Nothing of any real significance happened during the week. More in processing and online training. All very boring so I was looking forward to getting out and about in Korea. Saturday was beautiful. It was one of those days that it wasn't to hot and wasn't too cold and just a slight breeze. I had a goal in mind for Saturday which was to find a place called Nakwon Arcade. Why of all places would I be trying to find an arcade you ask. Well this is no video game arcade, this is Asia's number one place to go to buy an instrument. I read that it was large but I had no idea just how big it was. It was Guitar Center times 30. Three stories of of mostly guitars and drums. It was like if you took the mall of Georgia and packed it wall to wall with instruments only. It was freaking awesome. I played dozens of guitars and got bang the drums for a while. I came to the conclusion the only song people in Korea know how to play on the guitar is House of the Rising Sun. I heard that song played so many times it was ridiculous but they played it very well.
After leaving this little slice of heaven I decided to grab some food. Instead of going into a restaurant I grabbed some street vendor food. Let me say that whatever it was I was eating was amazing. There were these sweet croissant things with a hard boiled egg in the middle; delicious! Then I ate some kind of meat on a stick which I was told was chicken but was in the shape of sausage. Again, didn't care because they were great. I have yet to eat something here that I did not like. If you are not an adventurous eater then this certainly isn't the place for you to visit. Its not that you have to have an adventurous palate, it's more of just a mental thing that you have to overcome. You just have to not worry about what it is that your eating and just enjoy the flavor.
Once I was full I decided to hop on the train and do some more exploring. I went and checked out the World Cup Stadium which was really cool. The park surrounding it was full of people just out enjoying the day with their families. Seeing that definitely made me pretty heavyhearted. It made me miss my family so much that I had to walk away.
That brings me to my evening. I rode the train to Itaewon to check out what was going on there. Lots of shopping to do there if you have some money to spare. I did not so I mostly just browsed. I decided that i was going to have a beer on St. Pattys day and was fortunate enough to find an Irish pub. I started BS'ing with a guy and his girlfriend and it turns out that they were both from Michigan. Better yet they were both fluent in Korean. Really couldn't have found a better set of people to hang out with. They ask me to grab some dinner with them and come hang out a bar that was a favorite of theirs. Absolutely! I knew that I would not make it back in time for curfew so I had to find a hotel that I could stay at that was close by. I told my new friends I didn't want to spend a ton of money on a hotel so they took me to this little tiny place and got me hooked up. I dropped my bag off and was pretty happy about the night thus far. After dinner and some drinks it was time for me to head back to my room. My friends pointed me back to where it was which was straight up the road. Easy enough to find so we said our goodbyes and I started walking. This is when it got interesting. Something caught my eye and I stopped to go take a look. I turn back around and can't figure out which road my hotel was on. All the streets here look the same and seeing as I can't read Korean, road signs do me no good. I started wandering around which got me even more lost. By this time it is pushing curfew time so I had to find somewhere to go. After a long and drawn out process I eventually found another place and had to get a room there. So yes, at this point I now have two rooms and my backpack and coat are in another room that I can't find. Awesome. I got a few hours of sleep but was up early to go find my original room. I wandered around for another 2 hours or so and FINALLY found the place. I was so relieved but I had to laugh at myself. My original room was about 500 feet from my second room.
All in all a pretty good weekend. I wish I wouldn't have had to get two rooms but I learned a very valuable lesson. When getting a hotel room in Korea, don't go cheap. Pay a little more for a room at a very tall building that is easily identifiable from any part of the city. Till next time...
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