SamCheong-Dong (not sure about the spelling)

Anguk Station - Seoul

On Sunday Heather and I went to the hair salon of the Dragon Hill; she got a haircut and I got a little trimming, since my bangs were horrible (I had killed it a few months ago when I tried to cut it, and never took the time to get it done properly since...) and my hair was a split-end field - thanks to the horrible quality of the Hotel's shampoo, another thing that really felt like being in North America: the bad quality of shampoo in hotels...

I thought we'd get lunch with Stormy and the others, but we just ended up parting ways so Heather and I, not feeling like this was really a cool way to end the weekend (we had afterall paid for a hotel so we'd be in Seoul and that was more expensive than taking a cab back home so we basically decided to stay around). The hairdresser was a nice girl, who told us that we should def get to Samcheongdong if we wanted to have a nice coffee and chill out in a nice new neighbourhood. That is what we did. Both of us took a cab to the nearest subway station and went to Anguk station. 

Heather thought that it might be cool to hangout with two of her new friends from Seoul, so she contacted them, and it happens that they were close by where we were so we met up and walked around. I was wearing heels and holding a super big and heavy bag so her friend was kind enough to carry it around for me <3 I love Korea. 

Flowers are starting to bloom!!! 

 On a street corner, in the middle of nowhere, were standing 3 people, dressed like cool western looking clothes, unmoving. They are probably the coolest human statues I saw. They were "waiting for Godot" Heather's friend told us that it came from a play he had read. I will need to read that play, but meanwhile, here is a picture of two of the three human-statues.

I went trigger crazy all day: the weather was super nice and the place was really beautiful, filled with old and new buildings all with a little something special. Nice stores - mostly closed, sadly, since it was Sunday - coffee and tea shops and restaurants.

I did get a couple of pictures of me though :3 since I always regret when I take only pictures of other people...

Such a Nice Day...

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Me, Beomsik and Heather 

Heather and me: so cool...

Me, Hyeongjoong and Heather

Stalking Heather - jealous of the fact she was getting all the attention... XD

We got into a store (with clothes around $600CAD with 60% off...) and while
it was out of the question to buy anything, we still took a nice picture with the
cool animals they had in the display window eh eh h....

 I love how so many super old-looking buildings were just sitting nicely beside super modern-looking ones. This place was filled with little treasures...

Hello Kitty Café.... oui Marie, je vais y aller un moment donné et te chek-in dedans...

 1차 (il-cha) : First Round

In Korea there is the concept of "rounds" when you go out with friends, usually used for drinking alcohol, a bit like bar-hopping. I love this idea, it's always more interesting to change atmosphere when going out, and it makes sure it's not going to get boring...

...that one, though is just a bad pun, using the word "cha" to mean "tea",  a word with the same sound...

 The place we went to was really a nice place in the middle of nowhere, in a traditional style Korean house. They unfortunately did not have a very traditional menu: tea was just normal tea and herbal teas, they had coffee and fresh juice, but while everything was good, there was nothing traditional.

We later on went for dinner - dalkgalbi in a Korean food chain called Yooganae (the actual il-cha), and to karaoke (2-cha), where there was a weird sitting room that looked like a church alcove...

King Game

When I was in Montreal I used to play King-Game - not the one with the card deck where you do things according to the card you pick, such as, "2: you, 3: me, 4: (touch the) floor, 5: guys (drink) etc...- but the... is it even an Asian game? anyways. another kind. In that game you have a card for each person in which there is one king. If you are 4, for example, you'll have the as, two, three and the King. The King makes the rules each time, and must be really precise. Example: number 2, gives a 3 minutes back massage to number 1; Number 1 has to drink everytime he/she says "yes". Stuff like that. The king doesn't know who is what number.

 I used to play that game often when I was in university. The best number of people to play that game is 6: 3 guys and 3 girls. It usually sucks when some of the players are in couple, because they can't do as many silly things. If you refuse to do the action, the you have a penalty, such as drinking this or that amount of alcohol (what usually happens all the time for people in couple). However, I added a rule: you cannot refuse to do the action twice in a row. Otherwise people overdrink for the stupidest reasons and it's not fun anymore.

Anyways.

We played a bit when I was in Sanbon with the coworkers, but sometimes we didn't have cards, so we just used a pack of cigarettes and wrote K, 1,2,3 and the like. I thought that had been a quite clever idea at the time...

Then yesterday I found that... (actually Heather did)

That is basically the King Game, with cigarettes. So I realized that my friend was not so clever to have thought of the cigarettes idea, since the game was actually played with cigarettes to start with, in Korea. Oh well. that pack of cigarettes it so funny!

3-Cha was in a Kimchi-jjigae place (Kimchi stew) where we had a couple of soju bombs (soju poured into a glass, with soft drink and beer, then you take some tissue that you hold over the glass while you hit it strongly on the table. Result: same thing as when you hit the bottom of a beer on another one - if you don't drink it at once, you get it all on you...

Mind you, mixing beer soft drinks and soju makes it taste amazing and it is actually easier to drink in one go - and that comes from me, who were never much of a chugger...

4-Cha was in a weird place.

It was a bar and it was full but we didn't really hear that much noise, because the whole place was basically tons of small 2-10 places rooms all with a TV, a table, utensils and window sliding doors, so you were basically only with your people, chilling without the rest of the bar being bothered by your laughing.