"Dae Han Min Guk!!!!!" Celebrating the Korean National Soccer teams' first win over Greece to kick off this years World Cup race in South Affrica. It was raining and the crowds were crushing, but it was an exciting evening and a true quality Korean moment.
To be amongst the crowds cheering in hangeul for the Korean team made me feel more a part of this society than anything else I've done so far.
Earlier that weekend, I celbrated my 26th birthday with some of my best friends in Korea in style, by going out to the Fench Village "Seorae meuhl"
for dinner and then wine in the park.
for dinner and then wine in the park. 
Every year, when my birthday comes around, I tend to have these revolutionary moments where the preciousness of life becomes clearer to me and I feel inclined to live to the max and not waste one minute longer sitting still. Hitting 26 has been a lot scarrier than any other birthday for 2 reasons. First, while I may still be young to many, I can no longer reasonably be considered a YOUNG adult. Secondly, 26 seems to be an age where your family and friends expect you to be pulling your life together in a certain direction. Now that you are done school and have a job are there really that many more years where you can get away with being young and frivolous? Well yeah, probably. But is that necessarily what I want from my late 20s? Maybe, a bit... but mostly not. Hitting 26 has made me think about my long term career and personal goals a little bit harder and begin to mentally map out how I might be able to get to them -eventually-. But before I get too wraped up in that, I would like to point out that hitting 26 this past week also gave me the impetus to get out there this weekend and live it up to the max! Which is what I did. And consequently, it was a very memorable weekend.
FRIDAY:
My weekend began after school on Friday, when after racing home from school and changing as quickly as I could, I hopped on the subway to Express Bus Terminal in Seocho-Gu to meet up with my friends Helen, Silvia, Jeannie, James and Jeremy for dinner. Everyone was dressed up and looked wonderful. Dinner was great too. We went to this cool restaurant i found called "Stove". It had a great aesthetic with open balconies, hard wood tables and chairs and hight airy ceilings. It also had good food, which made it ideal for a dinner party :) Afterwards, we walked accross the street to this lovely Parisian Inspired cafe -with exposed brick walls and Post Impressionist prints on the wall- for cake and Baileys! YUM! I wish every day was my birthday! Haha! Afterwards we decided that rather than going to a pub we would go to one of the wine stores around the area and buy some good wine to go and drink in the park.
As luck would have it, we found not only good wine, but a good location to sit and drink and joke together. We were especially thankful for the gazebo when it bagn to -without fail- rain!!
Around midnight, we decided to move the party to Itaewon, so that Helen could meet up with her friend. It was not as buisy as usual because the rain was pouring down, but we still managed to have a good time first over some pints at Gekos, then dancing with all the queens at Queen!! Gay clubs in Seoul are a lot smaller than in Montreal, but it makes sense since Korea is extremely homophobic and Montreal has one of the biggest gay communities in the entire world. But it was still a good honest time. By that time, people were pooping out, so we ended up heading to a Jimjilbang to crash for the night.
SATURDAY:
James took off early the next morning, so after scrubbing and soaking for a while, Jeremy and I decided to head somewhere for brunch. On the way, we ran into a whole bunch (and i mean a bunch) of his friends from Incheon who had come into town for the Korea vs. Greece soccer game later that evening. We ended up joining them at the Wolfhound Pub, and for a while it was me with Jeremy, his friends Nilan, Jeff, Katie, Cat and Tyler and a whole rugby team. Yup. Good times. We spent most of the afternoon hanging out, drinking beer and psyching ourselves up for the game. I decded that it would not be the best decision of my life to go to this game in the rain in a sun dress and heels, so I ran out to buy myself a new (situation appropriate) outfit! lol! I actually found exactly what i was looking for including the elusive Roman sandals I have been searching for for months! yeehoo!
The game was being broadcast live on giant screens at City Hall, and so towards City Hall we went, leaving our bags in lockers at the subway and bringing only our umbrellas and excitement. Now i will not say that being jam packed in a rowdie, pushy Korean crowd, having rain pouring down and not being able to sit down for 4 hours was my idea exactly of a goooood time. However, the chanting, the energy, the excitement and the cultural relevance of the game itself was undeniable and really worth all of the other pains. The Korean cheer is "Dae Han Min Guk!... clap!, clap!clap!clap!" and that along with several other cheers was put to various melodies including "Ode to Joy" by Beethoven. The fact that Korea won 2-0 in regulation time was amzing and sent the crowd into a frenzie which culminated in fire works and ska dancing. afterwards, the group decided to head back to Itaewon to try and catch the next games that would be broadcast later that night... in particular the USA vs England match.
So back off to Itaewon we went, passing the wreckage and waste of the evenings events along the way... I felt rather concerned for the absolute amount of waste that was produced by 1 freeking soccer game! But what was I supposed to do? Run after people telling them they should keep their W1,000 street purchased rain coats for the next rainy day? Or that perfectly good umbrellas should be collected and donated to charity or given away for free rather than stuffed into the trash? It things like these that make me really frustrated at the mentality of mass consumption and WASTEEEEE!!!! in this country.
But I digress, to Itaewon we went and there we ran around trying to find a good bar at which to watch the match, finally settling on Roofers. Roofers was a great choice as we could actually go and sit ON THE ROOF!!! Jeremy and I were sneeky and finished our own bottle of wine rather than drinking more bad Korean beer... Teehee! Deviousness tastes delicious! Especially after 11PM. Unfortunately the night was cut short when it began to rain -again! A coupple of us decided to call it a night and went to crash again at that same Jimjilbang. It's funny because when you hang out with other people who are in a similar living situation as you (aka: freeeeking far away from downtown!!) it's a lot less stressful. Because you know that everyone is going to be in the same boat as you; looking for some place to sleep that night. We were there early by late night standards and were able to get a good spot and sleep throughout the night -mostly- (I swear to GOD one of these days I am going to get up and punch the people who let their cell phones ring and their alarms go on and on and on making it impossible to sleep!!!!!!!! GRRRRR!
SUNDAY:
I have to say that Jimjilbangs are possibly one of my favorite things about Korean culture. And for anyone who has done the subway challenge arriving back home around 8AM destroyed for the next day, the former is certainly the better alternative. It is also the best way to aleviate a hangover the next day after a late night out. There can be no better way to refresh yourself than purchasing bath stuffs and soaking in various baths, showering, scrubbing, popping into the sauna and finishing the whole shabang off with a coupple quick laps in their cool water pools. Then after moisturising, blow-drying, and putting on your clothes which have been hanging in your locker, you're ready to hit the town again almost as if you had gone home the night before. I say almost, as you'll never get as good of a sleep as if you were at home or in a hotel, but the pay off is that you emerge once again in the middle of things rather than far away at your place.
And so, we emerged once again in Itaewon, a slight deja vu of the day before, especially as we opted to go back to the Wolfhound for breakfast/ lunch. Cat and I bought girlie drinks full of fruit and breakfast was delish. I have to say that breakfast might just be the best meal of the day at any time of day. It would be akward to have say steak and pasta for breakfast but an omlette for dinner is alway good. We ened up meeting a coupple new people there including a pretty enthusiastic irish guy named martin, who joined our group and proceeded to convince us to stay for pints and cards. it was actually really fun, and I spent most of the afternoon discussing books, movie and learning how to play some card games. Before heading back home, Jeremy and I headed to "What the Book". I'm glad to not have spent too much time in there because I think I could probably spend a small fortune of books! There is something about books that makes me smile, no matter what. Comfortable, friendly, interesting, rewarding books. So lovely. Books book book, how I love thee. I kept my purchase to a minimum and walked to the subway feeling like i had had a truely rewarding weekend.
The ride home was not as long as usual. I had a lot to think about and a lot of memories to process and review. I walked home from the nearest subway and stopped to watch little kids playing in the waterfountains near my house. I felt at that point as if Korea and I had somehow come to a compromise in our new found friendship. It brought us to a place that although possibly not the most convenient and prone to miscommunications and frustrating mishaps, we may have found a middle ground that will keep both of us relatively happy for the remainder of the time we spend together. And that, n'est-ce-pas, is the most important thing.
