Night Life

I will now feebly attempt to describe the night life that is Seoul, Korea. I begin writing this as I prepare for an all out party at Seoul Hilton. So far, in five days we have had two major parties with some bar stops in between. The first party, at Vivaldi Park has been covered in an earlier post…so I will now describe some of the streets of Seoul, the bars, restaurants, and clubs around the campus and Sincheon area. Right outside of Ewha is a huge shopping district made up of a couple of roads. One actually leads right up to the main gate of the campus. As you might have guessed, they sell primarily shoes and women’s clothes…although there are some very nice men’s accessory stores. The open air markets and street vendors are extremely cheap, especially after you haggle down a price. The department stores are in line with what you might expect at an upscale mall in the US. You can haggle at some of these departments stores, but most times it is considered offensive if you try. Here are some pictures of the immediate shopping area (I will take more later, since these are pretty unexciting):

First is a picture from the Edae (short for Ewha Daehakkyo) subway station. The next picture is of the shopping street right outside Ewha campus...which leads to the main gate.

Here is a picture of the more rural part of Seoul. As you can see, the buildings are all very low and tightly packed. The more impressive part of the city is to the right of the picture…however, I rarely go there anyway so this gives a good idea of my local surroundings.

We now more down to the Sincheon area. Several of the guys in my program could not get housing on Ewha campus and are living in a boarding house here. If you ignore the fact that a huge part of Sincheon is a red light district, this place has a very cool vibe. Above is a picture of the major road running through Sincheon at night.

Of course, no trip to Sincheon is complete without first visit the Red Light District. Ironically, these pictures take on a literal interpretation of such an area. The first is from an alley in the sex district (sorry about the blurriness), and the second is of Angie (my good friend from Rutgers) standing in front of a love motel.

Before I move onto the clubs and bars…here I am: the King of all that is tall, white, and misunderstood in the heart of Sincheon.

My German friends, who are fantastic drinkers, brought us to this German-style bar near their place in Sincheon. They said the beer was cheaper, and it actually ended up being a very good place to relax for a little. The name Seoul, in English, translates to ‘walk until you’re dehydrated and irritable’.

Now to the club pictures. This particular bar-turned-club was called Fusion, and it was directly outside of the campus. It was on the 7^th floor of a building and had mostly glass walls so you could see the city. This party was called the opening year party for international students and buddies. The school paid to rent out the entire bar/club for the night. Everyone in the following pictures is either an international student or a PEACE buddy (descriptions are left to right, top to bottom):

Sun Joo/me, friend/me, Soo min/me, Buddy/Hiroki/Me

Some ladies/me, Masashi/Mari/Me, Me/Mari/friend, Olivia/me

At the Noraebang (Karaoke): Nico/Angie/Me, Frederik/Christopher/Mark/Mari, Jan/Me, Friend/Nico/Frederik

Coming up (so I remember):

Pictures of shopping districts, my room, Ewha campus, and funny signs/shirts.

Visit to Techno Mart and immigration office.