I've got Seoul but I'm not a soldier

Greetings from Seoul!!

So its been a very weird/fun/interesting past 48 hours of so...especially considering that we've probably had about 5 hours of sleep in total. Where to begin...

I picked up Dan at midnight on Thursday, and the first thing he was freaking out about was "oh crap i think i lost my phone on the plane". then two seconds later he finds it in his backpack. then the next morning its "oh crappppp i think i left my fleece on the plane....oh mann". then two seconds later, "oh wait, i left it in your car.." great start to this trip, eh?

Singapore Airlines is amazing. And the inflight entertainment system is totally incredible. we're talking about countless hours of movies/tvshoes/video games at your fingertips....and quite possibly the reason why we didn't even try to sleep on that 12 hour flight. Tho i must say, i've become quite the absolute champion at video mahjongg...

When we arrived in Seoul and was waiting in line to get through immigration, we discovered that literally everyone there was here from the states to teach english....apparently this is the cool thing to do nowadays? we also met this very interesting character in line...and i think you'd be hard pressed to find anyone else so full of bull. he was talking about all of jobs working in law firms, banking, retail, etc etc etc (and yet for some reason, decided to scrap all of that and just teach english in Korea because "he wanted to get away from it all"). And then we got on the topic of basketball, and this is when it gets absolutely crazy. He starts talking about how he personally knows Kobe and Iverson, and how he goes to Laker practices and totally balls with all of the players. Oh and supposedly he's so tight with Iverson that he receives free courtside tickets to Staples everytime AI is in town. What a total weirdo....but very entertaining

Okay so we arrived in Seoul at around 6...booked it to the hostel and then decided to go out for food/drinks. We tried this weird passionfruit flavored beer (was horrible) and kiwi-flavored soju (was incredible)

Then this morning we were rudely awakened by our fellow hostelmates at around 5 o'clock. We couldn't sleep, so then we decided to take a stroll around the neighborhood...and the crazy thing about this was that as we were walking around Seoul at 6 in the morning, the streets were still pretty busy as everyone was just going home from a really long night. And it was during this time that we also discovered that apparently the entire city of Seoul seems to sleep in until like noon on Sundays because the streets were ridiculously empty and every single store/restaurant/cafe was closed until at least midday. Koreans are literally living the dream.

So because we had such an early start, we basically got to see the entirety of Seoul in a day. It was epic, and literally subway stop after subway stop, and long walks after long walks. We even climbed a mountain (although i maintain that it's just a hill) and saw some breathtaking views of the city.....which by the way is ridiculously large (twss).

I must interject seeing as Jason is asleep. We got back to the hostel with the intention of napping around 7/8 PM last night. When does a brief nap become a voluntary coma? Sometime around the 12 hour mark seems to be the official answer. The hostel itself is really comfortable but a bit trippy. Everytime we go in and out there seems to be a new batch of Euro-tourists who've taken over the last resident's bed. This last group of Germans seem to hate Korean beer and Korean food in general (after a failed visit to Burger King) but they are fine with me because their accent secretly makes me picture them mountaineering in some liederhosen. Always chuckle-worthy.

We had two epic fails today. One came when we realized that our phones won't work with CDMA Sim Cards. We went down to Yongsan to see if we could fix the situation but just ended up lusting over some microcomputers. The second came when we realized you were supposed to exit the subway from the turnstile to the left of you when you swipe out, not to the right. It was a hard lesson to learn seeing as our cards were now locked out and we were unable to leave the subway. After looking confused and sad for about five minutes we hopped the turnstiles and watch a stream of locals exit their respective turnstiles effortlessly (Yeah...its been less than 24 hours on this trip, and we've already done something illegal)

All I can think about right now is the approximately fourty pounds of samgyeopsal I am currently digesting. We did many other things today but that gets first mention. The minute it first hit the grill I believe my first reaction was "Where have you been all alive". Soju and pork belly always make me temporarily consider moving to Korea. After all, as told to me by Seong-Eun (aka gramps aka my old Kyung Hee TA), they just abandoned the old qualification exam in lieu of founding law schools. Then I think about 53rd and 6th and other baller things in New York and shake out of it.

But yes we met up with my TA from my Penn-in-Seoul days who took us around the city with her groom-to-be. Despite her claims that it was an accident they definitely wore matching sweaters. We went to Gyeongbokgung palace, Insadong, and up to the Jongmyo shrine. All very nice and historical type day that will be described better in picture form once we get our phones/laptop in order. Sorry! :/ Just text for now.