The Red Nail Polish Made Me Do It: A Hongdae Halloween (Part I)

I am in the middle of purchasing two bottles of Hoegaarden between the legs of a Korean cowboy and English sexy zombie.



When did this become my life?




Date: October 31st, 2010
Time: 2:30 AM
Place: Hongdae, Seoul, South Korea
The Players: Jenny, Gustie, Angie, Natalia, Veanessa.
Guest Stars: black-cloaked Korean friend, guy dressed like chicken, mob of dancing ajummas.


It's Halloween.


I am dressed like kimchi. Rather convincingly, I thought, for a costume assembled in less than 36 hours.

It's just one of those nights.



The thing about nights that are supposed to be awesome is that sometimes they aren't. I think this Halloween was sort of like that. The plan was that we were all going to meet up in Hongdae and go to this club Soundholic that was having a major Halloween party. Lots of Wisco people were planning to be in attendance, so we figure it will be cool. This isn't exactly what goes down.



To start at the very beginning...


We thought we were so clever. Purchasing our bus tickets to Seoul ahead of time. How very, very fore-thoughtful of us.

Pff. Veanessa very nearly missed the bus. I'd like to credit both mine and Gustie's broken Korean pleading with the bus driver to wait as well as Veanessa's dramatic sprint out onto the platform as the bus was pulling away with us all making it onto the 3 o'clock Dongbu. (The latter event plays in slow motion in my mind.)

Mkay. So. We made it. Get to Hongdae, and we're trying to find our hostel. Gustie has booked us a room at a place called The Yellow Submarine (couldn't make this up...) and the website claims it is a five-minute walk from the subway. What it neglected to tell us was that we'd have to wind down no less than three semi-creepy alleyways to get to it. After a few confused phone calls to the receptionist, we find ourselves on the blue-painted driveway of The Yellow Submarine. We walk in, and we are aghast. Then we crack up.

Sitting at the kitchen table at the hostel are two girls from our class of Wisconsin GEPIK teachers. And then, as I turn my head to check out one of the rooms, I see that three more guys from our Wisconsin group are also staying here. All booked independently of one another. We couldn't stay away if we wanted to.


Stage: set.



Part II to follow. Because one comes after two. You get it.