My First Seoul Train

 

Magician in the museum

 

Going up to the War Memorial there were hundreds of volunteers lining the path to meet you. When the realized me and my other co-worker Seth were American the decibles doubled and the "Kamsahamnida"s changed to "Thank You"........Thank You for what? I would soon recognize the US' role in the Korean role was huge.....but I had been ignorant to the fact....thanks for nothin' junior year US History. Truly moving experience

The festival was a unity celebrate for those who want unification with North Korea. There's a song that goes with it (first video). The most memorable moment was singing the New Year's Eve song in English while a little girl next to me sang the words in Korean. She looked up and smiled, as if to to say "I understand". I almost started to cry. Who needs words when you have music????

Music nerd moment----annnnd we're back

These are the long lost Seoul videos that I've finally downloaded after my second weekend here.....wow....can't believe it was four months ago. So many people have come and gone by then. Korea is not the place to get attached....again.

 My second weekend in Korea happened to be a three day weekend...so what else do you do? GO TO SEOUL DUH.

I went there and met up with a friend of a friend (thats how you meet the most interesting people in life) that I know from Blue Lake in Europe just this summer! Talk about connections....and that my friends is why I love facebook.

Anywho, we clicked right away. Her name is Jin and she is a student at William and Mary if I have my facts right. she went back there last week to start up her last year there. She is studying to be a CPA, I hope she did well on the test she was taking a study break from just to come meet us. It took her an hour to get to us because she lives on the opposite side of Seoul....again...one of the biggest cities in the world.

We ended up heading up to the Hongik Univ. Museum of art...which was overpriced. So as we were mosying around the park and touring the campus we heard plain old English (Jin's English is SPECTACULAR! She even says things like "alrighty") so of course we were nosy newbies and butted in. Turns out they were from from Alexandria/Springfield VA. Close to William and Mary where Jin goes to school and in the same town that my dad and stepmom live in. SMALL WORLD. We went on down to this Optical Illusion museum thanks to Seth C's travel guide. It was a blast. Pictures on FB! (sorry, I dont have time to post in two places).
The pics tell the story.

Needless to say we were all great new friends by the end of our happen-stance day!

And then that night....

Seth C wanted to go to sleep early after a long day of being a tourist. I HOWEVER, would be damned if I payed 100 bucks to get to Seoul and didn't party my behind off. Besides, I had only been up and into my Taco-searching hangover for 6 hours and wasn't about to go to sleep!

(For info on that night, see the previous post about the Bar Crawling with the German guy!)

I wandered the streets near the university. Determined to do SOMETHING in one of the biggest cities in the world......and just as I said that aloud to myself amidst the crowds. I bumped into none other than the German guy who helped me stumble the night before!

I ended up going to a posh karaoke spot with a Korean girl 3 Parisians, and a guy from Lubeck Germany. They all new a little Japanese except for me. They procceeded to scream broken Japanese into the microphone in a room that was stone and echoed (if I hadn't had known we were in Korea I would have guessed we were in the middle east by the way the room was deocrated) while flailing around and air-humping the poor Korean girl. She didn't hate it. Although the guys from France were total assholes....even if they were funny. They're French......... They kept mocking the Korean accent but in a way that helped the girl understand what we were saying. Needless to say Im staying in that hostel another night this month!

The German, The Parisians, even the Korean had been studying Japanese! This is a J-POP (Japanse-pop as opposed to Korean K-POP group)

Here's what they were screaming........:

Kara- "Mister"

Rainbow- "To Me"

(you can actually hear the lyrics "fancy car" if you listen close)

I only wish I could figure out how to upload my cellphone vids of the inside of the karaoke room!

IF I ONLY KNEW.....US SOLDIERS CAUSE FIGHTS.....DUH....so some places straight up just wont let you in......After a 20 min jog back to the hostel to get my passport to get into the club I was finally in.

This is where it gets to be like a movie. I can remember Shaggy's "Fuck the Recession I'm Spendin' " song came on.....and thats what I did.

I made my way to the lighted dance floor and got on stage, naturally. I had a great view of the crowd and could map out the whole in one glance, although I couldn't distinguish faces  through the fog machines and body heat. Then I make eye contact with a guy across the crowd....he throws his head-back as if to say "what's up"....I throw up my best thugged-out peace sign....and if you know me...it ain't nothin' to brag about....and he smiles and starts gettin' his friends to "waddup" me back....wait.....was I a novelty?????


...........that's when I realized I was black..........


The guys from Paris I came with were tryin' real hard to get laid that night. But nobody other than them was trynna grind up on people. Looking around I realized that this club.....and all of the ones I would go to.......weren't really for hookin' up....just ...well.......dancing.

.................I was in a new world

Soon after that I ended up getting tapped on the shoulder by a Korean girl. I screamed over the music, and  had barely introduced myself when she screamed back at my "jennuntahnix!".......................'scuse?

"johnnuhntonex!!!"

I went to the bar and came back with a drink for myself (little did I realize no one dances with a drink in their hand here--the Korean mating dance is to fast and jerky to much to avoid spilling anything you might be nursin') only to be confronted again with the Kimcheezyest smile

"Where's mine?"...she croaked

Oh snap

"I'm Michelle!".......I put 2 and 2 together and translated her slurred robotic English to = Gin & Tonic....OH!!


.....................since then I've had lots of broken-drunken-robotic-scream-over-the-music-or-too-soft-because-Im-scared-to-use-the-alien-language-the-mass-media-drilled-into-me-for-my-whole-life" translation practice with my Korean friends now.

I brought her her drink and from the corner of my eye I saw a guy nod/bow to his dance partner before leaving her, thanking her for the failed opportunity to woo her.......SO THATS HOW THEY DO HERE???

I'm down for new dance moves....but bowing to dance partners??? Don't worry, I haven't seen it since.

Let's end this "Michelle" bit with the fact that she said "you're tight" with a fake "did you think that was cool?" grin of hers.......


......I bowed and left.