Green Beer Obsaeyo

So St. Paddy's obviously isn't a widely celebrated holiday here. But, there are foreigners, so there is a party. Actual St. Paddy's seemed kind of ignored. I guess a lot of people had work or something. I went out for a bit to a couple non-Irish bars, tried to avoid the crowds of the Wolfhound (total show last year, you couldn't even move), and called it a pretty early night. Most people I talked to on Saturday said they stayed in, you know, saved their energy. ha. The real party is Saturday. This year they moved the party from the Cheongycheon River over to a parkinglot in Insadong. It was weird man. Last year was fun because there was free Guiness and everyone got to march in the parade. This year you had to fight the crowds in the only GS25 in blocks to get one of the last remaining Cass cans.
A little forsight on the store's side would have been nice. Once you got your collection of magkeolli soju or beer, or whatever else you could find (I actually found a nice little juice box of wine), you head to the parking lot to stand amongst the other 300 foreigners there. Sure it was fun to see some people I haven't seen in a while and there was some rocking Irish tunes, but it seemed to lack some of last year's excitment. Chee, Brooke, Jesse, Greg, Paul and I head over to this traditional little restaurant.
We had awesome dinner of soups and meats and tons of side dishes, and of course soju, then taxied over to Hongdae. We figured this was the best place to get away from the crowds of drunk foreigners who would probably (and did) infiltrate Itaewon for the night.

Enter the Silent Disco! I went to one years ago at Bonnaroo, but didn't know it existed in the real world. Apparently this is even a monthly event in Korea put on by the World DJ Festival. So you go to Hongdae park, just a public outdoor park, and give your ID to a dude who then hands you earphones with a balloon tied to the top. Only those with earphones can hear the music. To passersby, you just look like a crowd of morons bouncing in silence. It's awesome!! We met Joe, Renzo and Brian (the gays) and danced our little hearts out.
Hongdae's a college area so we danced with the youngsters, and they didn't seem too horrified by our drunken shakery. Of course, this is still Korea, so you go across the street to the GS25m buy some beer and soju cheap, and go back to dancin in the park. I will absolutely be going to this every time they do it!! We're now facebook friends.

So yeah, a lovely weekend here in Seoul. Krissy is out on a visa run to Malaysia for the next 2 weeks with her boyfriend which means I get to cover her classes. I am working a ton this week. Dolla dolla bills ya'll.