Day 2 Hongik University, B Boy Theater & Hongdae

Day 2

I missed my 8 – 8.30 am guesthouse breakfast so I had my first Korean breakfast in a coffee place. I got a buzzer that vibrated when my sandwich was ready.

Although my guesthouse is good I think the sandwich I ate here tasted better

Walking around I came across a huge N shaped structure at the end of a beautiful street that was going up. It was the entrance to Hongik University. I walked under the structure to go to the campus.

Entrance to Hongik University. It specializes in art and I've been to the museum.

On my way back I met 3 Korean ppl, 2 guys and 1 girl. We started talking about some statue there and later about Korea, Korean, Amsterdam, music. The girl was friends with Korean singer K Will and her friends didn’t know this. Funny how I always make ppl realize things about others that they didn’t know yet.

The statue

After this it was time to visit the thing that had drawn my attention on the map since I first saw it: the B boy theater. Like many places, the theater was in the basement so I initially couldn’t find it. I asked some girl passing me where it was and she didn’t know. She checked my map, she checked her phone and she asked someone else for me. Then she thought she knew and she told me to follow her. Holding my map in her hand, we walked to the B boy theater.

The B boy theater is in a building shared by a few companies. The doorman (sitting at a desk) got up and showed me to the elevator. I said bye to the girl and I went to the basement. Downstairs was a wall with accomplishments of the dance crew and I could hear music coming from the next room. There was nobody where I was so I went to the music. It was the theater. I bowed to greet some ppl who noticed I entered. I asked if it was OK to watch and it was :)

I watched them practice for over 2 hours. They were doing all kind of break dance moves, later a girl came and she started practicing hip hop dance moves. More and more people came, there were almost 25 of them. Upstairs on top of the seats was a controller for the music, they kept running up the stairs to change the music and practice. It was at a really pleasant volume, I think it helped their concentration. Later I noticed that there were smaller groups within the group practicing together.

One guy tried to do some spinning move but he couldn’t prolong it. The 2 guys he was practicing with were a little better at it but they couldn’t do it that long either. A girl stood in front of the first girl and showed her how to do the dance move she was practicing. It’s funny how much I could tell about their communication without hearing them talk and just seeing them move.

When I left I thanked someone there (then I didn’t know he was the leader of the group) but he couldn’t speak English so well. So he got his friend Moon to talk to me and we talked about his dancing. Really friendly people for letting me watch their practice :)

At night I walked around randomly.

Hongdae (or very maybe Sincheon)

I went to a street in Hongdae. There were so many people in every street! In this one section of a street people perform outside. 2 groups were making music, separated by a wall so their sounds wouldn't get too mixed up. The singer was confident and made some girls laugh. They had a bigger audience then when I saw them the day before. One group had mainly girls in the audience but not such a big audience. The other group also didn’t have such a big audience, maybe 5 ppl.

Further on, there are many stores. Many of these play music to attract customers and cosmetic stores also have a woman standing outside with a microphone to get people to enter the store. They give you a shopping basket with something in it, I think you get that for free when you buy something else in the store.

There is so much to see and so much to do here! I wonder what else I’ll discover :)

Day 1 - Seoul!

Day 1

The city gives a good impression. When I got out of the subway I found myself in a big street with tall buildings. I immediately noticed people noticed me. They looked at me a bit longer than people would do in Amsterdam. Some make eye contact and seem to keep it, I should test their limit. One girl smiled at me as we passed. I quickly noticed I was the only non-Korean there. No tourists? Maybe it was the wrong area for that.

For dinner - I had to cook it myself in the restaurant! It must be a special type of restaurant because it was 21OOO for 3 things & side dishes. What I liked about this restaurant is that all the waiters loudly say "hello" when a new customer arrives.

A guy from the group of 4 next to me sat down in front of me and told me I should mix the dish with kimchi and other things in it with rice and seaweed. It seems like they had noticed my non-Korean eating style. Later I asked them about the gochuyang and one of the girls took one of her lettuce leaves, with her chopsticks she took some of my gochuyang and put on a piece of meat and then folded the lettuce. And then she said "Aaaah" and put it in my mouth. We all had to laugh, they are really nice people ;) ;) ;)

After dinner I walked around and I ended up in Sincheon, which is next to Hongdae. There I met the nicest girls on my first day in Korea. I asked them for directions back to Hongdae and they asked where I was from. We talked for 3O mins. They studied Chinese but they were surprised that I speak so many languages. One of them didn't have a bag but she held her books/papers in her hand (it was cold) so I told her she was still studying so late. I showed them some pics of a gay bar in Amsterdam & showed them the gay hand shake. We talked about body language, the tall girl seemed to already know that in Europe we touch more. She showed me some pics of her town (she studies in Seoul) but her boyfriend was on most of them so I couldn't see much of the town.

What was very different compared to Amsterdam was that I could keep the conversation going very easily.  In Amsterdam it would be sort of hard to have this kind of conversation with someone you haven't met before. I think Seoul is a big city but the people have a warm and friendly mentality.

Anyways, I later went in the direction they told me Hongdae was in (it was the right direction) but to me it felt it was exactly the wrong direction because I had been walking around too much.

Into the new world

Oh!

I'm learning the most beautiful language in the world, but when I hear Korean music I don't even try to find out what they're saying. The feelings are not in their words, but the feelings are in their voice.