St. Patrick's Day Festivities

To help celebrate St. Patrick's Day, I met up with one of my best friends, one of my old friend, and met one or two new friends on this festive, green day!  A St. Patrick's Day celebration was fabled to be held in D-Cube Square, just outside of a certain subway station in Seoul.  Jeff and I met Shalita on the train so we could head into town together.  I managed to find a green shirt to wear, but Shalita showed us up big time in her green shirt, green eyeshadow, loafers, and striped green knee-high socks!  We met a few other foreigners in the station and headed up the stairs to behold the festivities.   ~   We did a full 360 and were sorely disappointed.  ~   Facebook posted that some thousand or so people would come to party.  We saw about 20.  But lo and behold, just as our hearts began to sink, we heard was must be traditional Irish music!  Follow that sound!  As we walked closer to the band, we realized it was evangelical Christian melodies being strummed on a guitar... no dice.

We checked Facebook again, were relieved to find we had gone out the wrong exit, and tried again.  This time, we had much better luck.  A multitude of foreigners clad in green, each holding a Guinness, and dancing to traditional Irish tunes awaited us.

We found ourselves a spot to camp out at and sent Jeff out on a beer run.  About an hour later he came back - he had some difficulty when the Emart (similar to a Walmart) we had spotted didn't exist.  He saw the sign, entered the building, went up the elevator, and then, bam - the store didn't exist when the elevator doors opened.  He persevered, nonetheless, and came back full-handed!

It was a great afternoon!  The weather was fairly warm and sunny, and Jeff and I even danced around a bit in the crowd.  Well, we jumped a lot.  That's about all that was possible in the crowd, and given the type of music.  We decided to take it up a notch and jump around a bit on the stage, too.  I was secretly glad that got cut short, however, given how trampoline-like the stage had gotten.  If the stage had fallen, I'm nearly certain I would have been crushed.  (It was a strange experience to be smaller than most people around me again.  Not something I get to feel that often in Korea.)

We even managed to make a new friend or two - one super cool girl lives right in Ansan, yay!  Our little crew of people decided to keep up the cheer after the concert ended, and went and got dinner together.  A nice, traditional... Mexican dinner.  Anyway, it was fast and cheap.  ;)  We ended the night with a little Irish Slush at a cozy pub, and then danced the night away.

All in all a success, if you ask me!