Gwangju(ed): Seoul Sound (Get it?)

Last weekend a friend, Holli (fantastic southern accent, like reliving Streetcar Named Desire/ Gone with the Wind all over again) and I took a little trip to Seoul to shop, and by god did we. You only get one size fits all in Gwangju and that size is tiny. So Seoul was our opportunity to shop for girls with a little bit of T & A.
After getting up hideously early on saturday morning we made our way by bus to Seoul. A four hour trip that I slept solidly through. Holli woke me up to show me the torrential blizzard blowing outside but nothing was keeping me awake.
It all went freakishly smoothly. We started with a mazzive steak and shopped all day saturday. I paid far too much money for a coat but it was so bloody cold that I was quickly and easily convinced.
In the evening we met up with friends and raged around the bars in Hongdae (sp?), the university district. The live band bar was shit but as a britney and K pop fan I am never going to enjoy punk. In the end we went to this bar filled with westerns which was a bit of a shock. In my city a white face is not that common and the expats all seem to know each other.
The next day we indulged in an amazing breakfast. Savory waffles, pancakes, bacon. The works. It was awesome. The only thing missing was a massive head sized mug of english tea and some marmite (which I am running out of, what will I do???). We did even more shopping and in the fatty section of one of the malls I even managed to find some amazing jeans. I honestly haven't seen any fat Koreans, I think they may hide them in the plus sections of the shopping malls as there were plently there. But my favourite purchase was a Super Junior calendar, love it!
Seoul is a fab city. Its enormity makes it resemble a dystopian city from some japanese anime. It has everything you could imagine and it grants you a dramatic anonimity. I found that the westerners there had a rather different attitude to those in a smaller city. Besides a few little things Seoul could be any city around the world therefore there seems to be little of the true korean experience. So many people spoke English and although it may be hypocritical to say the english teachers seemed happy to loose themselves amongst the white crowd and ignore the Koreanness (I know it isn't a word) around them.
We returned to Gwangju satisfied that we had made the right choice in not getting jobs in Seoul.
xoxoxoxo