Halloween!

Everland

   Happy Holidays!

   With the holidays right around the corner, I've been very busy with celebrating my first international Halloween and preparing for my final next week! After my finals, I'll have plenty of free time to travel and explore more of South Korea.
   In the meantime, I have been exploring the amusement parks near Seoul and at the perfect time to celebrate spooky season!
   To begin my spooky adventure a large group of my friends and I met at Lotte World the Saturday before Halloween. While there we enjoyed as many rides as we could during the day before we explored the Haunted House after sundown. I can honestly say it was the most well put together haunted house I have ever experienced. To start, they section you into small groups of six and have you walk together holding onto a rope. In the haunted house, you go through all the classics, an old dining area with people around the table, someone lying in a bed that jump scares you. The scariest part however was just before the end. It appears as though you come to a dead-end, only to realize that the next way through is to crawl through the fireplace on the other end of the room. When you approach the fireplace someone is waiting to jump scare you as you pull the curtain back.  We finished the haunted house just in time for the "Zombie Parade"; a short display of actors in zombie makeup roaming the grounds of the amusement park. By the time this finished it was already 10:00 p.m. so my friends and I made our way home to change into clubbing outfits.

Bumblebee

   My girlfriends and I took the time to go home and get all dressed up before we shared a taxi to Itaewon to go clubbing for the rest of the night. Even though it wasn't Halloween yet, the streets were already filled with people in costumes celebrating. In Itaewon, people do not take their costumes lightly. It was common to see large groups all matching or to even see full cosplay or movie ready costumes. That night my friends and I stayed out all night, finishing our night at 7:00 a.m.
   During the week we had our first meeting of Speaking Society after taking a quick break for mid-terms. This week's topic was about the required military service in South Korea. The group I was in were all females so we had a pretty short discussion and tip-toed around the subject.

Scarface

   On Halloween day, my friends and I returned to Itaewon again to see the costumes again. This was the day we saw the person in the high-quality Bumblebee transformer costume. Despite not having a costume I still wanted to celebrate so at one of the booths in the street I had my face painted to give myself a fake scar. After a quick hour in Itaewon, my friends and I decided that as cool as the costumes were it was not worth being pushed through crowds to just move 10 feet. We decided to go to Hongdae instead. However, when we got there we realized that EVERYONE was in Itaewon. None of us had seen the streets of the Hongdae area so bare. Needless to say, we found a place to eat chicken and then made our way to our favorite club, Sinkhole.
   Again, we stayed out all night to ride the subway instead of paying for a taxi. We took the first subway home and made it back just after 6:00 a.m. At 8:00 a.m. Georgie and I had to get ready again to make it in time to go with our Korean class to the next amusement park, Everland! A quick nap on the bus was all the sleep I got that night.

Classmates and my teacher

   I did not get to ride as many rides at Everland as I did Lotte World because of my classmates and I decided to wait in time for the  T-Express roller coaster. During our almost four hour wait we practiced our Korean and the almost vertical drop at the beginning of the ride made it completely worth the wait.
   After the ride, I spent the rest of my time wandering around the park with my friends taking videos and photos to fill our social media. One of my classmates filmed footage for her youtube channel that I'll link here later when she posts it!

   At 6:00 p.m. we loaded the busses and returned to campus. For the last time, this Halloween week, Georgia and I had to quickly get ready to turn around and get to our next event at 8:00 p.m. 

Everland trip

   The final celebration of Halloween was a party room that my friends and I rented out for the night. We started the party with pizza and water pong then moved to a game of truth or drink. Eventually, the game turned into a deep conversation of us all getting to know each other on a more personal level. The gathering went on until 7:00 a.m. the next morning. Afterward, we all rode the subway home and squeezed in a quick nap on the train. I made it home just in time to wash off my make up, get a quick sleep then wake up to get ready for a date.

   Now I'll be taking a much more relaxed week as I study and prepare for my final next week.