Coming to a country where you know absolutely no one got super lonely, especially in the beginning. I was glad to go out and experience some night life with co-workers I was just getting to know, and training group people who I absolutely adored hanging out with. Of course, going out all night and coming home at 8AM in the morning takes a toll on the body and I couldn't handle it. I'm glad where I am now, hanging out late in coffee shops and going home to my nice warm bed. Fri Mar 5/10
My boss (at the time) Jason drove us to Yeongtong. The Yeongtong branch is our sister branch and the city is about a 20 minute drive from Dongtan. It's owned by the same terrifying Branch Manager (BM). It's our sister branch because many of the Yeongtongers got transferred to Dongtan when it just opened up so all of their friends are still there, including Jason's girlfriend Maggie who is Head Instructor (HI) as well.
The original crew (Steph, Ken, Dan): on our way to Pavox Bar in Yeongtong after eating some delicious pizza. Me and Steph had some Cherry Bomber thing drink where they light it up on fire and the guy did crazy cool tricks. It was very surreal
Joe from Yeongtong Branch and coincidentally, one of the 100 people in my training group. This was back when I absolutely adore(d) him
After drinking quite a number of beers, strong islands and some shots, this huge calculator seemed hilarious at the time. After a quick puke, we headed to Noraebang. To quickly sum up the night: Dan fell asleep on Steph, Ken was wasted and couldn't put on his own shoes, and Quinn took his pants off.
Korea Tidbit #1: Noraebang or literally "sing + room" is Korean for karaoke. It's a big deal here, they're open almost all night and it's ridiculously cheap to go.
Sat Mar 6/10
The next day, Stephanie and I headed to Seoul where she took me to Myeong-dong, a popular shopping district.
Passing by Metapolis
M4403, or what we call the "M bus" which is the most comfortable and convenient bus one can take to go to the heart of Seoul in Gangnam. For about 1900 won, expect to just magically fall asleep and wake up just as the bus is getting off the highway at your destination.
My first look at Myeongdong. The streets are always crowded with people and there's tons of stores here
One of me and Steph's first (of soon to be many) hang outs. I never thought we would become so close friends. Go us Canadians...
This is what I came for... my dream come true, need I say more?
My heaven has 3 floors.
Steph bought yellow converses (which inevitably lead me to my eventual purchase of my off-green chucks which btw are only 38,000 won. What a freakin steal), I forgot what I bought but we ended off our night eating gelato at 9:30PM. I then had to leave to meet up with my training group buddies in Hongdae
Korea Tidbit #2: Hongdae, which is the area surrounding Hongik University (N/W Seoul) is a bustling area for students and foreigners. You won't experience the night life of Seoul unless you've been to Hongdae, which is packed with bars, clubs, eateries and shopping.
It all started at Hobar...
There are many Hobars, but when I first came to Korea, we got acquainted with this one Hobar that everyone kept going back to because of the cheap drinks.
Here is a bunch of pictures of me at the bar with my fellow trainees, I will introduce you to them:
Josh and Chris, also fellow Canadians. Josh is actually from Laurier and the same year as me, what a freaking coincidence. We have a billion of mutual friends. I met him on the subway
Melissa was in both of my training sessions, and we were each other's emotional support. We both started off crappy but she got better and I remained crappy during training. It was nice having some crying sessions with her in the bathroom
Beside me is Mike Lee, the Korean American I met at the hotel. The bunch of us wandered Gangnam together the day before training
Octavian and Priscilla are friends with the others and I just met them in one of our countless outings
I knew Omari through training sessions and the bunch of us would eat lunches together and spend time at the cafe prepping
Beside me is Huong, a fellow Viet girl from California. She was in my listening training class but I didn't start talking to her until all the training group people started hanging out
Lee is the sweetest Brit alive. I met him through training and he would spend time with us prepping at the cafe as well
Joe. He was in my listening training session and right away, I knew he was a cool and funny guy. While everyone was panicking for their mocks, he was the one who always volunteered to go first and just did it effortlessly
Some of us...
... more of us. We all went off our separate ways to round 2...
... SKA - foreigners free. I don't know why the call it that, they don't play Ska music. This was my first clubbing experience in Korea and I actually danced and had a lot of fun. Clubbing is different here, people just do it to dance and enjoy themselves. There's no dirtbags trying to grind up on you or try hitting on you, and there's no skanks whoring it up on the dancefloor (for the most part.) After clubbing...
... we wound up at the Hookah bar where we were joined by everybody else. I basically passed out for a while here and ended up going home at 5AM. It was quite the experience but that was my first weekend in Seoul and the first of many...
before things went sour
To be continued
One Comment
your posts reminded me of "trapped in the closet" LOL. you know, how there's a twist at the end... and the "to be continued" sign.
LOL.
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