Celebrate Good Times, Come On!

A few weeks ago was a weekend full of reasons to celebrate:

-February Birthdays
-Lunar New Year
-Welcoming J to Korea
-Valentine's Day
-The Olympics

Lunar New Year is one of the biggest holidays in Korea so I had a day off and headed to Seoul for the long weekend. My KTX experiences have definitely improved which makes traveling to Seoul super easy and I've even learned how to pack light. I arrived in Seoul early Saturday morning which was S's birthday. We met up with a good group of people and headed to the Bau House. S had been ranting and raving about this "dog cafe" that she wanted to go to on her birthday. I was hesitant at first because I refuse to eat dog so I had no idea what I was getting myself into agreeing to go to this mysterious place. Well, it happened to literally be a dog cafe, but no dogs were harmed in the process. It was basically a room full of dogs roaming around. There were about 15 permanent dogs and then people can also board their dogs there. Pretty cool concept minus the wet dog smell. All of the dogs were really well behaved and got along great. There were paint roller sized lint brushes and the employees were stocked with a variety of cleaning supplies. There's also a cat cafe that I'll have to check out next time too. Oh, and among all of these dogs there was ONE cat. Now some cats get along great with dogs and even consider themselves dogs, but this poor cat in the DOG cafe was not one of them. Poor thing.

Next on the agenda was swing dancing! I may be a Maple Motion alum, but swing dancing was a whole new thing for me. One of S's friends is a great swing dancer and surprisingly a lot of people we were with took ballroom and swing dancing classes in college. I felt like I was on Dancing with the Stars and I learned a few key steps such as the Charleston and the Virginia (I think I just made that one up). But it was something new and super fun.

One of my older posts was about six degrees of separation and how I can't get over how many people I keep running into... in Korea of all places. Well, this one definitely tops the list.

J had just arrived in Korea from Switzerland so I wanted to show her a good time in Seoul. We were walking around Hongdae when all of a sudden I heard my name being called. I looked around and didn't see anyone familiar. Then I heard my name again. Still nothing. We stopped in front of this group of foreigners and this guy looked at me and said you don't remember do you? I was going through everyone I knew in my brain and I just couldn't think of who this guy was. He definitely knew me, but I still couldn't put a name to a face or a face to a name. Awkward. Finally, something clicked and I realized it was this guy I was in youth group with waaay back in the day. I probably haven't seen him since middle school, but we ended up going out together the rest of the night. It was great catching up with him and reminiscing about our past together. He arrived in Korea a few days after me and is teaching English in a city near Busan. I still can't believe he recognized me among all of the Koreans on the streets of Hongdae. Small world.

As usual, the weekend went by way too fast and I didn't even go shopping in Seoul, but I'll be back!