A beautiful sunset on the street where I live!
Last week my roommate and I decided to go out for dinner, just randomly and mostly because we didn't want to study for school. We decided to go to this famous restaurant just down our street and it was SO GOOD. It was beautiful inside, and the food was both beautiful and super tasty (and very "traditional Korean" style). She had a soup which Idk how to spell in English but it is super spicy, and I had meat that I wrapped in the lettuce and sesame leaves and put the side dishes in. Then we went and got ice cream (because we are both obsessed with ice cream and average about two ice creams a day) and walked along my favorite park in Seoul. It stretches for over a mile and while its super skinny, it is long with rivers and beautiful stone sidewalks that are lit up at night. Since we live in Hongdae, which is basically the biggest college neighborhood in Seoul, it is always crowded (and kind of smelly, and gross in the mornings because there is vomit all over the sidewalks from people leaving clubs and bars I'm not kidding) so this park is so nice to live near. When we first got there my roommate, whom had never been before, said "Is this really Hongdae?!?" because it feels so different than the main area of the neighborhood.
Last week I also went shopping and out to dinner with a friend from class. We had donkatsu (my favorite food) and then went out for chocolate cheesecake bingsu (her favorite food). We also did shopping and I bought a ridiculous amount of makeup tbh.
That same friend and I also went out for barbeque the night before my birthday! It was our first time ever grilling meet alone (aka without some guy doing it for us) but we did it and didn't get sick which was good. Then we went to the convenience store and tried some drinks she had never tried before. We took our spoils to the park and even though it started raining we finished all of them, for better or for worse.
That night when I came home at about 2:00 am my roommates were still up (aka lying around drunk in the living room) so they lit my birthday cake since they said it was technically my birthday. I managed to convince everyone to save the cake for the actual celebration tomorrow, so we did and then all the guys went to the club and all of the girl roommates went to bed.
On Saturday I went to Lotte World, and it was soooooo hot but we rode almost all of the ride and it was really fun. When I came home I fell asleep for a little bit and then we ordered a ton of pizza and chicken, ate some cake, and tried some of the food our roommates sister had brought from Taiwan when she visited Korea. Then we just kind of hung out for a while and the guys went to the club (again lol).
On Sunday I met up with my penpal again and we went to Itaewon, the foreigner district, which I had never been to before. Stepping out of the subway station was literally like stepping out into another country- a very strange, culturally confused country. There were a few signs in Korean, but not many- most were in a wide variety of other languages- English, Russian, Thai, Arabic. It was so crazy, I had never seen anything like it before. We had a delicious lunch of pasta at a steakhouse, where I of course got some red sauce on my white shirt.
Then we walked around and had coffee because it was so hot. She then took me to a foreign food mart AND IT WAS CRAZY SO MANY AMERICAN SNACKS! It had food imported from everywhere and when we walked down the American food aisle I immediately saw grits and knew if I ever came back to Korea for more than three months I would definitely need to do some shopping at a store like this. Then we visited the mosque in Itaewon, which happens to be the only mosque in Korea. Since I had short shorts on and she had a short dress on, we had to put long skirts over our clothes before we entered. It was really pretty, and also it had a really nice view of the city.
Then that afternoon I met my supporter from when I did the NSLI-Y program. We had barbeque and then walked around and went out for patbingsu afterwards. It was really nice to catch up!
On Monday before I went to Busan I met up with a friend and we went to a famous dumpling/kalguksu (a type of soup) place in Myeongdong. It was soooooo delicious. Originally I thought that neither of us had been but when we arived we realized we had both already gone there before, haha.
And then I ate ice cream in a fish shaped waffle because it is literally 400degrees outside.
The day I got home from Busan (Thursday) I came home and slept and then did a little shopping for presents/snacks/etc and then came back home to freshen up before dinner. My language exchange partner and I went to a really nice restaurant- like, a really really nice restaurant- and ordered a Korean-fusion type meal off of the course menu. It was actually a feast and we couldn't finish it. Since he just bought a new car, we took his car up to the top of a mountain about 30 mins away and looked at the nighttime view of Seoul. He thought that it was a secret type place but when we got there it was so crowded we had to wait over 15mins for parking in the garage. It was still really pretty though, and a really nice way to end my time in Seoul.
Namsan tower, the famous tower in Seoul, is the tall building on the right of the picture! It sits on top of Namsan mountain and is supposed to have the best view, but this view is pretty good too (and wayyy less expensive)
And now today is my last day! I slept a lot in preparation for my flight, packed, bought some snacks for the plane, and am celebrating my last night tonight with my roommates!
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