Seoul Korea Day 2 - Night Stroll Around Samcheongdong

As you already know, I heavily use Couchsurfing to meet people when I get to travel. It's a good venue to meet like minded people and I've had good experiences with it so far. Well, there's two in Tokyo that are not so stellar but that's for another post. So anyway, I met a girl and we decided to meet tonight. We had been talking through Kakaotalk as well weeks before my trip. She was gonna show me around Samcheongdong and walk from there to Bukchon Hanok to Insadong. She said the area around Gwanghwamun Square is really scenic so I was really looking to meet her. A few days before she said that she met a French guy through the same website who'd like to join us so it became a party of three. We met at a subway exit. Actually, the moment I came out of the exit and waited for Hye, I noticed a foreign guy standing by himself and who looked like he was waiting for someone. I kinda sensed that he was the guy Hye. was talking about so I walked over and introduced myself cuz we were the only two people standing awkwardly there. And I was right! lol Hye came a few minutes later and was surprised to see we were already talking. I am almost never shy abroad but I don't usually do this in my own country. Go figure. 😆 The guy was really talkative, this has a pro and con. On the positive side, he was really breaking the ice well between the three of us and he was fun to talk to but on the negative side, it felt like Hye not being that 100% adept in English can't catch all of the humorous things he was blabbing about. Also, she just came from work and was a bit tired . I wanted to have some quiet time with her to just talk about life in Korea. But since I don't really have a choice, I just went with it. Apparently, he had been there before so he led us around Bukchon Hanok. It seemed eerie and quiet and different during the day. We had a really good overlooking view of the city though so at least I have him to thank for that. We can see Namsan Tower from there which was cool because I didn't have any plan to go up there. It's a known dating place and it'd only feel awkward if I go there by myself 😅

Afterward we went through Gwanghwamun Square and the palace gate was really nice to look at. He made some Star Wars joke when we were near the statue of King Sejong and I laughed hard because indeed, the officer's club guarding the statue is glowing in the dark like light sabers. I noticed Hye not laughing because she either didn't get the reference or she's starting to feel tired. This is one of the situation when I wished the French guy didn't join us. Anyway, we continued to walk until we reached Cheonggyecheon stream. I was looking forward to see it cuz it looked really nice in photos but I guess we came too late? The lights were not on anymore so it was a bit dark. But it was alright. I told Hye beforehand that I wanted to try chimaek (chicken and beer) since it's one of the popular drinking combo in Korea so we headed to a chimaek restaurant. The chicken was really yummy and the house beer was probably the best beer I've had in my life, seriously. We had an interesting talk about some Korean's affinity for plastic surgery and it was fun at first, so much so that we forgot to take pictures. Hye and I fangirled over Gong Hyo Jin and how she's a natural. We walked around some more but I noticed Hye was no longer talking as much as before. Days later she said it's because she was just really tired from work but I also really wished that the guy we were with would just stop talking for a minute. We did have a photo together right outside the city hall but I won't post it here cuz he might stumble on this blog. Overall, he's an okay guy, really friendly. He just talked too much, that's all. 😅 I wish I can go back to Korea one day and meet with her again. We didn't really get to know each other because the guy was hogging both our attention, oh well.