at a bus stop. |
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| The view from the apartment. |
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| Dinner. |
