So after celebrating my birthday solo Wednesday & Thursday - the gang came to enjoy the festivities on Friday after school.
We met in "Kondae" which is the area that surrounds Konkuk University - and is considered one of the more vibrant areas in the city for younger people. However, it hasn't cracked into the mainstream places to go out for foreigners (Hongdae and Itaewon) and so there is still some mystery to it.
Mystery and a lack of white people.
We had a delicious and surprisingly lavish Galbi dinner (barbecued meat) and polished off some bottles of soju.
I'll keep the rest of the night undetailed here but it ends with my having chased after a Korean lady for some hours and her ultimately falling asleep on a chair in the bar. She must not have understood me when I told her it was my birthday.
40 times.
Saturday was the highlight though, the birthday gem, the gift that you don't need to wrap because it's just THAT good.
I knew I wanted to do something different for my birthday. Not to mention I had to compete with the previous weekend (New Years) and the coming weekend (Malaysia), so I summoned my powers of creation and birthed a Korea-style Scavenger Hunt.
I divided the group into 2 teams; flipped some coins to determine who was with who and gave some point value to certain challenges. I'll throw up a bunch of pictures because those tell the story better.
The pics are only of my team, as we promised not to show the other team pictures until we counted the score up and possibly made videos of our experience. These haven't been posted anywhere or seen by anybody, yet.
Also, I made a rule that each team had to have a mascot that was featured in every picture - which is why you see the tiny Cubs ball being held up in all of these........
AFTER the hunt (which my team most likely won) we continued on with the bizarre parade.
I had randomly done an internet search for interesting and unique things to do in a certain area in Seoul and came across a once-a-month art/clothing flea market that happens at night and in a storage/container warehouse.
typified unique.
oh, wow, i can't believe I forgot - they also have German beer on tap, hot wine and a scattering of other alcohols that aren't easy to come across here.
we shopped around and drank. hipsters were abound and a few of us managed to come away with some pretty sweet and ridiculously affordable garb. some, more than others - cough joanna cough -.
It was certainly different than what we were used to and we'll most likely be back again - assuming its a different sort of showcase each time.
Sunday we went to Costco - my first visit. Actually it was my first visit in my life.
I don't general like being in such large, out of focus, more-warehouse-than-store type places and so I had never been.
the group wanted pizza. pizza we got. decent. quinn's bulgogi bake (a sort of Korean philly cheese steak) might be the only thing that'd get me back there. that or an immense craving for more townhouse crackers.
After that the guys decided to skip out on basketball in favor for indoor screen golf. played the worst round of my life.
and had some friends stay over at my place sunday night and leave early in the morning - perhaps they were too exhausted to leave. perhaps they just love Guri City THAT much.
anyway it was a terrific birthday weekend that was as much fun as it was unique. one i will remember for a long time!
and now I have begun my packing for my three week excursion to SouthEast Asia. I leave Friday night but I'll drop a line here before I do.
thanks for reading.
e.g.
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