Halloween!!

Yes that's right kids it's Halloween again, my favorite holiday of the year. I sure do love getting all dressed up and going out to a big old party, and this year did not disappoint. My costume was not as elaborate as years past due to my much reduced wardrobe and not having a lot of time to throw something together. What I ended up doing was heading down to E-mart (the department/grocery store in town) to see what they had to offer. I found a masquerade type mask and some pumpkin alien antenna, that was about it. So I bought both and for the rest of my costume dressed up nice, tie and slacks and whatnot.

First on the agenda for the night was dinner with the couchsurfers. We all met somewhere downtown, already drawing incredible stares. The only person without a costume was a girl named Chamy who was on vacation with her mom from Indonesia so I let her have the pumpkin antenna. We marched down the street towards the restaurant, and it was painfully obvious that this was just another Saturday night for most Koreans, but for all the foreigners it was HALLOWEEN!!

After dinner came the meat of the night, what we had all signed up for, the subway party. At this point there were probably twenty or twenty five of us all together. We went to the back car of the subway (line #2) and all piled on together. Needless to say everyone in the car was dumbfounded. The tension eased though when we started handing out candy and yelling happy Halloween at everyone we could see.

From the dinner stop to our destination was about an hour so we all just settled in to the car, drinking our discrete beverages, and scaring the locals. When we pulled into a stop some people would just stare at the car and not move, obviously deciding to wait for the next train. More people seemed to like it though, they would come in and laugh at the silly foreigners and ask us to pose in pictures with them and eat our candy. Overall the subway party was a screaming success.

After that we ended up in Hongdae to hit up some bars. The first place we tried to go had a cover of like $20 so we skipped it in favor of something cheaper. Next place had no cover and a great dance floor. It was pretty deserted when we went into it but that quickly changed with twenty of us piling in. The DJ was good and the drinks were cheap, an excellent combination.

After that bar we moved across the street to a hookah bar for a while, which was nice. Hongdae is actually the big university part of town, so the Halloween festivities were in full swing out here. Most of the bars and clubs were having some kind of promotion or event and most of the people I saw (which was a lot of people) were dressed up. Post hookah bar we ate some spicy rice cakes and meat (not sure what kind) from a street vendor then went into the noribang for some terrible terrible singing.

When our time was up in there the group, which had been getting smaller as the night went on, split in two again, half going home and the other half staying out to party a bit more. Guess which half I was in... Anyway we hit up another dance club and were there for about, man I don't know, an hour? Two? Well after we left we ended up just wandering around the streets for another hour or so. By this time the sky was beginning to lighten up and I took that as my cue to make for the exit.

It was generally my plan to stay out this late anyway because the subways stop at midnight and start up again at 6am, so instead of forking out $40 or so for a cab ride home I would just party til the sun came up and pay $2 to ride public transport all the way home. So one very sleepy subway ride and one very sleepy bus ride later I arrived safe and sound at my apartment, a very bright 7:45 in the morning. So that was that, made some really awesome friends and had a good time. Couchsurfers really are the best people. They thrive on meeting strangers and having a good time right away, this was the perfect setting for all of us.

Well I hope everyone else had an awesome Halloween too. My pics from the night are up on facebook if you want to check them out. Peace and love everyone!!!