Tonight Dajeong took me out again for more exploring! We went to Shinsegae Department Store in Gangnam, the top-selling department store in Korea! It's huge, with 10 floors and offers classes/workshops like the YMCA. We ate an early dinner at a place called Odles on the tenth floor of the department store; it was like an Asian fusion place with noodles, sushi, pastas, salads, rices, etc. Delicious :)
As beforementioned, department stores here are not like department stores back home. The very top floor was all restaurants while the first basement belowground level was the "food court". Let me tell you this "food court" is not what you are thinking of with pizza and fries lol, it was like fancy and white and silver and like a market in some areas (packaged goods and foods). Think of like a department store but for food and thats what the food court was like. It was EPIC.
After we had browsed through all the floors and eaten, we went down to the basement level floors where there is essentially another HUGE underground shopping mall to rival Gangnam Station's. I flipped out lol. Sometimes I think Dajeong takes me to these places just to amuse herself with my ridiculously overexcited reactions to small stuff. We stopped at a cafe down there and I got a Green Tea Yogurt Flatcino. I had no idea what it was but it sounded good haha; turns out I was right! It was bomb.
Next stop was the Han River! She had remembered that I had said I've always wanted to go there :) We walked from the department store and went through some gnarly underground tunnels to get there. Upon arrival, we walked over to the floating island on the Han River and strolled around on it. We also discussed how it's actual purpose is unknown yet it costs billions of dollars to complete lol. Dajeong said because of this, it's collectively known as the "floating trash island" or something along those lines to Koreans, because it's such a waste.
The Han River was BEAUTIFUL! All those gorgeous twinkling lights I've always only seen from the train or bus were now right before my eyes. It was crowded in the beginning, because lots of people come to watch the wonderful water and lights show that goes on every 15 minutes or so. They play soothing, lovely music and the water jets rise and fall as they change colors. It slowly emptied out though over time. We walked to the convenience store located along the river and Dajeong said that lots of people come here to have picnics in the summer (because it's cool). In the winter though, its so bone-chillingly freezing nobody can survive down here. She also said the entire area floods often during the rainy season, including the tunnels we had come down through. What a mess that must be, since there's trees and grass and stuff along with playground down by the river that get all covered with water...Another thing she mentioned and that we saw in action, was that a lot of people get food and beer delivered to them here for them to enjoy. Apparently the delivery guy just brings it, calls the person, and meets up with them somewhere there. That's CRAZY haha I love it! Only it'd never work with me cuz 1) I don't have phone service here and 2) I don't speak Korean (T.T)
A quick bus ride back to the Yeoksam area of Gangnam led to the next part of our night; the bars! Before leaving the Han River/Department store area though we returned to the underground shopping mall. I was wearing really high wedges and after all the running around up and down the department store and all around the Han River, my feet were hurting. Only here have I ever had the wonderful experience of "oh you need shoes cuz your feet are hurting? Here, just go buy a pair real quick and wear them out". I bought the cutest pair of ballet flats from a little shoe store for $10 and wore them the rest of the night :) I HEART KOREA.
We ended up at this cool little upstairs bar, where we ordered this delicious sweet and tangy chicken and some udon-like broth. I am obsessed with this dish, whatever it is. And I have always wanted to have beer & chicken, a favorite match over here. Apparently the Koreans always eat food with their alcohol, because it makes the alcohol taste better. Haha I love how ours is reversed; not only do we often not eat food with alcohol, when we do its generally wine, and the purpose is to add taste to the food. We got beers (I wanted to try the Korean types so we got Cass) and soju (which I've been dying to try for ages haha). It was great! The beers are very light in general here Dajeong said so it wasn't hard to drink and it was tasty. The soju was AMAZING; I was expecting something like vodka but while it smelled similar, it had ZERO aftertaste. I'm serious, like zero aftertaste. No chaser needed. This blew my mind lol. It was like water; no wonder they like to get so drunk in the dramas. I had been taking them like shots (thinking it was like hard alcohol here) until Dajeong told me they sip it lol. Whoops. So that's why they sometimes yell "ONE SHOT!!"...that's when they take it all at one time :D
Thoroughly buzzing, we left the bar after awhile and headed to a cocktail bar called Pandora where Dajeong said they had a deal: $15 and you get unlimited mixed drinks! Talk about a deal lol, in dt SB you'd be lucky to get one mixed drink for $15. And it would be tiny too. On the way I made her stop with me at a coffee machine so I could get a 30 cents cup of milk coffee, like I've always seen on the shows!! I apologized for being so excited about every little thing here, but Dajeong said she liked my enthusiasm haha since it made her excited too. I guess I can understand since I had study abroad friends in the US who were thrilled over landmarks, places, and things I took for granted. It opened up my eyes again and made me want to visit those places!
We got our first drinks (White Russian for me, Vodka Cranberry for her), and went up to the terrace. It was gorgeous and simple; we also had the place to ourselves since it was a little chilly outside! It was like our own secret little personal nook in the middle of all the other buildings on all sides. We could see all the lights and everything so clearly, it was stunning!
The mixed drink list was impressive and it was fun making our way down it :) We played games of pool and darts and had way too much fun just being silly together! You know those stereotypical two drunk guys, walking home from the bar at 3:30AM singing and joking loudly and laughing at everything? Yea that was us, except we were little and Asian haha. Dajeong had had a little too much to drink so we both went back to my place and called it a night!