Whirlwind Weekend/Weekend Update

Sorry about the lack of updates...nothing new happening for a while, but now something to write about.

This past weekend has been a blur. Sleepless nights. Drinks. It was rough. With the usual rotation of friends out on vacation, it was time to entertain myself for the weekend. It began on Friday night. After I had finished work, I went for drinks with my boss. The Korean culture is very different. A machismo atmosphere abounds, especially when it comes to drinking. Many Koreans work 12 hour plus days, so when they go out, they go out hard. Really hard. Most bars will continue serving until 6 am and you will find a healthy number of people still there. I haven't myself done a marathon session, really because I find that ridiculous. 3 am is enough. If you find yourself walking the streets of Seoul past 12am, the number of people you'll find walking about in a drunken stupor is quite high. What is really surprising are the age groups. The usual college students, elderly men and women, and everyone in between. Sometimes a group of ten people singing songs falling all over the place. A few people sitting on building steps or sleeping like a baby on the sidewalks. This is every night. Maybe because there is a population of 20 million, there is a rotation of people, or it could be the same people every night. At any rate, you'll always find it, starting at 11pm.

Luckily, I have not been among them. Though Friday night was close. For whatever reason I was listening to all of my boss' problems he's been facing for the past year over many drinks. I'm not quite sure why this is, but I usually find myself in these types of situations, the conduit for people to vent. Certainly I'm not the cause, but I do end up listening. He had a few things he wanted to talk about so we were drinking for sometime. The conversation had ended on its own, so it was time to go home. From where we were, it's a $30 cab ride to my residence. On the flip side there are saunas it Korea for $6 a night. Here you can sit in a whirlpool/sauna/steam room, then take a nap. A place where you can refresh yourself, and a place where you can recover from the activities of the previous night. So I availed myself of the sauna experience, though I just went to sleep. The following morning, I woke up and proceeded to head home. My boss had walked me to the sauna the night previous, so when exited the building I wasn't quite sure where I was. Needless to say, everything is in Korean, and my job is quite far from my apartment, so at this time I had no sense of direction. If you're able to find a subway station, getting anywhere in Seoul is very easy. Away from the subway, well, I hope you speak Korean. Where I work is 20 minutes by bus away from the subway. I haven't yet explored the area where I work, mostly because if I stray away too far I'd be hopelessly lost. When I woke up from the sauna, I found that I strayed too far. Getting my bearings was difficult as I still found myself under the effects of the previous night. So an hour or so later, I managed to get to a bus that goes directly to the subway. From there it was a breeze to my apartment, and my bed. So time-wise this was the itinerary:

8.30pm finished work
9pm-2am with boss
2.30am-11am sauna
11am-12pm finding subway
1.30pm- apartment/bed

So...that was Friday night. Saturday was St Patrick's day and was more eventful.