Soju On A School Night: Alexis' Adventures in Asialand (but only Korea...was just going for alliteration)

So Alexis was finally in Korea! If you read my last post, you'd know all about our first disaster trip in Seoul, but UMF 2012 was totally worth it and now I can say I was at the first every UMF in Korea. Pretty cool. It's taken me forever to write this because I've been busting my ass finishing my TESOL certification, but now that's (mostly) done, and now you can hear about Alexis and I's adventures in Korea!

Everyone pitches in to cook dinner.

So to pick up where the last post left off, ....well....we honestly don't remember a lot of the normal week. It mostly consisted of taking Alexis out to every kind of Korean restaurant we could think of and making her try everything. One night Casey, Alexis and I went to 10F (probably one of my favorite restaurants) and we got kiwi flavored soju, which happens to be the most delicious flavor of soju ever (and...as Casey and I later found out...also the best flavor of makgeoli). We also went to a Japanese restaurant at one point which was pretty good, but Korean Japanese food honestly isn't much to write home about. We did have some sake in a box that actually wasn't half bad. The rest of the week involved me working while Alexis stayed home and pampered me by being super domestic, and my apartment looked really nice for awhile after that. It was a good thing too, because one night Casey and Caitlin came over and I tried my hand at cooking Korean food for the first time. It was pretty damn good if I say so myself, and the girls made deviled eggs too!

Alexis actually got to come to work with me twice...luckily on days where the kids weren't being terrors. All the kids ran around whispering "yeojachingu, yeojachingu"which means "girlfriend" in Korean. They were all too terrified of her to try talking to her in English though. I showed her how massive Lotte Mart was and we went grocery shopping for actual food since I wasn't living alone for the next week.

Chillin at the office and painting students with gel pens

On Thursday, my director invited Alexis and I out to dinner on Sambok, one of the three hottest days of the summer, for some traditional Sambok Samgyetang! It's boiled chicken with ginsing. It was pretty delicious, but impossible to eat with chopsticks and a spoon. I looked ridiculous. I also got to show off my Korean skills a bit.

Samgyetang! Delicious but impossible to eat...

Felt so good to get it short!

On Friday, I wake up early because I decide my hair is way too long for how hot it is outside. We go to the Franck Provost hair salon in City 7 and I proceed to get treated to the hair cut of my life. I get the most meticulous cut ever (like this lady wanted each strand PERFECT) and then had a cute assistant girl give me a legitimate scalp massage. While this massage is going on I start thinking about how much this is going to cost....$80? The massage was convincing me it was worth it. After getting thoroughly pampered, I go to pay and learn my haircut is only $20! Later, my co-teachers would tell me that's expensive in Korea.... America, sometimes you suck.

...But I still love you!!!!! And I miss your fatty, greasy food....mmmm....I digress....

Most delicious ice cream ever!
And a cute picture Alexis made <3

We grab some ice cream from Baskin Robbins on the way out of City 7 as we waited for the bus to Dogye. Alexis got Vanilla Sky (creamsoda and vanilla I think?) and Shooting Star (raspberry and poprocks) while I got Apple Mint sorbet and Blueberry Aloe ice cream. Apply Mint was a little too minty, but Blueberry Aloe was like the most delicious thing I have ever had in my life.

We went out pretty much every night after work, but we didn't go too hard because we were "saving ourselves for Seoul" (that was Casey's excuse). It was probably a good thing too because at 6 a.m. on Saturday morning we all boarded the bus to Seoul. Per the usual, I slept most of the way.

We met up with Minyoung at the bus terminal and headed to our first destination: Itaewon. We made the smart decision on the way and picked up a T-Money subway card for discounts on the subway fares. It probably saved us a lot considering how much we rode the subway that weekend.

First thing we did when we got to Itaewon? Ate Mexican food! It was damn good too. I still think there are way too many people in Itaewon, but it was inevitable since I had to take Alexis to Namsang Tower and show her the lock I left. Alexis and Casey realized I wasn't lying when we got to the base of Namsang Tower and they saw how ridiculously steep that incline of the hill leading up to the tower was. I still can't believe girls make that walk in heels.

Jump photo!...and other cool shots.

This time we put it INSIDE the heart...

We get to the tower and - would you believe it? - they took my lock off the heart statue. -_-; Apparently there is a sign that says not to put locks on it. Whatever. Alexis and I got another lock and each wrote on it this time. Then we locked it on the inside of the heart. Casey was running around trying to be super nonchalant, but was actually super suspicious. He didn't want us to see what he wrote for his girlfriend OR where he locked it. I respect his privacy. I bet it's something super cute/romantic.

We didn't waste much time, because we had too much to see and do! Caitlin and Minyoung had planned the whole trip out, so we were whisked off to our next destination: Myeongdong!

Got my Binsu bartending license yesterday...body shots!

This place was crazy. We tried shopping, but it was literally like a "where do we start?" sort of shock and awe. And there were thousands of people everywhere. It was pretty difficult just to keep track of the group leaders. We eventually decided to stop at a cafe for a rest and some bingsu (imagine a snowcone mixed with a sundae but...infinitely better. I'm pretty sure I posted about it in my trip to Taejongdae). We had no idea what the drinks were, so we just randomly ordered whatever sounded good. I ordered the "Golden Lighthouse" and it was pretty fantastic. Some sort of wine...beverage. lol. and complimentary cheesecake! Can't beat that!

After a good rest and some inappropriate photos, we marched out of Myeongdong and onto our next destination: Gyeongbokgung Palace. As Caitlin pointed out in her blog, this was mostly just Casey's "artsy photo" time and we were all his models. But it was really cool/crazy to see the magnitude of these palaces. We must have walked for ages and barely covered half of it. It was pretty surreal to see ancient buildings in the foreground and massive cityscapes with giant LCD monitors on the front of buildings in the background. It was like something out of a Samurai Jack cartoon.

I was exhausted from all that walking, so Caitlin suggested we do a little MORE walking and find a Cat Cafe. Well, as expected, Alexis absolutely flipped shit over this idea, so we couldn't say no. We saw some crazy stuff on the way over. A mini Corona parade passed by, blaring music with cute asian girls hanging out of a convertible VW. So Western. We also discovered this confectionary wonder that will blow your mind - ice cream filled waffles. Like -WHAT? So GOOD! And only a dollar?! Casey practically had to drag me away when I wanted seconds.

Ohhhh yes! Ice cream waffles and mexican food!
...and all the other cool stuff we ate along the way.

We then came to the Cat Cafe which, as the name implies, was full of dozens of cats of all sizes and varieties. My favorites were a little flat-faced one that looked like an Ewok and these two cats that, for whatever reason, had one pair of legs shorter than the other. It made them look super adorable! I called one Lil' Lowrider and the other was Scrunchinz. We were probably there for like...forever. So many cats to play with! And Alexis attracted them like a magnet. They began to slowly pile up around her for luvins.

^This cat's front legs are shorter!

After being covered head to toe in cat hair, we cleaned up and decided we were all absolutely famished...so it was off to find some Korean BBQ! We tried a bunch of new kinds including...pig skin, I think it was? Ended up being infinitely more delicious than it sounded and everyone got super full. We decided it was time to kick off the evening right and look for a bar to live it up in. We poked in and out of a few, but none really had the vibe or the crowd we were looking for. As we wandered, we stumbled past a randomly placed Korean shop with cool men's clothes and I was eagerly whisked inside and dressed up like a Korean Barbie Doll (not that I minded). I ended up buying a hat, a shirt and a sweater with some of the money from my first Korean paycheck! I'm not going to lie, I looked pretty studly.

We finally found this bar called Ho Bar (which one? I don't remember. There are like 17 throughout the city) that was pretty awesome and we ended up getting two pitchers of mixers, a bottle of Absolut and a large tra of fruit for like 70,000 KRW? Which is roughly 70 USD. Between the 5 of us, we each only spent like $14? It was a ridiculously good deal. And we all got hammered. I was already a little drunk because I had discovered Family Mart sells flasks of whiskey for $6 and we had been passing that around since early evening. I also discovered Korea has hundreds of flavors of cigarettes, so I bought a pack of Mojito flavored ones and passed the night with a few of those as well.

This is where things got a little fuzzy...

This is the point in the night where we have to find a place to stay. Luckily we had Minyoung with us or we would probably have been wandering the streets of Seoul all night. He tried checking us into a jimjilbang (hold on...I'll explain) nearby but they we're repairing the women's section or something so we had to find another place to stay. Minyoung apparently knew where he was going, so Casey, Alexis and I just kept drunkenly following them. At some point Casey decides to pour water all over me and retaliate tenfold, so we're both drunk and soaking wet, stumbling through Seoul. At some point I think I felt bad and ended up drunkenly begging Casey not to leave Korea...and it came off more like a marriage proposal.

It was beautiful...i don't care what you say.

The hot room. It was pretty gorgeous.

We stopped for some late night food and I had a minute to sober up before we got to the jimjilbang. Now, a jimjilbang is a lot like a resort spa for drunks (not only drunks...but it works out well for us). As long as they aren't full, you can come in without a reservation, pay like ten bucks and spend the night. They give you a wrist band with a key on it and some clothes for the night. You stuff your clothes (that probably smell like alcohol anyway) into a locker and get naked. No one wears like bathing suits or anything. You just get naked and go shower and whatever. The men and women are obviously separate. The bathes for each are on separate floors with the public common/sleeping floor in between.There are three or four public baths of varying temperatures in each bathing area. One is like a cold pool, one is warm, and one is ridiculously hot...but it felt really good. There are also a few saunas the relax in. It was really nice getting some time away from the girls and getting to talk about guy stuff and relax in the hot spas.

Then, whenever you're finished, you put on the clothes they've supplied you with and head to the common area and go to sleep. Apparently the bunkbeds were only for women, and Minyoung and Casey got kicked out in the middle of the night, but I was like "screw it, I don't speak Korean" and just turned over and went back to sleep. The perks of being ignorant =P There were also "hotrooms" and "coldrooms" that you can lay in if you want, but the cold room was too cold for me after the spa and the hot rooms freaked me out because I felt like I would suffocate in an oven, but plenty of people were chilling in both.

P.S. - Random stop at Condomania! Here you can see
condom pops, Anime condoms, and a Pikachu one!

The next morning we get up and go out to the common room where Casey and I grab breakfast and Caitlin treats us to massages from the massage chairs. I observe the common room and there are WAY more people here then their were last night. And I thought WE got in late. It kind of looked like a refuge camp with so many people sleeping everywhere. We showered and changed back into our own clothes and finally headed home. We got lucky and a cafe near the bus station had like 12 different types of massagers: one for feet, one for calves, one for back, etc. It was just what I needed after all that walking!

We grabbed a bus back to Changwon and slept the whole way back (at least I did). There wasn't a whole lot of time for rest, because I had to be back at work on Monday. We woke up early monday because Alexis wanted to try to get in some Korean shopping time, so we went to City 7 again to hunt down some shoes and a bag for her. Finding shoes for Alexis' huge American feet was impossible =P, but Alexis was impressed by my ability to talk to to the clerk (in the most elementary level of Korean ever, but enough to get us what we needed). We stopped for lunch at the Lotte food court and it was the best food court food I'd ever had. Then it was time for work!

At some point in the week we ended up drunk
in front of the Pullman Hotel...this was the result.
...their fault for having an army of white tigers.

We grab the bus to Sangnam, not realizing a string of bad luck seemed to follow from that point on. Alexis and I go to work on Monday and I think "hey! I have an hour off for lunch! I'll take Alexis to this huge department store next to my work!". We went shopping and Alexis bought some cool Korean clothes that the salespeople begged her to wear out of the store so they could show off their wares on an American girl =P. The store was like 6 stories and even had a restaurant and a market inside!

We eventually get back and it's like the school is burning down. Apparently, the two teachers I work for, who each give me their personal half of their schedule, got something mixed up, or I got something mixed up, and I didn't have an hour off after all. So I missed a whole class! Everyone was pretty pissed, but I still had classes to teach, so I just powered through it.

The next day I tried to make up for Sangnam campus blunder at my Dogye campus by cooking for my co-teachers and they really liked my Korean soup! My director didn't deliver my registration card to me herself, so I took that as a bad sign. Then we got chicken with Caitlin and Casey and I got off at the wrong bus stop like 3 times before just taking a taxi to the restaurant. I didn't dwell on it too much since it was Alexis' last night in Korea and we wanted to party hard!

New additions to the crew and some
good ol' fashioned American drinking games.

Party hard we did. We went to Monster Bar and ran into these two awesome guys named Andrew and Jake who have been here for 3-4 years and speak pretty awesome amounts of Korean. We drank quite a bit of makgeoli with them and then headed to IP's for some intense beer pong like true Americans. Everything after that is kind of a blur. We lost Caitlin, Jake and Andrew somewhere, but Casey kept us drinking strong. I remember hitting up a few other joints and getting supremely wasted and deciding just to go home, grab Alexis' suitcase (she left the heavy one here) and get on the bus to the Gimhae Airport. I'm actually surprised I managed all that, because it's really a blur. I just remember getting to the airport, sitting in a chair, and passing out.

I woke up about three hours later, realized Alexis was gone and I was VERY hungover. I stumbled to a bathroom, relieved my stomach of its toxic contents, then went back and passed out again. After about four rounds of this, I was aware enough to realize I had lost my bag somehow/somewhere. I groggily shuffled around the entire airport looking for it and eventually (after composing myself enough) placed a claim at the lost and found before dejectedly boarding the bus back home. I was so bummed the next day at work (I really loved that bag), until Minyoung messaged me and told me he called the airport and they had found my bag! Even all my money was still in it! Koreans are so nice!

Oh...and Alexis made it to Japan safely too =P

For wading through all that, you get bonus pictures!!

Bonus Alexis!!!