A Seoulful weekend

This weekend I've had a bit of a cold, so decided to stay around Seoul for the duration. Well, more accurately, I was supposed to be heading to Dongdaemun with my Korean teacher, then to a firework show at the 63 building and then to The Phantom of the Opera, however, things don't always work out as planned.

Amy and I decided, that although 미진 couldn't make it to Dongdaemun, we would still head there for some valuable shopping time on Saturday. Dongdaemun, although less famous than Namdaemun, is far cooler and sells things that a person under 40 would actually want to buy. We wandered around for a long time, and I managed to buy some wool, which I was very excited about, seeing as I am getting back into my knitting swing, the aunts would be so proud! We also met up with a friend from home's sister, who seems very cool and is adjusting well to life over here. From Dongdaemun, we took a quick tube ride to Myongdong and to Forever 21. It was nice to be able to shop in a western style store with westerner style clothes for once, but I wasn't quite as enamoured as I thought I would be and didn't really come away with anything, other than 3 tops, which are nice, but not the trousers I'd hoped for. It was a slightly miffed Penny that got back on the tube a little later. I was cheered up though, by some very rowdy Korean boys, of about 17 who were playing dares. After watching them front roll down the carriage and stand up to shoot people, do the dance, en masse to 'Abracadabra' by Brown Eyed Girls (the latest Kpop senstation, think lots of neon and synchronised dancing) and pull some decent chin ups, Amy rightly commented that if that was us, we would have possibly been shot. True, but excellent to watch all the same.

Today was a lazy day - I skipped out on our plan of basketball this afternoon, seeing as I sound like a 90 year old woman with empysema and feel about as healthy, so a day of reading was on the cards for me, which suited me just fine. Playing basketball in the rain definately comes second to 'New Moon' (yes, I'm now addicited to the Twilight books. Sad, but I comfort myself with the fact they're New York Times bestsellers, like that makes it less embarassing.) and cookies. I finally dragged myself out of bed and headed to meet Amy at the bus stop for a journey to the Charlotte theatre in Jamsil, for the Seoul production of 'The Phantom of the Opera'. There was some debate on whether we should buy tickets for the 'pricey for teachers' sum of 40,000w seeing as the show was entirely in Korean, however I'm really glad that we decided to.
Charlotte theatre itself is a really beautiful building, located right next to Lotteworld (and the shopping centre, which I found, to my delight has a mini Trevvi fountain under the ground) and is built like a European theatre, which is in stark contrast to the tack and highrises around it. Inside is much the same, so I was glad that we decided to put on our Sunday best, even though most of the Koreans present thought that ripped jeans and tshirts were right for the event. We stopped for a nice glass of bubbly (at w5,000) before the show to take in the opulent surroundings, after I'd pigged out on some rice outside, looking like a hobo that is, and went in.
The set was the first thing that struck me, as is the way, and already I was hooked. What followed was 2.5 hours of immense singing, beautiful sets and costumes and sniggering at 'yogi, Phantom of the Opera!' Still. It was amazing and I'm so glad that we decided to splash out and give Korean opera a chance. Definately worth it.