Just got back from a restaurant/bar. It’s 2:20 am and it was a nice night out. The taxi was less than $23 USD from Hongdae to Anam. The taxi driver was also so nice and he was listening to our conversation in English to practice his. He kept asking us to be his English teachers and he thought I was Korean. He kept complimenting us, haha. He was a really nice old man and he said thank you and that he would remember us. ❤ Aw.

I was really hesitant to go out tonight. I went with the girl from Norway (who is Eritrean, but was born in Sudan) and we left for Hongdae at around 3:30 pm. It takes about 40 minutes to get there from the subway and then we walked around the street stores. I was trying to look for a concealer because my acne scars have gotten bad. 😦 I didn’t find anything, but my friend ended up getting a nice button down shirt for less than $20 USD. We met up with the girl from Gilman at 6 pm at Artbox. I love Artbox; it has so much cute stationary and other useful daily things like slippers and water bottles and humidifiers.

We went to a chicken place, called “bb.q chicken and beer” and had some interestingly sweet chicken. We then walked around for a while. Both of the girls had heard of a language exchange party/bar, so we checked it out at 8 pm. The last time we looked in, it was empty. However, this time there were a lot more people there. It was really fun actually. I took 1 shot of fireball, but that was it. I had gone to the Kakao Friends store before and bought a stuffed animal, so I felt so silly bringing it with me lol. But the people who were there were really interesting. A lot of 30 year old locals and college exchange students. I met a girl taking a gap year and living in Hongdae, a Japanese coder who had lived in Singapore, LA, Japan, Australia, etc., an Asian American who was teaching English in Seoul, a local Seoul 26-year-old, and lots of others.

I was surprised nobody was wearing their mask. It seems like not a lot of people do at night. Or maybe it’s just the young people who aren’t as worried about it. The Japanese coder said he doesn’t think it helps at all and he never wears it. However, I feel like it’s more of a social pressure for me. I don’t want people to look at me funny. Maybe that says more about me than other people though. But I think it’s considered polite to just pay attention to community health practices. I’m still trying to figure that out.

The other girls wanted to go to a club, but I wanted to head back because the subway stops running around midnight. It was around 11:30 pm by that time. They ended up convincing me to go since the Gilman girl would leave this Thursday. We walked around trying to find someplace. The Norwegian girl is so bold and went up to these two girls and asked them if they knew where a club was. The girl said she was homosexual and then pointed us in the direction of places to eat/drink. She said that clubs were closed and DJs were banned because of the virus. I’m not really sure why she told us she was gay?

We headed down the block and ended up going to this weird outdoor eatery. The Norwegian girl and the Gilman girl tried grape soju and I refrained again. We ordered this braised chicken dish, but they gave us seafood stew. The girl from Norway is definitely the most vocal out of us all and she called back the waitress and got us the chicken dish even though we had tried the seafood stew. I felt a little embarrassed, but also glad that she is so confident in herself. She really doesn’t back down. Also, this girl across from us was really tired and just fell asleep on her boyfriend’s shoulder even though they were in a group of 8. Very interesting to see the couple behavior around here.

By the time we left it was about 1:30 am and the Norwegian girl didn’t realize the subway wouldn’t start until morning and the bus would take 2 hours. I was kinda frustrated at this point, but I downloaded a taxi app and she said she would pay since she kept me out. I was glad that she paid and she said that she wants to do it once a month. I don’t know about that, but I don’t think I would mind going out with her in a group again. It’s almost 3 now. I’m very full and happy that I’m here. I know classes haven’t started and there’s a lot of unknowns.

Tomorrow I have to contact my KUBA to see if orientation is actually cancelled and then figure out where to buy my books since the KU campus is closed down. I also want to get a concealer. Everyone at the language exchange meeting kept saying what bad time I came at. Also there’s drama with travel bans in Korea and Japan. So much going on. And US schools are also starting to do online courses. This virus is so bad. But people are resilient. I just hope everyone stays as safe as they can.