Hello 2007!

It seems like it was only three or four days ago that I was in Thailand and thinking how great it was to be up so early everyday and not carrying on until all hours of the night and how I would try to continue that once back in Korea, yet here it is, 9:30 in the morning and I just strolled through the door.

We had thought about New Years for the past few weeks but didn't really put any serious planning into it, figuring we would just wait to see what others were up to. Saturday we decided that we had to do it up, in Seoul. So yesterday at noon, Trey, Tom, Richard and I boarded the KTX and headed off for an afternoon of shopping, dinner and a night of partying. We met up with Lauren at the Seoul station who came straight from the airport, having just arrived back from London. Being that a normal night out for us is 4am anyhow, we decided that it was unneccessary to have a hotel, instead we would just stay up all night and catch the first train back to Daejeon in the morning. (What could possibly go wrong???)

We spent some time wandering around one of the markets but then decided to head off in the direction of Itaewon for some bar hopping, dinner and a little adventure. We started our night off in a Canadian bar, The Rocky Mountain Tavern, and sat around for a few hours talking, laughing and having a good time. Next we headed off for some Mexican food which was quite delicious. Afterwards we found ourselves in a tiny bar across the street with another pitcher where we made plans to hit up a university area a few subway stops away because we had heard of a party, Attack of The Little Green Women. It was still only nine o'clock or so at this time so when we arrived at Hongik area we checked out a few other spots in hopes of the ultimate new years party. We stopped three other foreigners on the street and asked them where they were going. They didn't know but welcomed us to go with them. We ended up at Korea's version of Hooters, which was really more just like a TGIF's, we sat around there until 11:30 and then decided we had to get somewhere fast for a countdown. We found a tiny dance club a few blocks over and it turned out to be a pretty good time, so we hung around there until at least two or so.

Somehow our next stop ended up being at a 7/11 where we stayed for far too long but there were a lot of people around and we needed to refuel on some snacks. Shortly after our hands were numb from the cold and we needed a new venue to move on to. We ended up at some basement bar where there were a lot of Korean men break dancing, which was odd but gave us a chance to sit down for a few moments as we were losing some of our energy.

At this point it was around four o'clock and we ended back on the streets in search of one last stop to tie us over until we could catch the subway to get to the train station. Being that it was so late most places were completely empty or closing their doors, especially to a group of drunken foreigners. At 4:30 we had had enough and decided to grab our stuff out of the lockers in the subway station and just cab it back to the train station, only obstacle was that Lauren's luggage was in a locker a few stops away, didn't matter, at that point we just wanted to get home. We got to the bottom of the subway and the gates were all closed off, which meant we couldn't get to our locker.

We were now wandering around Seoul, tired, cold and hungry with no place to go. Not to be broken too easily we tried our luck at finding a DVDbang, which is kinda like Noraebang, only you get your own private room for watching a DVD of your choosing. The first two places we tried wouldn't let all five of us into one room, and we decided at our third stop that we could break off into two groups just so we could finally stay put somewhere, turned out to be unneccessary as the next place let us all into the same room. This was actually our first time at a DVDbang and they are essentially just privatized movie rooms with couch/beds for viewing pleasure. Richard chose The Eternal Sunshine of The Spotted Mind, and we all stretched out onto the cushion set up. I think most of us made it ten minutes into the movie before falling asleep. Two hours later the movie was over and the subways were open! We made the neccessary locker stops and ended up back at the train station by 7:30 for a New Years breakfast of KFC and Burger King.

Finally at 8:00 we were on the train and en route to Daejeon. Now it is ten o'clock and I should be wiped out but I am still awake so will get to work on posting my Thailand pictures and New Years pictures.