Club Naked

Finally time to blog! I think I will start this blog with some of the most embarrassing (I am sure there are more embarrassing, but I don't get to see myself on video all the time) dance moves ever. I just watched this video even though it is from Noreabang over a week ago. 

                                                           

Anyway, I feel like I have been so busy this week. Saturday was a blast. I met Elena at her subway stop in Hongdae and then we got back on the subway and went to the soccer stadium. There isn't an open container law here, so we drank some soju and pineapple juice in the subway. When we got to the stadium, it was packed with foreigners. There was a line to ride the escalator, so Elena and I took the stairs. She told me to turn around and look down. We were the only foreigners taking the stairs... Interesting, but not surprising. We found a GS (convenient store) and bought some beers. We met up with her friends and tailgated outside ofthe GS. There was no soju at the GS. I don't think they ran out. I think they didn't sell it that day because they didn't want a bunch of sloppy foreigners in one place. However a jerk of a business man was selling them outside for 4,000 won a piece. They are normally 900 won. I bought one anyway. Here is a cute picture of two boys on a 2 seater bike:

Where we got our tickets.

We ended up only going to the game for about 15 minutes. It was good timing though. We walked in right behind Daejeon's net as Seoul scored. Fireworks went off and the crowd was pretty cool. Also, our foreigner ticket came with a free hot dog!

After the game we went back to Elena's and met Jessa there. Elena lives in Hongdae which is a really cool area full of live music and bars. It is a college town as well. We went to Itaewon for a drink and then came back and partied all night in Hongdae. We went to a bunch of different bars and also drank in the street. One of the bars we went to was called Club Naked. It reminded me of a crappy college club from Tallahassee. There were poles in there as well which was interesting... Elena and Jessa are total dance feens. They danced alllll night and they are really good dancers. I tried to keep up. At one point, we walked by this drum circle and Elena went out in the middle and started dancing. She is Colombian and can do the craziest, fast movements with her feet and hips. Definitely a fun night. At about 3am I was getting tired, but I couldn't go home because the subway closes between (I think) 12 to 5:30. So if you go out somewhere, you are stuck there until the wee hours of the morning. I suppose I could have gotten a cab, but I didn't want to waste the money. Elena said I could go back to her place, but I decided to just stay out and then go home. I was basically falling asleep on the 40 min subway ride at 6 am. By the time I got off the subway it was light out. I slept till 2 though, so that was nice.

This place in Hongdae called the park.

Trying to capture the break dancing in the park.

Jessa

When I woke up, Adrienne had texted me about pick up soccer. I decided to go even though I was tired, and I am glad that I did. The field is only 2 subway stops away. It was a small field which is awesome ;-). You have to pay 5,000 won to play. It goes towards reserving the field. The people seemed really nice. There were 2 girls. It is right next to the baseball stadium, so you can hear all the cheering which was cool. There is also an incredible view of the skyline. They play from 6 to 8, but I only played til around 7:10. After my long night of dancing in Hongdae I didn't want to be bed ridden from the soreness. One of the girls told me that they normally go out for drinks and food when they are done playing. What is really convenient is that the place they go is at my subway stop. I am looking forward to going again and staying the whole time this Sunday. 


Every Monday Lex Kim gets new flowers delivered for the waiting room in front of the elevator. They are so gorgeous and I am going to make it a goal of mine to get a picture of them every Monday.

Adrienne and I decided to check out the Sauna in the basement of our building Monday night after work. It is open 24 hours. It was 10,000 won to get in. EVERYONE is naked inside (there is a girls and a guys section). I knew it was going to be weird but I decided to just suck it up and go with it. First there is a locker room for your shoes. Then you go inside and there is a locker room for your clothes and purse. Inside the locker room area, you will find women naked blow drying their hair and getting ready to go out for the night. There are glass doors and you walk into the spa/bathing area. First you have to wash yourself before you can enter the baths. There is a section of open showers with soaps and stools and mirrors. There were 7 different pools. Each was a different temperature. There was a sauna and a steam room. Then on a different side of the spa was another set of showers and you could see beyond them women lying on tables (there are 5 different tables in one area) while an older lady in her bra and underwear exfoliated them. This is what Adrienne and I came for. We first went into a warm pool then the steam room. We soaked for maybe 45 minutes before a table opened up. I went in and laid on this table... naked. The first thing the woman did was poor a warm bucket of water all over my body. Then she started scrubbing away. She had these scrub gloves on. It was a little painful, but I tried to relax. (As relaxed as you can get when you are naked on a table with some old lady who doesn't speak English scrubbing your body.) At first I thought there were pieces of her glove coming off on me... then I realized it was my skin. :-X You know when you get a sunburn and then you start to peel? Imagine that but is mass amounts. I was prepared for this because Adrienne warned me that because I was foreign and never had this done before I would have a lot of skin coming off. The old lady pointed at it and showed me as if I wanted to see it. This lasted for about 30 minutes. She scrubbed my ENTIRE body. All that for 23,000 won (about $20). Beat a $25 pedicure any day. Now my skin is a lot softer. They say to do it once a month. I think I might. :) The other Korean girls next to me paid more and were getting facials and massages. The older Korean women stop on top of them and massaged them with their feet as well. They held onto this pool hanging from the ceiling as they did it. So interesting. Maybe after I get a pay check I will splurge on this. 

The next night Adrienne and I decided to drink at my place. I got some drinking food too.

Hahaha. It was awesome! Last night I came home and watched Breaking Bad and Modern Family, and today I taught two grammar classes and a speech class. Tomorrow is Friday and I only have to teach two classes! That is pretty nice! Oh yea, I almost forgot. Shoomee put a sign up list in the office for a day trip on Saturday. I signed up and we are going to see a bunch of different Temples and a live performance. It is going to be from 9am to 9pm. I am sure it will be super nice and I am happy I will be able to see some Korean history. 


One last note: I haven't blogged about this yet, but it is definitely blog worthy. In my apartment there is this thing that looks like something you would turn the air on with in America, but it is for the hot water! I hit the button before getting into the shower. It takes about 20 seconds (less time than it takes me to get to the shower) for the water to get hot. There are 3 options on this device. One is to turn the hot water for your running water on, one is to turn the heat on and one is for both. The heat here runs through the floor. Hot water is pumped through the floor and makes your apt warm. I haven't tried it yet, but it is supposed to start getting cold Saturday. I heard it is amazing. The annoying part now is that I always forget to turn it off when I am done!

NoreaBANG!

I woke up early again on Tuesday and decided to walk around before I met up with Kelly for lunch. Walking around here is always interesting because I have to count and remember the amount of streets I have gone down, so I can get back. I usually pick landmarks like left at the Dunkin Donuts. I walked into a cell phone store knowing I wouldn't be able to buy a phone because I can't speak Korean. The smart phones here are around $800 USD! I later talked to Shoomee and she told me that it's the same in America where you can sign a contract and get the phone for free. However, I don't want a contract. Anyway, I kept on walking and I eventually found a park! This was exciting because I always saw the park on the map, but I had no idea where it was. It isn't an ordinary park, but I took a picture of the information so I will let you read it for yourself. The park is 1000 won ($1) to enter and 10,000 won ($10) for a month pass. Here are the pictures of my morning and from my walk:

It was a beautiful morning.

Squid!

One of the streets I walked down. You will notice everything looks the same.

The park I found.

There are fresh fruit trucks.

I got what I thought were bagels here, but they were much softer.

I love the bakeries. 

I took this picture to show how there is a lower level of floor to put your shoes before entering the restaurant. Not all restaurants have this policy but many do.

I then met up with Kelly and we walked around looking for a place to eat. We decided on The Frypan. Not frying but fry. It is an attempt at American food and it was AMAZING. We ordered chicken. It came on a platter of potato chips and with 2 different sauces. One was like ranch and one was like sweet and sour I think. YUM!

We then got a cab ride to school and observed more classes. The students here are incredible. Once student knocked on the door and when a teacher said come in he came in and said "Sorry for the interruption, but may I please speak to ____?" So polite. After work Kelly, Adrienne and I decided to go have a few drinks. We went to this Japanese place on the second floor of some building and ordered Cass and Makgeolli. Cass is Korean beer and Makgeolli is Korean rice wine. You are probably thinking of Sake, but Makgeolli is soooo much better. First it is always served cold, it is sweeter and it is much smoother (because is has less alcohol content than Sake). You also don't drop Makgeolli in a cup of beer and call it a Makgeolli bomb. I am not sure why, but I guess they save that for the Soju. When you drink here it is disrespectful at most places not to order food. Thank god everyone I have met speaks Korean! The menus would be impossible without a Korean speaker, yet I know I need to learn more. We ordered something that translates to Octopus pancake in English. Now, don't get all freaked out. It isn't an actual pancake. It was a big piece of octopus surrounded by a soft, fried dough. It came out with fish flakes on top. This is pretty cool because the fish flakes wiggle because of the heat. 

Adrienne is on the left. Kelly is on the right. The Makgeolli came in a pot.

 I love how there is a cross from a church in the background right above Mr. Bar. Mr. Bar is a bar that we weren't allowed to go into because we were women...

After this we went on to Cream beer and ordered drum roll..... Cream beer. The girls didn't want Soju, but I did so I ordered it. A bottle of Soju here is only around $4 USD. People love Soju, but they pretend they don't because it makes them black out. Ha. Anyway, we all were doing Soju bombs and then we decided to sit outside. We were all pretty intoxicated by now and I shouted out to a few Korean guys walking down the street. They came and sat with us. There names were Jerome and Jeremy. They spoke close to no English, but were really nice. When I poured them beer, Jeremy said "bottoms up" which cracked me up. 

Kelly went home and then I found myself in a closed off room doing Karaoke with Adrienne, Jerome and Jeremy. The reason I said "I found myself" is because I had no idea what was going on. I just listened to them talk Korean with Adrienne and followed. They call karaoke Noreabang here. People LOVE Noreabang in Korea. It is kind of a staple here as is Soju and Kimchi. Karaoke in Korea is different than in the states because here they have Karaoke lounges. I don't know if lounge is the correct term, but they are individual rooms where as in America you sing in front of the whole bar. So we walk to our room and there were two couches, a coffee table with a tamborine , two microphones and a song list. There is a huge TV where the words to the songs are displayed. We ordered beer and began singing. Some of the songs we sang were by Avril Lavigne, Boys 2 Men, Nirvana and John Lennon. It was a riot. It was just the four of us so we really let loose and belted out the songs. Luckily Adrienne captured some of the moment:

In the morning, we ate at this restaurant near work called Tomato Tomuto (I think :-/ ). They have rice omelettes called Omurice. I wasn't really sure what this was. I ordered a Thai Chicken Omurice. It was rice and veggies wrapped in egg. The Thai chicken was around it with a bunch of stir fried vegetables. It was a really spicy meal. I didn't take a picture, but here is a picture of an Omurice from the internet. 

When we got to work they surprised us with lessons. They had told us we would begin teaching on Thursday. I taught a writing class and a reading class. It wasn't too bad. The kids are angels, but they expect a lot out of you. Shoomee needed my passport, but I left it at my apartment. She told me that they just hired a driver (to drive teachers and staff to and from the Seocho branch that is opening shortly). How nice!? So the driver drove me to my place and then back to school. 


Friday morning we (Adrienne, Shoomee and the driver who is Mr. Wee) went to immigration. We received out health examine results and I passed everything. ;-) After immigration Shoomee took us to lunch. We went to Kraze Burger. Pronounce crazy. I got a garlic burger. It was delicious. They also have drinks and food for us whenever we want at work. Here is a picture of a mini banana I had. Something new everyday here:

Friday, I taught a reading, writing and grammar class and then walked home with Adrienne. On the way home I bought street food. I don't remember what they are called but it is shaped like a fish (not a fish). It is sweet beans in a fried dough. Pretty cool. 

 We decided to go out. We walked into another bar that was for men only. There was NO ONE in there and the bartender just looked at us and crossed her arms into an X which meant we weren't allowed in. So weird. So we moved on and went to some bar/restaurant (sorry I don't know the name) and got a hazelnut beer and Soju. Adrienne's boyfriend met up with us and then we went to Cream beer. No Noreabang this time. 

Today is Saturday and I am going to the Seoul vs. Daejeon soccer game in a few hours. I am going to have to figure out the subway again in order to go meet my friend Elena who I met in Itaewon last week. I don't think it will be that hard to find her but it is about a 40 min subway ride. Until next time! :-)