St. Paddy's Day in Seoul!

Blame it on my dad, blame it on my adoration for beer, or maybe blame it on the fact that every single person in their 20's loves holidays that are dedicated to drinking, but I do so love St. Patrick's Day.  Being in Korea, I wasn't sure what to expect as far as SPD celebrations were concerned, but one thing's for sure - I definitely underestimated the amount of white people who claim to be "1/8th Irish" (no I am, I swear!) that live on this little peninsula.

 

I came down with a pretty bad cold (that followed one day after I recovered from an ear infection) at the beginning of the week, and was pretty certain I wasn't going to be doing anything for St. Patrick's Day.  The beer gods smiled on me though, and I was cured by Friday, just in time for the weekend.  Dragged my lazy self out of bed early Saturday morning to head into Seoul and get an early start on a whole day of doing basically nothing.  Met up with Matt and had a bloody mary at this place called Noxa Lounge that's dangerously close to his house.  Finding a decent bloody in Korea is pretty much a no go, but this place is pretty good.  Mine was almost too spicy to drink, but first world people problems, I guess.  Matt's friend Nate picked us up by his house - sidenote, yes, Matt has a friend that drives here.  That is unheard of for a number of reasons.  First, because cars are expensive and who owns a car?  Second, who owns a car that they're going to have to sell in a year's time?  Third, WHO DRIVES IN KOREA?  It's just weird.  But Nate's Korean (technically he gave up his citizenship, he's an American, urgh I don't know it's not important) so I guess it's a little more understandable.

We drove with him down to a place called Sindorim, which is in Seoul still but just south of the Han river, where a big SPD festival was happening.  To put it bluntly, if you are white, and live in Korea, there is a 95% chance you were at this festival.  It was literally just a sea of foreigners with a big stage full of weird dancing and Irish music.  It was fun but sort of weird, because nothing really seemed to be happening?  Ran into so many people I hadn't seen since training, or in the last few months, or even thought of since I'd met them!  Thanks to Korea's alcohol laws (or lack thereof) we stayed there a few hours and drank beers (and other gross things like soju) outside on the steps at this big plaza where the festival was taking place.

 

Me, Matt & Suzie-Q

 

SPD also happens to be the day that the rad chick on the left of this photo was born - happy birthday Kara!

Just some normal activities.  Allison, Carly & Suz writing inappropriate things all over Carly's clothes.

After the festival we all sort of split up or lost each other (unintentionally).  Most of us went to Itaewon and had some traditional Irish food a la Taco Hell (TB chicken burritos are so good/terrible I just can't say no), drank green beer at Seoul Pub (I know, that's terrible, but microbrews do not exist here), and made our way to a few other places nearby before heading home.  Thanking the heavens it was an early night, woke up this afternoon feeling totally better, no more cold and no hangover!  Monday is the start of week FOUR of Spring term, which means pretty soon we'll have parent teacher conferences, then level up tests, then in nine weeks we'll be on to a new term again - the final term of my contract.  Weird.

Oh yes and to whatever elderly family people may have read this blog in horror and thought, Sydney is being such a naughty girl in Korea how dare she!  Calm down... it's St. Patrick's Day :)