Crazy Weekend Travel adventures part 3 - Chuseok Holiday

Hi all, I'm slowly catching up.  Hopefully it will happen soon...

Because it was Chuseok that week, I had Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday off from work which meant that I had 3 extra days to have some pretty crazy travel adventures.
Anyways, we left off at Chuseok on Sunday night. 

The next morning, I went back into Seoul to  meet up with Naureen for lunch.  I met her near her university and we walked into a random restaurant down the street.  We really had no idea what we were eating, and I couldn't tell you what we had other than the fact that it was spicy, had mini squids in it, pork, and a lot of vegetables.  We liked the look of the picture (not noticing the squid) so pointed to it and ordered it.  That's pretty much how I order anything other than bulgogi and samgyeopsal.  I am still learning the food names, so most of the time I just point and pray. 

After lunch, Naureen and I decided to meet up with Nadia and Kristan at, wait for it, Costco.  We applied and got a Costco membership for about 35 dollars for the year.  To me, it was totally worth it just for the access to Western food.  It felt like I was shopping back in America.  I had forgotten how much i missed Kirkland brand products. :P  This costco was on the smallish side, but was still awesome.  I saw the most cheese that I've seen since coming to Korea.  I also had pizza there for the first time in about a month.  It was kind of funny, because with the exception of Naureen, we are all teachers, we ended up buying mostly bulk American candy for our students.  At the check out line, there was a little boy who saw our shopping cart and his eyes got huge at the sight of all that sugar. 

After Costco, Nadia and Kristan decided to leave for their towns.  Naureen and I went back to her University and did it up Noraebang style.  We kind of lost track of time because the owner of the Noraebang kept giving us free minutes, so when I looked at the clock, I had a little bit of a heart attack.  Lets just say that I literally got on the very last subway out of Seoul to Yangpyeong. 

The next day, I went to lunch with Mrs. Yuk and Hai Xin.  Mrs. Yuk made Kalbi or a different beef dish that is a little bit sweet.  She also made Korean style pancakes and baked a fish.  The fish was a little different from American style fish.  It was not filleted.  I had to pick the meat off with my chopsticks.  When I finished eating all of the fish meat, I looked next to me at Hai Xin and realized that she ate EVERYTHING from the fish.  After some pressure, i tried a bit from one of the fish guts and immediately spat it out...it was gross. 

Korean style Pancake

 

Kalbi

 

After lunch, I went home and took a nap in preparation for Tuesday night and Wednesday's main event: the DBSK (a kpop group) pre-recording.  Naureen first told me about this event on Monday and wanted me to go with.  Something you should know about Naureen: she is a super fangirl when it comes to this band.  In the USA, she would fly to various cities just to see the group perform maybe 3 songs at a concert.  Anyways, as I did not have any plans for Wednesday, I thought, why not?  I didn't realize: 1, Naureen wanted us to wait in line all night long. 2, that Naureen had no idea where she was going. And 3, that this thing would take all day long since it was supposed to start at 7am. 

So, I met up with Naureen on the subway and thought that we were going to do something until morning, instead, she tells me that we need to go straight to the recording building to get in line.  When I asked where the building was, she said that she was PRETTY sure it was in Gayang area or in the Western area of Seoul.  We get to Gayang (it's around 10pm at this time) and start to look for the building.  Long story short, we were in the totally wrong part of Seoul and Naureen had tried to use Google Maps for directions not realizing that Google Maps really does not work at all in Korea.  This kind of annoyed me seeing as she has been in Korea for twice as long as me.  Thankfully, I had my smartphone with, so we thought we figured out the right place.  Unfortunately, I was relying on Naureen for all of the directions (the map we were using is all in Korean), so we ended up going to GIMPO International airport.  Get off of subway, check smart phone, we were even FARTHER away from the destination.  *Facepalm*

This time, I insist on checking the phone and figuring out the directions.  I figured it out and realized that the building wasn't far from another subway station that was near the World Cup Soccer Stadium.  So we head back onto the subway.  Sadly, since it was after midnight, we got kicked off the subway at the World Cup Stadium and had to find our way from their.

We eventually made it (by taxi and with the help of a few nice locals) by about 12:30 am.  We get to the building and see nobody there.  Turns out, all we had to do was take a picture of ourselves with a sign in the background (at the building), send it to phonenumber and we would receive out place in line.  Meaning, we didn't have to wander around Seoul at midnight, we could have easily done this at a much better time.  We get a text back and it says that we should be to the building by 6:30 in the morning.  So, we took a Taxi back to Naureen's university which turns out to be just 10 minutes away.  Cue Facepalm. 

Naureen and I

Naureen insisted that we woke up at 5am (remember that I had to work the next day) in order to get on the first subway (we were also on the last subway the night before) to get there with plenty of time.  Fun fact about Korean coffee shops, they don't open before 8am.  Unhappy Tiffany.  So, we get there by 6:00am and wait.  

 And wait. 

They gave us numbers according to our 'priority' in line.

All of the lines of crazy fans.

 And wait. 

 And then waited some more.  During this waiting, we were put in lines multiple times and told to not go to far while waiting.... We got there by 6:00am, we didn't see the band untill 2:00pm.  Yep, 8 hours later.  Facepalm.  When we finally did get to see the band, it was pretty cool.  We were channeled into a smallish recording studio and stage.  The fans screamed their lungs out and we got to see the band play for a long time.  Sadly, I couldn't take pictures of the actual recording studio. 

The line when we FINALLY were able to go into the building.

Yep, in the span of less than a month, I saw not one, but two major Korean Pop bands for free.  ^.^

To say that I was exhausted the next day at work is an understatment.