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My buddy Matt Ball came out and spent several days in Seoul last week. He arrived Saturday night, the night I was still recovering from the Football Members Training. Sunday we met up and went to the MyungDung area. Down there is an old cathedral and a major shopping district. We then went to Dongdaemun stadium to another shopping area. The place is filled with hilarious t-shirts. Phrases that don’t make sense and so many t-shirts with just ridiculous typos.

Click to enlarge - Sunday mass

Click to enlarge - Read the quote

Monday Matt paid for a tour and visited some palaces. When he returned Mike and I met up with him and went to Itaewon so Mike could buy some shoes. Mike and I went to football practice and Matt met us up after and we went to the all you can eat meat buffet place for some BBQ.

Tuesday Matt went on the DMZ tour while I was in class. Then we went out to dinner that night and went out to Seoul Tower. Seoul Tower is located near the middle of the city up on a big hill, it’s kind of like the stratosphere and you get a 360 view of the city. We then went back to meet up with friends for a couple of bars and then after drinking a whole lot we went to the norae bong or karaoke room. There was about seven or eight of us and we sang songs for almost two hours. It was soon 4am and we went home to bed.

Click to enlarge - Ate some fish.

Seoul Tower

Matt singing his heart out

Wednesday Matt and I trekked down to the Korea National Museum. The museum was very nice, it was very big and had a lot of history inside. We spent several hours there. It was also free!

Korean warrior

We went back to the nearby area of the hotel and went to the Ewha area and had some bulgogi at a place I like to go to often. You get a full meal that is really good and it’s only 5,000 won ($3.75). We then went to Coldstone ice cream for desert. We had decided we didn’t want to stay out too late because of the early plane ride in the morning so we headed back toward the hotel, I was planning on getting my haircut the next day so I wanted to cruise by the area to make sure I knew where the place was that I wanted to go to. I was shocked to see that at 10:10pm they were still open cutting hair so we walked in. We waited for about 20 minutes and then they were ready for me. No one there this time could speak any English. I had to tell them how to cut my hair but I couldn’t do that, so somehow I had to show them. I picked up the GQ and Esquire magazines thinking I’d surely find something in there that would look similar to my hair style… but all the models are swapped out with Asian models in the Korean versions of GQ and Esquire! The closest thing I found in there was George Clooney, and that isn’t very close. Luckily there was a soccer magazine and I found some white guy with hair about the length I wanted it, so I showed her that photo. She cut it to about the right length however she used the thinning shears for the entire cut. So now I have very Asian looking hair. It was a nice place for a haircut, my roommate and I had went there before and it is only 10,000 won ($7.45).

We shoved off, went to bed and Matt flew out. We had a good time, it was nice getting to share some of my Seoul experiences with one of my long time friends.

My friend Leah reminded me of something that I had heard once before but I had forgotten. A few years back at the University of Washington I had a visiting professor from Seoul National University in Korea, the class was on modern Korean history, 1860’s – present. This would cover the decline of the Joseon (Chosun) dynasty in Korea, the Japanese colonization and the post war building up of Korea. The professor’s specialty at the time was on the Japanese colonial period of the Korean peninsula. He was working on a book at the time so much of the course was about the Japanese occupation.

My friend Leah that I met here in Korea would write Korea with a ‘C’ (Corea) in our emails back and forth. I also noticed the ‘C’ a few times in random graffiti. I asked her why and she reminded me that during the Japanese colonial period (1905-1945) that Japan had standardized the spelling from ‘C’ to ‘K’ so that Japan would appear first alphabetically. Both American and British records from the 19th century spell Korea with a ‘C’. It was one of many changes made to Korea to make Japan appear as Korea’s “bigger brother” in a way.

Now in the Olympics, Japan is named before Korea. But I’ve found here that it is not uncommon to see Korea spelled with a ‘C’, you see it in some cases where it’s meant to be a statement.

Friday night we had football practice. Earlier in the week I was told that we were all going out after practice for dinner and drinking, however as I was heading down the stairs to go to practice I was told we were heading out of town to a resort and we would be staying the night there. It was called “Football MT” or Member Training. Sort of like a induction for freshman to the team.

A whole group of us from the team piled up into the subway, we almost all didn’t make it on the subway but as the doors closed the team manager was right in front of me and we were running to get on and his feet made it in the subway but the doors closed on his backpack. I started pushing him through and the doors opened again for a second and the remaining four of us jumped on the subway.

The commute was about an hour and a half outside of Seoul. We took the subway, to a train station, then from there took a taxi to out in the middle of nowhere. Up in the hills there was this big resort, we had rented out a single room. The team had brought bags full of meat and some grills so we could bbq in the room. They also brought a big box of Soju (Korean liquor) and a bunch of beer.

On the subway the team manager had asked me “Do you drink soju?” I said “Nope. I hate it.” and he replied “Well I think you’ll have to drink a lot.”

At the room we are all sitting around eating and drinking beer with dinner. Then comes the soju. They take a big silver bowl and started pouring bottle after bottle of soju into the bowl. They said that all the freshman players (new players) would have to drink from the bowl. This unfortunately put me in that category.

If you’ve never had soju before, basically it’s a clear alcohol that is about 22%. It tastes like a cheap vodka. If you’re still unsure, just check out this video and watch the facial expressions of the last guy to drink. That pretty much sums it up.

Drinking Soju from Josh Dill on Vimeo.

(I know there’s video out there of me drinking from the bowl. If I ever get it I will be sure to post it.)

A lot of things happened that night. We got kicked out of a lot of different areas in the resort. Girls wanted nothing to do with us. I think we had several complaints. Everyone except maybe a couple people got drunk, but everyone was just having so much fun. The very last picture that I took was when I laid down to go to sleep, there was a big pile of guys laying on the floor, I laid down took a photo and fell a sleep. I later checked the photo and it was taken at 7:39am. I didn’t wake up until a little after noon.

You can just barely see my hair in the bottom of the photo, then you can count at least five other guys in that little area.

The commute back was the worst… some people still felt pretty drunk, some people were incredibly hungover. I was somewhere in between that. We had to wait for the bus, to take us to the train station, so that we can take the train to the subway station, and the subway back home. Not the most ideal commute for being in our condition.

Waiting for the bus.

We all had a lot of fun. We bonded and had a great experience. That one night alone was enough for my entire weekend.

Yesterday was St. Patrick’s day. I was the only one in class who bothered to wear green. I was surprised and at the same time disappointed.

Mike and I went to the London Bar (a western bar) where they had a special for St. Patrick’s day. If you drink four Guinnesses then  you will get a free St. Patrick’s day Guinness t-shirt. We arrived at about 7pm, and got our t-shirts about an hour and a half later. We played some shuffle board with some other folks we knew there. A group of us then went to Itaewon which is the area of Seoul where there is a lot of Americans because of the nearby military base. There they have an Irish bar. We went there for another beer, then grabbed a sandwich at KFC and went home.

In other news I now have another roommate. My roommate’s buddy moved in Monday, so he is sleeping on a little pad in between the two beds. He is here until next Monday. So it feels like it’s back to normal having three of us share the same room like when Bojan was here in the beginning.

Monday night’s football practice we got to put on pads and helmets. I was a little surprised to see that the gear looks to be several decades old. Not only did I find a helmet that fits me, but It’s actually tight on my head. Who plays this sport with a head smaller than me? My shoulder pads are also incomplete, they don’t have the attachment pads that hang over your shoulder, just the pads on top of the shoulder. My face mask is a little bent and has some rust on it. So far that’s the only equipment I have. I am hoping we’ll get the leggings. One guy told me last semester he had to take a sock and roll it up and put it in his knee pad pocket. In some way’s its kind of funny playing with some scrappy equipment and we don’t have a coach, we just seem to work together. I ordered some football cleats online, along with a pair of gloves like that of Deion Branch for receiving. My buddy Matt from Seattle will be bringing them with him when he comes here on Saturday.

Been a while since I’ve updated… so much has happened. So here we go.

Wednesday night was Football practice. We then went out to eat with the team for all you can eat meat buffet. Then we went to a bar and played shuffle board. The Korean guys hadn’t played it before so we got to teach them how to play.

Thursday I had class then went and met up with my friend Leah in MyungDong, I wanted to buy some shoes and jeans. After some food and looking in several stores I finally found a nice pair of shoes at Fred Perry and a pair of jeans from Zara.

I then got on the subway and met up with my friends. We went to a bar in Hongdae area where we drank for a little while. A group of us decided to then go to a Karaoke room. There we did some singing and stayed out real late.

Friday afternoon I woke up, ate some food, took a nap, then went to meet the guys at a bar here in Shinchon. There were several people out from the international house. I got there met up with the gang, we played some pool, drank some beers, then we went to Hongdae again. We ate at KFC and went to a nearby club.

Saturday woke up in the afternoon and went to meet my friend Leah this time in Dongdaemun stadium area. We ate in one of the street tents. You go inside this little tent and they have food cooking. If you ever watch Anthony Bourdain in Korea he goes into one of these. They are not all the some, many of them serve different kinds of food. The one we went to, I didn’t like it at all. I’m not going to lie the food tasted like manure. I didn’t want to be a pansy though so I ate as much as I could stand, I was eating pretty slowly though, and at times swallowing just avoid puking. We then continued looking around the area, they have a lot of knock off items. Purses, belts, shoes (endless amount of shoes), jeans, socks, underwear, shirts, luggage, wallets, suits… anything really they had just about anything.

It was so cold out we then went to a movie theater where we watched “Undead” an American horror film. We thought it was going to be pretty bad but it was actually not that bad. I wouldn’t call it a great movie, but it was alright.

We then walked out and I was a little hungry now. We tried to find a place to go into, we walked into one but the smoke smell was overwhelming. We walked out and I saw a sign that said “Seattle” on it. So I had to go check that place out.

There’s nothing Seattle about this place aside from the sign and a picture of mountains inside the cafe. They serve Starbucks. Aside from that, I was disappointed they didn’t have any pictures or memorabilia from Seattle.

After this I left to go meet up with my friends who were in Hongdae (yeah again…) We went to a bar that was a pretty classy place, then we went to the singing room again.

Sunday got up in the afternoon, feeling pretty tired. Three days in a row going to bed at 6am. I was exhausted. We were going to the mall though, I had a jacket I wanted to return. I met the group at the mall around 6, returned the jacket. I went to the Hyundai department store in the mall where they have a Kiehls store (the american grooming brand, I use a lot of their products). I bought some shampoo and conditioner.

We then went to eat at a mexican restaurant chain called “On The Border”. It was great! I had been craving mexican food for so long. I love chips and salsa, beans, tortillas… In the States I eat mexican probably a couple times a week. The portions here were huge just like Mexican places back home. It was great.

Our group then went back to Shincon a 40 minute subway ride. A few of us fell asleep on the subway. We met up with the other group to see the movie Dragonball. Normally I would not have gone to see the movie but a number of my friends were Dragonball fans as kids so they felt as though they needed to see it even though it was likely going to be a bad movie. It was a bad movie. It could be a good kids movie though. But… I can’t really think of any good qualities to mention about the movie. I’m glad its cheap here.

Now its time to recover. Football practice tonight.

Everyone here would think I meant soccer. But no I mean the American Football. Myself along with Mike joined the American football club here at Yonsei. We thought it would just be a typical university club where we show up and just play games for fun out on the field, but it is quite a bit more than that. Today was our first real practice, 2 1/2 hours. We didn’t do any playing, we just did drills. Apparently we joined a real team and we’ll be getting pads and gear and we play against other schools and that national championship will be held in Pusan. I was really excited to find out about that. Back in the states I probably wouldn’t last very long on a football field given my size, the guys that play football in the states are just enormous, but here not so much. There are several small guys on the team and the guys who seem to be real good hardcore players are average sized american guys. So I’m looking forward to the season! After the practice today we went out to dinner with all the guys. I have to take some video of this its hilarious. We’re in a restaurant and they start doing the huddle chant which is basically like when you hear marines go “Hooah!!” or whatever it is they say. They do that like 15 times, really lound and everyone is staring at us and we all do a shot of Soju, which is the Korean liqour. Then we do it outside the restaurant and this group of girls outside just go crazy over it.

I expect to be pretty sore tomorrow. I woke up this morning and went to the gym and worked out for an hour. Then did 2 1/2 hours of these football drills.

Lot of fun, looking forward to playing some games!

The last few days have been pretty busy. I’ve been getting really familiar with the subway system. My cellphone is awesome in that it has a subway map on it, I can set a starting point from a subway station and an ending point. It will tell me where I need to make a transfer and approximately how long the trip will take. It is very handy.

The map on the phone is all in Korean, luckily I can read though. I prefer that really because when I hear the stations being called on the subway I understand the Korean name of the subway station. Sometimes the English translations are pretty different from the Korean sound.

Friday I met up with a friend of mine and did a little shopping. I bought a pair of Adidas pants for working out and such. Then we went to eat some Korean bbq. I then met up with my roommate and some other people at the movie theater and we saw Watchmen which was just released that week.

It’s the american movie that is also being released at theaters in the states around the same time. I twas alright, a little long, but some good fight scenes. I was surprised at how graphic and disturbing some parts were, it has an R rating for a reason so definitely not a family movie.

We then went to a bar nearby that is more of a western style bar. It was very strange I ran into a guy from the University of Washington in Seattle who I had at least one class with. He sat next to me in one of my classes a couple years ago. He is going to Yonsei University on an entirely different program and is headed back home in a couple weeks. So it was very random to run into him at a bar halfway around the world.

Saturday I got up early to go play American football. It was really a little lame. We had a small tiny muddy field to play on, a really bad football and there was a couple guys that were good but several that were terrible. Monday we play again but I think it’s supposed to be different, we’ll get to play with more of the real football players that play for the university. Those guys didn’t come Saturday. Someone also made away with my zip up sweater… so I had to walk back to the dorm in like 37 degree weather in a sleeveless shirt. I think someone picked it up by accident so maybe they’ll bring it back next time, no big loss though.

My roommate and Phong were playing soccer right near our football game. I was playing football along with Mike the guy from New York. The four of us got ready after playing sports and went to Dongdaemun Stadium on the subway. There they have a big shopping district, although it was somewhat disappointing. We had an enormous lunch though. We didn’t quite know how much we were ordering until it arrived. We had too many dishes on our table we had to use another table to place our dishes on. It was great tasting food and only cost each of us like $7.

It was funny in one of the shopping malls we were riding the escalator up to the men’s clothing. There’s a person who works at every little small department at the store. One guy shouted to me “Oh you handsome man! Cool sunglasses!” My friends laughed at me. We walked down the aisle and around a corner and then again, another Korean guy shouted “Oh handsome man! High five!” he stood there with his hand in the air waiting for me to give him a high five, meanwhile I was thinking about how weird this was, why are these guys saying this to me? Are they weird, is a it a Korean thing? or is their English just not so good? He still stood there with a big smile on his face and his hand in the air, I didn’t want to leave him hanging so I gave him a little high five. Again my friends laughed at me. And now its a running joke, in sort of a Borat voice “You a handsome man! A high five!”.  Why do the guys say this and not the girls?

My friend called and asked what we were all up to so she came and met us there. We decided we’d go out for some drinks and to a club. So we headed back to the dorm room got changed and the group of us went to eat. This time it was terrible food. Never going there again. Then we went to a bar had a couple drinks and headed to the club. We left at about 1:30 or so, cabbed back to the dorm and went to sleep.

Today for breakfast(lunch) we tried a new place that’s close to campus. They have french toast! I was so happy. It tasted good. It also came with a warm banana dipped in a cinnamon sauce, bacon, and some greens.

Now. I don’t know what I’m going to do. I kind of want to replace my sweater. The black zip up was a staple piece to the clothes I brought. I can wear it with just about anything and its comfortable and a good layer to have in the cold weather.

I apologize the pictures and such have been light lately. It has been very cold out so I haven’t really been out taking pictures or anything. This week looks to be like it is warming up.

After being here for 1o days and eating only Korean food I was longing for something that tastes and feels like home. Yesterday I ran a few errands, I signed up for the gym here on campus. Purchased my reader book for one of my classes. Then I took the subway to meet up with a friend of mine that I met here locally. We walked around a part of town I haven’t been to yet. We then went to the movies, we saw The International with Clive Owen. The movie is in English, with Korean subtitles.

I liked the movie. It was pretty suspenseful the whole way through. It definitely had a good shoot out scene toward the end.

Then we went to eat at Bennigan’s where I ordered a mushroom grilled steak, chicken quesadilla, potato wedges, green beans and it came with a little loaf of bread… I ate till I just possibly couldn’t go on. We would sit there, take a little break, and then keep eating again.

So I felt pretty spoiled yesterday.

Today I had my first day of classes. My Korean language class does not start until the beginning of April because it is an intensive course so it will meet for I think two or three hours every day. So right now I just have half a load of courses, which is two additional classes.

My first class is Korean Unification Policies. We have about 40 or so students in the class, as of right now I am the only white person. However many of the people in the class could be international students. The class sounds pretty interesting. We will analyze other unification policies that have taken place such as in Germany. We watched an insane video on a performance put on by North Korea at a celebration of Kim Il-Sung’s birthday (Kim Jung-Il’s father). It is incredible. At the same time you can’t help but imagine what these people go through for this, especially the kids that do acrobatics that I don’t think they should be able to do.

The second class is History of Korea-US Relations. There is only 8 people in the class, not only am I the only white person in this class, but I also know that I am the only American. The professor went over the course and I know it will be quite interesting because at times there can be strong emotions of contempt for American policies, and part of the course covers anti-Americanism.

Today I also got my cell phone, finally! Now my roommate and other international students in the house we’ve befriended can finally be connected! It’s been such a huge pain not being able to get a hold of anyone unless you see them face to face. I am also able to now call my friend that I met who’s a local and has been helping me buy a few things. The other day she helped me go buy a hair blow dryer, a hand mirror and some flip flops. The city is so crowded its hard to find places that sell stuff like mirrors and hair blow dryers.

My cell phone seems pretty cool. It doesn’t have T9 on it, which is strange. Maybe Korean’s don’t use T9, I don’t know. Its a Korean phone but it can be changed to English text, however there’s still some Korean in parts of the menu system.

My Korean cell number is 010.8050.0390

Yesterday was Bojan’s last day with us in Korea. He stayed for a week in our dorm room after being on an exchange in Japan for two weeks and came by on his way home to Holland. We decided we’d go have a relaxing day at the spa. Myself, my roommate Yu-Tien and Bojan, and another friend in the house Mike.

We walked to the subway station and road down to the part of town where we heard there was a good spa.

When we arrived we went in and they gave us a pair of shorts and a shirt. We went to the men’s locker room and… well, nearly every single man in there is in the nude. I’ve never been in a bath house before so I didn’t know what to expect, but I figured that people would be at least wearing some form of shorts or something, but no.

We were a little shy I guess and were wandering around trying to figure out what we’re supposed to do and where everything is. There are several floors in the bath house with different things on each floor. After the four of us wandered around aimlessly in our shorts and shirts we finally came to the realization of what we had to do. At this point, Bojan said “When in Rome.” So we stripped down to nothing.

You don’t even walk around with a towel on. We went to the shower area, then sat in a hot tub that was about 104 degrees. We then went to another tub and sat in that one for a little while. We then went into the sauna, it was extremely hot. Then they had these different baths, one was greenish color and it was called “energy”. Another was a really hot tub, it was at about 110 degrees. I sat it in for about 30 seconds. We showered again then went back to the locker room, threw on our shorts and shirts and went up to the mixed floor. There they have a big room where people lie down on the hard floor, there’s also an ice room which is like a giant refrigerator. We went to the massage room and got a one hour massage. They lay towels on top of you and work your body with their elbows. It was great. We then went to another floor where they had a room full of computers, playstations etc… we played a little starcraft. They also had a cinema playing Hellboy, and of course a room for karaoke.

We went back to the locker, stripped down and went in a couple tubs again, sauna, then did a body scrub. We left after spending probably six hours or so in the bath house. I think we all looked about four years younger.

Left to Right: Yu-Tien, Mike, Bojan, Me

We then took the subway back to Sinchon station near the U and stopped by a place for dinner. We ate a lot of food, duck, octopus, pork ribs, kim chi, fish, some soup with clam… all kinds of stuff.

After that we went back to the dorm room and Bojan packed, we got ready to go to a club for a girls birthday party. The club was great, it was nice. It was a techno trance club and the DJ’s were incredible. The club was not so different from what you’d see in a nice place in the states, but the DJ’s really made the place, I haven’t heard DJ’s that good from the places I’ve been in Seattle, Portland and Vegas. We left a little after 4am I believe and the place was still hopping. We took a cab back to the dorm and went to sleep. (I think Bojan’s camera has pictures on it from the club, so when he gets them up online I’ll post them).

In the end, after spending a chunk of the day in the nude, I think we all felt a little closer.

It’s going to be weird now only having one roommate.
For the past week this is what the bed next to me has looked like.