Seoul Lantern Festival

I went to the Seoul Lantern Festival that was during the month of November. I couldn't believe how pack it was. I went on a Monday night after work and there were so many people. I did hear the weekends were worse, so I guess it worked out that we went on a weekday. Unfortunately, we took too much time at dinner before we headed to the festival and our visit was a little rushed. I was amazed how beautiful all of the lanterns were. At the time, the weather was chilly but nothing compared to what it is now.

Itaewon Adventure

On Saturday I went to Itaewon to meet with a friend. This City was filled with foreigners. It felt like I was back in the States. We walked around and then had dinner at a Mexican restaurant called Taco, which was good considering we were in Korea. We then went to Starbucks and hung out there for a while. Once it cooled down out side, we went to What the Book, it is a bookstore with used books. You can also go there and sell your books. I purchased Korean for Dummies. Hopefully I will I can learn some Korean :) 

Afterwards we went to a bar and had a few drinks and started to go back around 10:15 pm. By the time I got to Seoul Station it was 11:00. I am not sure if the subway stops running at 11:30 or 12:00, but it was defiantly closing soon. I went to the train station, and there were no more trains going back to Pyeongtaek. I went back to the subway, but by the time the metro I needed to take back home came it was 11:20 and I didn’t want to risk taking it and it stopping at some random City since I knew it would take an hour and a half to get out to Pyeongtaek, so I stayed in Seoul for the night. 

I think I stayed at a love motel. The other option was a jjimjilbang, but I did not want to sleep in that heat again. When I paid for my room I got a toothbrush. Inside there was a TV, air-conditioner, a shower, and I also think there was X Box. The next morning I walked around the city for a while, but everything was closed. I don’t know if that was because it was Sunday or if it was still too early, but it was after 9:00 am. I had breakfast at Dunkin Doughnuts and took a train back to Pyeongtake.

I went to Diaso, which was at the station. Diaso is a store for home stuff for really cheap. I went there with the intention to buy a new shower curtain, but came out with all this instead:

Everything was under 30,000 won

3 Day Weekend

I just got here and I already had a 3-day weekend! Monday was a holiday and Brooke invited me to go to Seoul. We left Saturday morning and took the train, which only takes an hour to get to Seoul station. I could also take the subway, but it takes an hour and a half. We met up with other people at the station and headed to rocKorea concert in Midan City. To get there we had to take the subway to the airport and then there was a free bus to take us to Midan City.

The concert had started earlier in the day and was going to end the next morning, and breakfast would be served at that time. We all had high expectation of this concert, and we were all disappointed when we got to Midan City. The Concert was in a random, isolated, location. There was no ‘city’; the area was covered in dirt. There was nothing else around. The location was also smaller then expected. They were charging 40,000 won to get in but luckily we got a discount and only paid 12,000 won, which was still high considering the circumstances. We had planned to stay the night and had set an area with our blankets. As the night progressed, the concert did not get any better. By 11:00, some of us deicide to go elsewhere. 

By the time we exited the concert the free buses were no longer running. The five of us decided to take a taxi to Hongdae. I think the taxi driver charged us 65,000 won. He seemed upset about lowering his price, and before I knew it he was driving at 200 kph! Luckily there were minimal cars on the highway. The rest of the night was spent dancing away at a bar/club in Hongdae.

We decided to get some sleep, but had nowhere to go. Some people had recommended we stay at a love motel. We where told they are very nice and very cheap. Brooke had also suggested we go to a jimjibang, a Korean bath house (apparently you can also sleep there). We asked people on the streets for either one but no one knew of one in the area. Finally we got in a taxi and requested he take us to a jimjibang. By 5:00 we had arrived at the jimjibang, which was on top of a hill. I had dozed off in the taxi and when I got out it seemed we were really far away from the city. This place was surrounded with greenery.

When we walked in, we had to take our shoes off. We paid 10,000 wons for a day pass. The receptionist gave us a gown to where. We then got a locker for our shoes. We proceeded into the girl’s locker room. We gave our shoe locker key to the lady at the front desk who gave us another key to a locker for our belonging. We changed and looked for a place to sleep.

There were 5 stories, and each level was really warm. People were sleeping on the floor through out the spa and some were even sleeping with a wood pillow. We found a spot in the gym with two mats and a small hard pillow. We got kicked out of the gym at 10:00, and I woke up really hot. We went to the locker room and prepared for the spa.

So incase you don’t know, the whole spa experience is done naked! Yup, I had just met Brooke a few days ago and now we were going to get to know each other a little better. She promised it would stop feeling uncomfortable after a few minuets. I think I was so exhausted that I really didn’t care I was walking naked in front of everyone. I will see how I really feel about it next time.

First we had to shower and then we went into one of the Jacuzzis. I got a better look at the place it was not as luxurious as I had imagine it to be. In one section there were showers. In a corner there were women in black see through underwear giving massages to naked clients. Then there were booths to take showers sitting down. Theses seemed to be more popular than the regular showers. Then there were to cold pools.

Once we were too warm, we went into one of the pools, but it was too cold to get in, so we went into the other cold pool. When we cooled down we went into another Jacuzzi. This Jacuzzi seemed to have some sort of oil in it that smelled good. We then decided we wanted to try the really cold pool, but would get into the regular pool first to get our bodies used to the cold and then go in to the really cold one. When we got into the really cold one, this lady was getting in and decided to help us. Before I knew it she was pouring ice cold water on our naked bodies! Then we got in the pool, but we did not even last a minuet because it was so cold. We then tried the three different saunas, which were all at different temperatures. We showered and got ready for lunch.

We enjoyed our lunch on the 5^th floor, which had a nice patio area. We then decided we all needed some more sleep, so we went to the sleeping room. We had no idea there was a sleeping room the night before. This room was also super warm too. Apparently Korean’s like to sleep in the heat. I think we left the spa by 4:00 p.m.

We got dinner at Pizza Hut, which by far has been the nicest Pizza Hut I have ever been in. It was actually a sit down restaurant, and had many different choices. The salad bar seemed to be very popular and had many different things on it.

We planned on going to Seoul Tower to watch the sunset. The bus to get there was packed! We got to the tower by 7:00 p.m. and got in line to get to the very top of the tower. By 7:30 we had made it to the top and was able to enjoy the sunset. Once it got dark we decided to go to the hostel we booked at the spa. It was pure mayhem to get back to the subway. There were more people then there were busses. Everyone was aggressively trying to get on the few buses that came, and there was a huge line to waiting to get in. 3 buses had already passed and we were not able to get on. We were all so exhausted from the lack of sleep we where going to walk down the hill until we found a taxi, but luckily another bus came and we were able to fit in.

It was about 10:00 p.m. by the time we made it to the hostale. We where greeted by a very nice lady who showed us to our beds. The plan was to take a nap and get back up at 11:00 to explore the city, but by the time 11:00 came around we were all too tiered and preformed to stay and sleep. We left the hostale at 9:00 the next morning. We went to dunkin doughnuts for breakfast. We took the subway to Dongdaemun Market.

We first went into a building that was for making clothes. Each story of this building was just for making clothes. Some stories had just fabric and other’s had just buttons. I guess you can have them make clothes for you and you are able to choose everything about it. We then went into a building of just clothes. I also saw on the map there was also a shoe market that I want to check out next time.

Brooke had us try this on the streets. I think it's silkworm larvae

We then had lunch at a small restaurant that seemed to specialize in soup. The menu had only 5 items. I picked the only non-soup item – dumplings – because it was too hot for soup. 

We then went to Gyongbok Palace. I think it is the largest palace in South Korea. The place was like a small city. It was neat to see how people used to live.

We then walked on the water walk and at 3:00 p.m. we headed back home. This time we took the subway back and it was nice because we were able to sit down.