God I have been so busy this week. I haven't even had five minutes to work on writing for this blog.
My weekend was super busy last weekend. On Friday, I went out clubbing, to a real Korean club, for the first time. It was HUGE! Bigger than any club I have ever seen before. It is really hard for foreigners to get into Korean clubs, because there is such a stigma placed on us. Namely, that we are always out to cause trouble. So, its best to go with a friend who can speak Korean well. It's also best to go with only a small group of foreigners. There was only a handful of foreigners in the club.
We walked up these stairs to pay our cover fee. When you pay cover, at least at this club, you get a free drink to go along with it. Pretty sweet when cover is only 10,000 won and drinks are 7,000 won. There are also these locker systems where you lock up your coats and purses and whatever you don't need. All you do to get back into them is scan your wristband. Pretty fancy, I'd say.
Inside the club, it was massive. There was a large dance floor with three stories surrounding it. The upper stories were all VIP seating with bottle service. Same with all the seating at the club. On the ground floor there was these curtained rooms lining the building.
Unlike the picture, the club wasn't very crowded for a Friday night. But the dance floor was still pretty full. Korean's are kinda funny when they dance. The guys have no problem grinding on each other. And when they are not doing that they are dancing in some form of line, doing almost the exact same movements. The girls hardly move.
I didn't drink at the club. I had eaten too much food for dinner, so I was WAY too full. It also saved me a lot of money. The drinks were expensive here, and I also wanted to be active on Saturday. I don't enjoy wasting my weekend to a hangover. So it was for the better.
We got to the club at 11:00 pm. Pretty early for clubs in Korea. It wasn't too busy, but there were people on the dance floor so we dove right in. We danced from 11:00 pm to 3:30 am. I was so sore by the end of the night, and the club hadn't even closed yet. But, I had to go home and sleep. I had Korean class the next day and needed to sleep.
I have to say I love where I am living. Grid is in Seomyeon only a short walk away from my apartment. Its pretty cool being able to walk home from one of the downtown cores.
On Saturday I made a delicious lunch, then headed off to Korean class for 1:00 pm. I am getting the hang of reading and sounding out Hangul (Korean). A life saver here, although I still don't really know what the words mean. After class I headed out to the largest department store...in the world!
The mall itself if 10 stories tall. Inside it has a large grocery store as big as a Walmart, and that only takes up a third of the width of the building (just to put it into perspective). Each floor has different kinds of merchandise on it, ranging from high end fashion to more affordable. It also has housewares, a bookstore, a kids department, food (2 different floors), an academy, an ice rink, a movie theater, and more. We ended up visiting the restaurant floor (which had a dinosaur park outside on the roof) and had these delicious sandwiches. They were gourmet, and worth the 9800 won that they cost. I had a salmon sandwich and a salad. After lunch (at 3:00 pm) we went and found the frozen yogurt place that had brought us there in the first place. It was good, but too expensive. Especially after the sandwich I had. We visited the book store the floor below, but I didn't find anything there because the foreign books section is still so small. We headed into the grocery store, I was looking for limes, but of course Korea doesn't have any limes right now. So we headed on to our next destination. A haunted house.
This haunted house was really a let down. Of course its Korea, and there are a lot of people. But the lines just to get into the haunted house were a bit ridiculous. First, it was kinda hard to find. People had messed with the arrows pointing you in the right direction. When we found the place the line was massive! All we wanted was to be in and out quickly so we could get on with our Saturday night. The line just to get into the schools yard was 45 minutes to an hour wait! Then when we got inside, after donating 5,000 won (which I am okay with because Busan Volunteer does a lot of charity work with orphans and teaching English), we see this other MASSIVE line. It took us forever just to find the end so we could line up. We were a little grumpy at this point because of the previous wait so after 15 minutes more we decided that it just wasn't worth the wait. It probably wasn't even that scary because so many kids were there. It had to be kid friendly and therefore not scary for adults. We ended up calling it a night because the movie we wanted to see wasn't even out in theaters anymore either. So, I went home and watched some internet TV and went to be rather early.
I always dread Sunday. Mainly because I only have one more day between me and Monday: the days just go by so fast. I was up by 9:00 am (a side effect of waking up at 6:30/7:00 every morning for work). I ended up talking to my dad on the phone because my mom was still at work (damn the one day difference). I also got to chat with my grandparents in the morning. Then I made lunch. It was really good. I had bought an avocado a few days previously. So, I made guacamole (one of my favorites that I learned how to make just before coming to Korea). Saturday night I had cooked chicken that I had taken out and defrosted a few days ago, before it went bad. So I used that chicken and threw together some veggies and made chicken burritos with guacamole and salsa. It was so good I ate everything that I had made. After lunch I met up with some friends and explored a park called Taejeongdae in Busan. It was mid afternoon when we arrived and it was gorgeous. The park is set on cliffs that run into the pacific ocean, with unobstructed views of the sea. The water was crystal blue. The walk took about an hour going uphill and downhill. We stopped for ice cream and to take pictures often.
the picture below is my favorite.
After we were finished. We went back to Seomyeon and had Korean barbecue. Then we went and killed some time shopping before we went to a movie. We went and saw Gravity (the movie that had replaced The Conjuring: the one I wanted to see). It was really good, especially because I had such low expectations for it. But we were on the edges of our seats, not knowing if they were going to survive or not. After the movie I went home, watched some more tv and tidied my apartment up (it was a mess). Then It was bed time. Monday was almost upon me. Not fun.
