It's been hard readjusting to life at DIMA after our taste of life in Seoul. The noise and commotion was like a ballet of footsteps and machinery that I enjoyed with great fascination. Getting around is easy now that we have the subway system down; it's really not complicated. This makes the city our playground and our possibilities to stay entertained were endless. The food choices were endless and I was in heaven, anything I wanted was at my fingertips: Thai, Japanese, Indian, Italian, American, Traditional Korean food, street food (especially the kabobs and gyros). I felt like I had my own traveling show on the Food Network; hopping from restaurant to restaurant for something new or trying a new place everyday. I was also able to see a few movies in their really nice cinemas. They are the kind I've only seen in Hollywood with my friend Gavin where you actually select and reserve your seats before the movie starts. I saw Fast Five, Hana, and Thor. All of which I enjoyed but I think Hana was my favorite because The Chemical Brothers did the sounds track and it was all out, kick ass, non-stop intensity the full 111 minutes.
The week we got back was simple, unpack re-organize and chat a little with my roommate. Not much had changed, his clothes were still hanging out to dry, his bed was still in tatters and he was posted up behind his walled desk with headphones on gaming away at his favorite korean MMORPG; as he poked his head out from behind the desk as he always does when somebody come opens the door. haha he cracks me up.
I don't have required classes until Wednesday so I did a little reading to prepare and then it was the typical watching Entourage online and checking Facebook to relax. Koreans have a special holiday set aside for Children; simply titled, "Children's Day." Different, I know but hey no school Thursday or Friday plus no class on Monday or Tuesday so I'm not complaining. Talk about nice holiday weekend.
Thursday I went out with one of my professors, Jaymee and our Korean friend Julie. We all had a really good time. I think it was the second stop we made to meet up with some other English teachers from Anseong to have some soju, my professor ordered a seafood soup which was supposed to be really really good just like the seafood soups we have had before. By the way all the soups in Korea are excellent except one and it just so happened to be the one we ordered this night. So we had some soju and were hanging out with the teachers when the soup arrived at our table. My professor served me some soup; as is in Korean custom that you almost never serve yourself anything, and I was enjoying the flavors and the bits of muscle and squid legs within the soup. I then found something rather unique looking in my bowl that I had never seen before. It was about the size of a grape but the outer texture looked like an almond, very strange I know. I should have asked somebody at the table if they knew what it was but daringly I picked it up with my chopsticks and popped it in my mouth. >>>WARNING<<< skip the rest of this paragraph if you you would rather now know the vile thing that I am about to describe. So not to my knowledge in this particular seafood soup there was a little something special that they cook in with the rest of the meat and delicious portions of the soup. After I popped it into my mouth I started slowly testing how hard it was and to my surprise it was actually quite tough and i could seem to break the skin to reveal what was inside. Finally, I daringly chomped down on this piece of something... a massive explosion of fluid came jetting out of this THING with enough force to projectile out of my mouth onto the table and my left arm. The residual flavor was so bad I had to spit it out. Nothing I have put in my mouth has ever tasted so rancid and rotten it would be impossible for me to make a comparison to help you imagine such a flavor. I instantly took a shot of soju and sipped some spicy soup broth to wash the vile flavor out of my mouth. About 30 min later I asked everyone what these things were in the soup and I wish I had never asked. It was the Embryonic sac of a fish and the fluid well I hope I don't need to spell it out for you. I'll say this again, that was the strangest and most disgusting thing I have ever eaten.
Friday was full of sleeping, traveling to Hongdae and making preparations for the night, dinner plans, finding a motel in Seoul, etc. We met up with all of our friend's for dinner at this really cool Indian place. Hopefully I can track down some pictures to show. The food was delicious and the atmosphere was like I stepped into a teleporter that took me into the heart of Mumbai. After dinner we went to a place called Vinyl to meet a coupe of Jaymee's friends; a teacher and her younger sister who was out visiting. They were very nice and we all got clicked well. Vinyl was a really neat whole-in-the-wall cocktail joint but these weren't your typical cocktails. At most they were 5,000 won little less than $5 US for a cocktail to go, it comes int a tall self-standing zip-lock baggy that holds 2.5 times the amount you would get in a typical bar cocktail so that's a pretty good deal. The vibe was good and the music was just right with a blend of foreign lounge music and an urban outfitters feel for decoration. After Vinyl we up and made our way to Zen Bar, decent vibe, average to good dj's but the drinks are cheap! 3,000 won bottles of Budweiser and average 6,000 won cocktails. After a couple hours dancing and getting chatting with each other we got a couple bottles of soju and chasers at 7-Eleven for the walk. I don't know if I mentioned this but Korea allows open containers everywhere!!! from here he made our way to Gorilla which is an underground club near Cocoon. Its smaller but there is no cover charge, the drinks are about the same as Zen Bar and the whole place is a giant dance floor with a few tables and a elevated dance area with three stripper poles. We all had an incredible time here and we will definitely be back here again because its such a good alternative to Cocoon but with the same club atmosphere and music!
Now that the craziness has passed for now, its time to finish up a group PR Campaign by tonight and then Tomorrow I'm seeing Deadmau5 at the W Hotel with my good friend, we are so stoked! Thank you for following my blog and I'll try to get more of these rolling out per week but for now, enjoy and I wish you all were here to experience this adventure with me.
