Cafes, palaces, celebrities, and free soda - just my normal life in Seoul

My friend Changyong and I have been meeting up to study English/Korean and enjoy good conversation this past week. Since cafe culture is very strong in Seoul, we often end up in a cafe at one point or another.

This one is very near Daeheung Station, called SoomDo, or Soom Island. It had a quiet atmosphere where we could actually hear each other talk, so it was pretty good. And yes, that is a giant reading lizard on the railing.

Changyong invited me to visit his district on the outskirts of Seoul. It's a smaller, quieter area, and he said he's only seen 10-11 foreigners there in the whole time he's lived there, so people be staring! I didn't mind, but the subway station was almost completely empty - cue horror movie music in my mind.

One of my favorite things to eat around Daeheung is kalgooksoo, but when Changyong and I tried to go there the other night, it was packed out, so we settled for egg-wrapped kimbap. Very delicious, but a little disappointing because I was ready to eat kalgooksoo made by grandmothers.

I met up with a friend I met at my first language exchange meeting, Jung Hoon 정훈, for dinner and Deoksugung 덕수궁.

We ate samgyupsal 삼겹살! I love making lettuce wraps. That light yellow thing in the stone bowl to the left is steamed egg, which was really delicious too.

After dinner nearby, we went to see Deoksugung, but it was pouring down by that point. Also, there was a protest going on at nearby City Hall, which happens often, but some of the protestors were seeking refuge from the rain under the main gate, so it got kind of crowded at the front. It slowed down, so we went inside, but it started pouring again soon after. The good part is that there weren't many people there, though.

The palace was great. The rain was not.

It finally cleared up, so it was nice.

Whenever I go to a palace in Korea, I'm fascinated by the grand traditional buildings with a backdrop of modern Seoul.

Inside the main throne room - less grand than the other palaces, but I think that's the charm of Deoksugung.

This weekend after class, I went with Michelle and my 3 German friends - let's give them names, shall we? Maren, Lyza Bee, and Greta - to Edae for some shopping and general shenanigans. We actually all found some clothes (sometimes Korean street clothes sizes can be difficult for foreigners) and a lot of really great Engrish:

This had to be my favorite of the night.

However, our revelries were cut short by more pouring rain, so we sought refuge in the nearby Cafe Zoo, which is close to the front gates of Ehwa Women's University. The cafe was so-so, but had decent drinks. We weren't too impressed until we ran across this. In the bathroom.

So you can pull up a chair and chill out with your drink...in the bathroom?

So what else to do in the weirdy bathroom but take a group selca!?

Saturday morning, our dorm was going to be without power from 8am - 5pm, but we were told the cafeteria would have power after 8am, so Michelle and I planned to take our studying there to enjoy lights and air con. We even woke up early on a Saturday so that we could get ready and be down to the cafeteria before the power cut out.

They lied. There was no power in the cafeteria. And this was breakfast. Luke-warm fried rice and milk, nasty white bread, and cold cereal. Just eating to live at this point.

Saturday afternoon, I heard about a record store in Sinchon nearby that would have Korean indie bands that can be harder to find, so I ventured out near Sinchon metro station to try to find it. I never did find it, but I found some make-up shops to look around in. I had completely forgotten that there was also the Watergun Festival there this weekend, so they were setting up and people were lining up with super soakers all around. Near the U-Plex, I saw a crowd gathering around a stage sponsored by Sprite. And right in the middle, I saw a small group of what looked like stylists and managers. Suddenly they all left and only one girl was left standing in the middle, which must have felt awkward, and who should it be but...Suzy. Yep, I saw Suzy in Sinchon at the U-Plex less than 100 feet away from me. Drinking Sprite, of course.

Because you drink Sprite when you're standing in the middle of a crowd staring at you. Sounds like fun.

Whenever she turned toward my side of the crowd, everybody went "와아아..." (Waaah). That was pretty funny.

This was the best of her face, but sorry it's blurry!

The funniest part of this was that just the day before in class when we were role-playing, a classmate named Charlie had picked Suzy as his favorite celebrity, and when somebody else asked the person playing her to do something, he would say, "Say no! 안돼! (Don't!)" I felt bad that he couldn't be there. Sorry, friend!

This weekend our school took us to a rehearsal of Inkigayo, a K-pop music show, so we got to wait over an hour before we went in. We can't complain, since other fans would often come to wait at 6-7am

Waiting with friends makes the time go quicker.

However, the sad end to this story is that we only got to be inside for 20 minutes before we were quickly ushered out. In those 20 minutes, we saw only rookie groups perform. I suppose we were lucky because we saw short interviews with Block B and Sistar, both of whom I've never seen in person, but we didn't get to see either perform. It kind of felt like a waste. Oh well, we're luckier than some.

Afterward, we went for a late lunch at a kimbap/ramen shop. We all love Korean food and can tolerate a fair amount of spice, so we were eating, talking and laughing throughout our meal. I didn't notice it at the time, but an older Korean man was watching us (some would say creepily) throughout our meal. After we ate, he returned to the shop and presented us with a large bottle of Coca-Cola and said in some English that he enjoyed watching us foreigners eat the spicy food and, and I quote, have a "traumatic experience"...hmmm...I just remember eating some of my favorite food deliciously. We first checked to make sure the seal on the bottle was intact, because stranger danger, and then enjoyed our free drinks.

We were all a little more than confused. Since I hadn't noticed the man, I had no idea what was going on. Also, since he spoke some English, we wonder what all of our conversation he understood.