Hello friends! It’s been a while. I keep saying that I’ll post more often but I think I’m going to give up on that because it’s obviously not happening. Plus day-to-day life here isn’t that exciting or post-worthy.
I just woke up like an hour ago (11AM) and I’m sitting at my dest eating Shin-Ramyun and listening to kpop (내가 제일 잘 나가 (I Am the Best) by 2NE1 is currently playing, which is a fantastic song that you should listen to immediately). I feel like the most Korean person ever right now.
mmmm tasty tasty.
quite the relaxing Sunday morning.
^The song I’m currently listening to. 2NE1 has 4 members — CL, Minzy, Bom, and Dara — and they have a lot of international celebrity fans, like Snoop Dogg, Jeremy Scott, and others. They’re my favorite girl group (actually I think they’re the only girl group I like). They’re actually releasing a new song at midnight tonight! 2NE1 화이팅!
On a more relevant note, since last Thursday was the 4th of July, we decided to go out to celebrate America’s independence…in Korea…with some British people in the program. Because that makes sense.
Before going out, though, we decided to pregame a little on campus since everything in the clubs is super expensive. There was a large group of us so some of them went a little earlier. They told us to meet them in the “common room”, which I thought would be like a room in our hall or something. But as it turned out, the common room was a really large public space next to one of the gyms on campus, and when I got there, our group was sitting around and drinking and stuff, but there were other people there who were just trying to hang out among themselves. I felt kind of bad because we were all there being noisy and drinking and the other people probably wanted some peace and quiet… #sorry.
A few of friends and I didn’t want to stay in the common room though (it was approximately 4 billion degrees and it was getting really noisy) so we went to a bar in Gangnam that was pretty close to the club we were going to. We stayed for around an hour. It was sooo much nicer than hanging around on campus drinking cheap soju and beer.
At around midnight, we went to this really cool club called Octagon in Gangnam. It’s one of the newer places and it’s becoming super popular. The fancier/high end clubs in Seoul have really strict dress codes; guys like aren’t allowed to wear shorts and have to wear nice shoes. Girls can pretty much wear whatever (as long as it’s nice/dressy) but apparently it’s easier to get in if you’re wearing heels. When we got there, a girl who looked a little older than us was having a hard time getting in because of her shoes; I guess they weren’t closed in the back so the club considered them to be sandals and you’re not allowed to wear sandals. I’m still not sure if she got in or not… sucks to be her though. She looked well-dressed to me. I didn’t take any pictures inside the club but here’s what it looks like:
Club Octagon when it’s empty. The tables octagons…heheh
photo from: http://retaildesignblog.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Club-OCTAGON-by-URBANTAINER-Seoul-02.jpg
We got there a little before midnight and stayed for a while. There were fog machines and really cool lights/lasers and good music and a lot of people hanging out and dancing. The club was really cool and young and I’m really glad I went. I know my older brother didn’t get to go clubbing when he was in Seoul 2 years ago, so I’m glad I finally got to go. I think it was easier for me to find an opportunity because I’m in this program with a bunch of people who I know well and who know Korea/Seoul pretty well. I’m in Korea for around 3 more weeks (time has really flown by) so there will be many more opportunities to check out a lot of the other clubs in Seoul. Woooo.
That was pretty much the highlight of my week… SNU hosted a Koreans-only BBQ on Tuesday night, which was pretty fun, even though only a few of us attended. I’ve noticed that whenever SNU hosts events (i.e. free pizza, free Korean BBQ for Koreans, etc.), the only people who show up consistently are the Penn kids. We do love us some free food. The BBQ was on Tuesday night, and I was just expecting to eat dinner and leave since it was hosted by the program and all the TA’s and staff went with us… but they ordered like 20 bottles of various drinks and we consumed most of it. It was probably the craziest Tuesday night of my life.
Aftermath of the Koreans-only Tuesday night BBQ at one of 2 tables after it had been half cleared… Good times.
Other than these 2 nights, nothing much has happened. I spent most of the weekend studying and recovering/catching up on sleep. This upcoming week, I have 2 exams so I’ll mostly be studying and… yeah mostly studying. I can’t believe I’m only here for 3 more weeks… I don’t want to leeeaaave. If I actually spoke/understood Korean fluently, I’d be really tempted to just stay here. But. alas, my Korean has improved very little, so I don’t think I could survive here for too long. Well, I mean, I could, but I’d be that weird Korean girl who can’t speak Korean.
That’s all for now! I’ll keep you posted if anything fun/interesting happens in the near future.
안녕!
Seoul Adventures 
