July 4th Weekend in Korea

I wasn't sure how spending J4 in another country would play out especially as half my friends here aren't even American


Friday night I had to sub for someone so afterward I was feeling a little bit tired. My coworkers talked about a relaxing night playing cards... so i decided that was better than going to bed at 11... in the end, it meant I went to bed at 7... a.m. We chatted, played cards, drank, and then watched
almost famous .

Then we strolled to McDonald's for breakfast.

So it was Saturday and I needed to go meet up with a friend who was staying with another friend of hers in Seoul. I was supposed to go to a barbecue first but as I went to bed at 7 am there was no way I was going to get up in time and the total trip time was about 2 hrs there and back (4 each way) plus I wanted to be back in Seoul. No one else seemed to be doing anything exciting, and so I got really, really homesick. I was really down about not being home grilling and eating macaroni and cheese and lots of fireworks...

I wanted to at least get an authentic all-American meal. I looked up many restaurants and we finally settled on Jacoby's Burger based on an awesome review I had read. It was all the way down at Noksapyeong station (close to Itaewon). We climbed up the hill and found it, realizing what a nice area outside of Itaewon can be.

Exterior
When we got there, we were seated on a patio watching tons of drunken Americans go by, but they told us the food would take 40 mins.
Interior

Luckily I had a mag and J had a deck of cards so before we knew it, voila... yumminess on a plate. The burger was amazing. I got a chili-cheese burger with rosemary fries... All I can say is HEAVEN...

The food


After that I called up my friend, to see what she was up to. She was still at the hotel in myeongdong, so we headed over there. I must admit I wasn't sure how my Korean-Canadian friend would mesh with my friends who were true atl-iens (y'all know what I mean). We started chatting and decided we wanted to show her what real Korea was like as she had been indoors most of the day.

Eating on the street in Myeongdong


I picked gangnam because i wanted something a bit more casual but trendy at the same time. plus some other people i hadn't seen in a while were going there... and i ran into them on the train

off to Gangnam by train (I'm beginning to spend a lot of time here - i was there 2 days the previous weekend too). Anyways we step off and first head over to tree - I wanted to introduce her to the wonderful world of soju cocktails. We had peach/pomegranate and then some beers...

Then we went outside to the 7-11 for some soju and orange juice.

Then we danced and drank in the street a bit

and tried to go to club Harlem but didn't feel like paying a shit ton to go there,
so back out the street into wa bar. good old wa-bar every where. Here I kicked back tequila sunrises while the guys had long islands and M had a June bug.

Then we got shots of tequila. Next thing I know J is dancing like a machine... mwahahaha.
E comes over and we go to the izakaya next door

and turns out I know his gf from college (or well, I've seen her). So there was these shady guys there who ordered food and then ran away. I hate that you have to order food at all of these places, but i did get some yummy fire chicken and okonomiyaki... it was good. As the sun rose I was still drinking a beer.

Happy Independence day America...
then we rode the train home and I passed out...

When I woke up I was still craving American food, plus an adventure. So J and I headed down to Gangnam (again) for brunch... at dinner time. We didn't even leave until 5pm. The name of the restaurant is Butterfinger Pancakes.

We got there and there was a wait. But it was so worth it, our food was amazing. J got the breakfast sampler platter and I had the french toast platter along with honey vanilla butter and real maple syrup. J (the Canadian) looked like he was about to have an orgasm with the maple syrup. I swear he wanted to steal it...
Anyways

Then I wanted beard papa's.
They make these yummy choux with awesome fillings and it was down at yangjae station which could have been many transfers away, or a couple of blocks up the street.
So we walked.
(Yum).

After the choux, We headed off on what has been a failed mission for the past few weeks, finding the french village. It's this place in Seoul where about 650 french people live and there is a french high school

and the signs are in french and Korean vs English and Korean everywhere else
.
Well we found it, thanks to my amazing memory on the directions for getting to the restaurant Stove
.
It was hardly a french quarter, more like french street, but there are many restaurants I want to go back and check out (we were too full to eat)...


Then a successful train ride home to jump into bed and I wasn't homesick anymore. I think this ranks in Korea as my top 5 weekends. Wish I had made the Philippine festival, but I will be there soon enough anyways.

So the question at the beginning was: how will my July 4th in Korea go...