I am trying a bit of a different format for the photos and descriptions, so let me know which way you prefer. I'm feeling like this larger, centered photos format is going to be better, but I appreciate your opinions on the matter. I am also going to continue to include links to Gowalla spots for places mentioned in the blog, which if you're interested will give you more information on the places, including a map and often more photos. Of course feel free to ignore them if you want! I also hope you enjoy the two videos included towards the end of the post. I hope to shoot more video as time goes on because I think it adds a lot to my ability to share with you what I'm getting up to over here.
So, on to the story. This happens to be the most recent Saturday I've experienced, which was yesterday. I woke up early after falling into a food-coma from all the great Chinese food we ate at China Factory Friday night. I puttered about the apartment for a bit doing things like laundry and dishes. I then wandered out to pick up some groceries.
This was the view back up towards my place as I was heading out to get groceries.
The sky was a beautiful clear blue, foreshadowing my great Saturday.
I picked up a few essentials at the HomeBase which is pretty close to my apartment. I was toddling back and had just gone into my building when I got a call from a friend. We had aranged to met up and visit the Gansong Art Museum that morning. The museum is pretty close by too, and I had wanted to visit again before the exhibit closes. The museum is only open a couple times a year for limited times. It includes art collected by a man named Gansong, who was attempting to prevent Korean art from being spirited away to other countries. He was a millionaire who spent a lot of money to buy up artworks to protect them. The exhibit we visited was all Korean traditional paintings from the late Chosun dynasty period. It was great to walk around the exhibit for a second time, particularly since I had great company. I went with a couple of women who work at Seoul Global with me, and one of them brought her sister along as well.
I took this photo of part of the second floor of the gallery, and some of its visitors. This was just before I was informed that pictures weren't allowed. I was a bit miffed because I wasn't taking pictures of the paintings, which I assumed they'd rather weren't photographed, but I can understand they would have a general no-photos policy. There were a lot of visitors, I think partially because if I'm not mistaken the exhibit was to close the next day.
After we walked around the gallery, we decided to get some food. The four of us went across the street and had Italian food at a little place called Due Cose. I had seen the place before, but I hadn't eaten there until we went. It was good food, and good conversation. After we ate, we decided to visit Insa-dong together. I had planned to go and see some of our students performing on a stage there, because I was invited by one of the teachers at the school. One of the teachers from the school left to visit her boyfriend, but three remaining of us jumped on a bus for Insa-dong. We walked up the main street towards the stage, and it was massive fun to explore the things for sale along the road. We also ate a Korean traditional cookie/candy type thing, and we failed miserably at getting the shapes out without breaking them. It's kinda hard to explain, but the cookies have shapes etched into them, but they are really easily broken. If you're able to break the shapes out of the cookie without damaging them you get a wish or some extra luck. We broke both quite quickly, and lamented at our lost chance for wishes.
We arrived at the stage just in time to see our students setting up to play instruments for the large crowd gathered. The performance was one of many put on by various student groups, from elementary to high school aged, as part of some kind of Jongno celebration thingy. The students played three short pieces, and they were great as always. I had seen the full orchestra play at the school festival, which was amazing. This smaller subset also did really well.
After a cute set of elementary school students did a yodelling performance, a few more members of our school took the stage. This is a few students with their teacher, who is the woman who informed me about and invited me to this event. They preformed a beautiful traditional Korean drumming dance. You can see the incredibly beautiful and colourful outfits they wear. They did really well, and the crowd was very impressed with the performance. I was very happy to have been able to attend and see both of our school's performances.
After the performances, I was able to meet with some of the students from both performances and the teacher to congratulate them on their great shows. Then my friends and I walked back along the road towards the subway and bus. On the walk back through Itaewon we found a few nice traditional Korean activities that were quite interesting. One was a man and a woman making rice cake from steamed rice, in the traditional way. I took this video of the man pounding the rice with a big wooden hammer type thing.
I returned home on the subway, and worked to get all my Halloween stuff ready. I managed to sneak in a short nap, so that I'd be ready to stay out late that night. Around 6:20 I left home with my costume in a bag. I went to the bank quick to get some cash out, and then caught a bus towards Korea University. I went to meet my American student-teacher friends, because we were going out to Itaewon to party it up. After a small glitch in my navigation (I'd never been to their dorm before, so I got off the bus one stop too soon, and had to do a bit more walking under the guidance of a friend on the phone), I made it to the dorm and met my friends. We had pizza, got our costumes ready, and headed out by cab to Itaewon.
First off we went to the Wolfhound, which was alright, though the music was tremendously repetitive house music. We were a bit disappointed, and we ended up leaving after a while. We wandered the streets crowded with costumed strangers, and met some costumed friends. I met with a number of people from EPIK orientation. It was great to see them again. We headed up to another club called Queen, which was a lot of fun. They played a mix of Western and Korean pop, and we danced it up for a while.
Me in my mask with a beer at the Wolfhound.
Party people celebrating Halloween at the Wolfhound.
And here's a pretty crappy video I shot of the party going on at the pub. It might give you some idea of what was going on though.
Party people at Queen, dancing it up! There's talk of coming back to
visit this club in the future; it was a good time.
After a bit we headed out again, and we went back to the Wolfhound to check out the costume contest judging. At this point we got a little separated, with Wonder Woman and I ending up in the pub, and the Nurses being outside the club. We weren't apart for long though. The judging was not a lot of fun, since we couldn't see anything, or hear anything really. We ended up leaving pretty quick, and meeting back together outside the pub.
After this we headed up towards the main road, and Wonder Woman left to head home. The rest of us hit Taco Bell (though I didn't have anything), and not long after we decided to head home too. We spent a while trying to find a cab that would take us, and saw some pretty interesting sights, including an almost-fight, and an actual-fight, both revolving around cabs. The actual fight involved a cabbie fighting an obnoxious guy who was banging his fists on his cab.
This was the scene on the main street running through Iteawon just before our TacoBell visit. There were people and vehicles everywhere. This was definitely the busiest I've ever seen Itaewon, though keep in mind I rarely visit.
Our cabbie was a really friendly guy, who took us to Korea University to drop off the girls, and then took me to Hanseong Uni Station so I could walk home. The station is about 5 minutes from my house. The subways had long stopped running by the time we left Itaewon, so cab was the only option to get home at that hour.
All in all I had a great night out for Halloween, and a great day in general. I got to hang out with and see a lot of friends, I made a new friend, and I got to do and see some interesting things. I hope you enjoy the photos and videos. As I mention at the start, do let me know whether you prefer this new format for photos or the old way. I will be making a decision on which to use from here on out pretty soon.
Talk to you all soon!
Talk to you all soon!
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