The Grand Finale: The Last Big Night and a Recovery Day

Well, after the DJ Festival, which did prove to be the best night of the week, what rae we to do to follow that up?

What better way to spend a Saturday night than in Hongdei (bigegst University and party area_ in Tin Pan. TinPan is, ummm, an interesting place not really comparable to anything at home, but a little like a Blues meets Hit Bar for those Harbin people. It's abuot half foreigners, half Korean. The majority of forigners are North American, but there are still plenty of English,Chinese, Indian, and pretty much anywhere you can think of. The thing I like about this place is that the people are approachable.

One of the biggesgt turn-offs to me in Korea is the unaproachable people. Don't get me wrong, if you do say hi to many Koreans they will say hi back, and if you are lost or have a problem many will be more than genrous enough to help you. What I'm talking about is in most pubs/restaurants/bars Koreans not only don't talk to foreigners, but also other Koreans. Rarely will a group of people meet and inter-mingle with other groups. So, when going out for a night, it can be hard with only two people to find people willing to, shall we say, shoot the shit. TinPan is quite the opposite, whether male/female, Korean/Foreigner, people will come UP TO YOU and talk.

It's also nice and cheap. So, instead of repeated runs ro the bar, we do the asian thing. A bottle of liqs at our table. This night we chose....

Jack Daniels. Sure it seems like alot, but with 6 people drinking on it, it managed to dissapear within about 20 minutes. The dance floor is usually well and packed (sometimes too full) and by the end of the night it's not uncommon to find people up and the tables and chairs dancing the night away.

If you get bored of the same old bar happenings (as most do) you are till in the middle of a big Uni area and the options are countless. I'v found myself out at teh nearby park chililng out, at another pub, or even just chilling on the side of the street meeting randoms as they walk by.

Here is my buddy Ariel having some fun with Sungku outside TinPan.

Richie wanted some too, but got a different treatment.

So, obviously had a great night AGAIN. Met lots of people and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Only thing left to do is get home. How we get home depends entirely on how much we've, shall we say, given'r. An early night, between 1-4 means a 20,000 won taxi home (not bad $20 for a 30-40 minute drive), or if we manage to stay up to the early morn, it's the good old subway home.

You see quite the characters on the subway obviously as it's early early Sunday morning. Lokos at this guy, what happened to him. Hehe

Yes, that would be Ryan. It's his 2nd subway sprawl of the week and he's getting used to it. It's an interesting mix the drunks with the early morning time-to-go-to-church'ers. But we usually are pretty, ummm, quiet shall we say.

Last Day

After a good nights sleep it's up and ready to go for the last day. Ryan and I met a Korean girl in Harbin last summer who was hopnig to meet up so we headed downtown to say hi. Grabbed some yummy friend chicken (Koreans are well known for their little batter and crispy fried chicken) and listened as Ryan and her chatted on in Chinese.

After the food, we headed to Insa-Dong. It's the main tourist attraction geared toward traditional Korean goods and memorabilia. It's always busy and although most of the stuff I don't care for, there are always lots of people watching to do. As you can see, it can get a 'lil busy:

A look down the main drag at Insa-Dong

There are always people givin out free hugs.

After walking around a couple blocks and having enough of the busy area, we searched and found Jongyesa (Jongye Temple). It's the bigegst and oldest Buddhist temple in Seoul and Buddha's birthday was just around the corner. The sky was filled with small lanterns and there were big animal lanterns which were to be put on floats scattered around the temple grounds. There is a good site with pics here. The following Sunday was a huge 2 hour Buddhist parade, which unfortunately we didn't have our camera for.

After the temple we headed down to City Hall Square where it was the ending ceremonies of the HiSeoul Festival. If was great luck that the boys had decided to come to Korea in perfect timing to catch as much of the festival as they could. It was only a 25 minute walk from where we were, so we decided to walk it. Ryan was imnpressed by the millenium building, a major landmark of central Seoul.


We enjoyed the last sunset in downtown with the heavy fog on a nice shade of yellow before we got to the festival grounds. The ending festival had plenty of seats and we were hoping for more B-Boy shows or fun dances, although it ended up being classical music.

Supposedly some famous Korea classical muscician. We lasted about 20 minutes and then decided, hey, Spiderman 3 just came out. That would be much more fun. So, off we went.

We had to wait a little before the movie. And without and Sortsplex across the street to keep us busy beforehand, Ryan (Skins) decided to provide us with some of his own entertainment.

The movie itself was pretty good. A nice relaxing way to spend the last night.

We headed off to home tired from the week, but good and exciting. Why? Well, this had only been the first week of a two-week asian tour for Richie. I wasn't planning on letting him do it along. So, where to next. Where else but a Dushonville. Tomorrow morning, we're off to Xiamen, China. The stories have only begun.

Colin