I woke up early to catch a bus to Seoul. It wasn't quite as early as I normally go, so it was more difficult to get a ticket. I had to wait 45 minutes, which was almost too much considering I had to be at the Fulbright building ready to present by 1:00PM. I took at 10:15 bus.
As I was standing waiting for the bus, a woman started talking to me. Her son is living in St. Louis and going to school. I told her that I have a cousin in St. Louis. Her son is there for biotechnology, I believe. He's been in the states for 5 years now. Just as I said where I am from in the states, a Korean man comes up to me and starts talking to me in nearly perfect English. He lived in Indiana for two years and went to Bloomington University. What a small world!
I had a bit of an altercation on the bus. There was a boy about my age in my seat when I got on the bus. I showed him my ticket, and he said, "You can sit anywhere." I guess it must have been his tone because I told him that he could move to the back where he was suggesting I sit (in a row with 4 seats across versus the single seat where I was supposed to sit). It took a elder Korean man telling him to move before he would. As I was studying my notecards (makeshift form of notecards...powerpoint printed off and cut into small scares), the guy tapped me on the shoulder and apologized. He told me that he didn't realize the situation (all of this in very clear English), and that he thought that I was asking him a question. I don't know if I completely believed him, but it was nice of him to apologize. I ended up falling asleep for an hour of the ride.
I got to Seoul, and I talked to the guy from the bus until we had to split ways at the subway station. He lives in Seoul but is going to school in Wonju for computer science. He seemed very nice. I had to run, pretty literally, after we parted. I had about 40 minutes to get to the Fulbright building for our 12:30PM meeting. I was a little late...I got there around 12:45, but we didn't start our presentation until 1:10PM.
I'm going to be honest. I was very disappointed with the turn out. We had all of the extendees who come to everything of ours to support Margaret and one other person besides them. We put up flyers, we sent an email to all Fulbrighters, I sent out emails to the Sharing House email list, and posted on a human rights awarenss/volunteer facebook group and still that was the showing. I was really disappointed in this year's Fulbrighters.
Anyway, the presentation went well despite the turnout.
Rebecca and I left from there and went to shop in Myeongdong for a while but realized as we were headed to wear our final Fulbright dinner was to be held that we may be a little late. We ran into a woman who was stationed at the base 10 years ago but unfortunately she lead us in the wrong direction. We finally turned around and by the time we got to the base, it was already time to be at the dinner. We ran into an army guy who instructed us on how to use the bus system to get to the lodge where the dinner was being held. It was much faster than walking. We arrived 25 minutes late. Eh, apparently we missed a few motivating speeches about how awesome we are. The food was good though! We hung around talking for a while afterward and then a bunch of us headed down to the pub. Everything is calculated in dollars on the base. A beer was $2.50...a pitcher of beer was only $8.00; everything was so cheap!
This lodge was incredible...as was the base in general. It certainly lived up to it's adopted title "Mini-America." It was almost too much for me though. The number of foreigners was a little baffling at first. Oh...they also took my ID at gate 52 and replaced it with a visitor's badge. In the pub, I obviously couldn't produce an ID when asked, so instead I was asked my age. 23. Yup...that simple...asked my age. Ha!
We headed out around 10:30PM to find a hotel. Anna, Tricia, and I were going to get a love motel room together. Ray came along to help us find a place. We ended up in a taxi with an amazing taxi driver. He was so nice and his accent was right on...very understandable. We had to find a new way to get to Hongdae b/c everything was blocked off near City Hall due to the demonstrations.
A $12 (expensive to us) taxi ride later, we arrived in Hongdae. We searched for a good 30 minutes without any luck in finding a motel. We decided to just go meet people at Ho Bar. We sat around for a few drinks and then headed to a dance club. We lost Tricia and Anna after Ho Bar. I didn't feel like dancing (strange, huh?), so Jenna, Jeremy, and I went to a bar across the way called Zen Bar. It was indeed much more relaxing than it's counterpart across the street.
We met some of Jenna's Korean adoptee friends at Zen Bar. One, Marie, was originally from Sweden but moved to Minneapolis. She knows my Swedish Korean adoptee friend from Wonju. The other, I don't remember his name, but he was nice. He and Jeremy got into a political discussion which I occasionally joined in on.
We needed to head out around 3:30AM or so to find Jenna some food. She drank too much and needed to eat something. So what better at 3:30AM than ramen! We met up with Tricia and Anna again briefly before heading for food. So we all sat around eating ramen in an uber tiny ramen shop in Hongdae.
Where to go from there? DVD Bang! We went to watch a movie at a DVD Bang, but we couldn't all five fit in one room, so we split. Tricia, Anna, and I "watched" Enchanted. I fell asleep. I've been wanting to watch that movie for a while now. It will happen some day.
When we left, it was pouring! We took a taxi; I went to Seoul Station to find the jimjilbang Silloam 실로암. The taxi driver didn't know where it was, so he dropped me off at the back of the station. I had only been there once so I had a hard time finding it as well. I met up with Jeremy and Jenna who were also going to the jimjilbang. We went there together. By this time I was wet because it was still pouring, tired, and incredibly cranky. So, we all just skipped the shower and went to bed around 6 or 7AM.
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