Day 190: The Bestest Friends Ever

Today was my Birthday Celebration Day so I got to have a whole day that was all about me. I met up with Michael and Eric in the afternoon and they took me out shopping. I've been trying to find shoes here in Korea but have been having the darndest of luck trying to find shoes that fit my feet. I take Size 12 which isn't *that* huge but apparently no one in Korea, it seems, has feet bigger than Size 10!

We hit some shoe stores in Itaewon first thinking that they'd have some that could fit my feet, considering that most of their customers would be the GI's and other foreigners that hang out down there, but no luck at all. We decided to ditch Itaewon and go to Myongdong to see if the selection there was any better. We spent the entire afternoon hanging out shopping in Myongdong and it was such a blast! Myongdong is a very popular, posh shopping area in Seoul. It's a beautiful street full of great boutiques and a couple big department stores and there's no cars allowed so it makes for a great shopping environment. We tried store after store but kept getting turned away. Would I ever find shoes to fit my monster feet?

Finally at an Adidas store we found some shoes that fit me and they looked pretty cool so I bought them. We did more shopping after that and I bought a shirt too. Later on we were in this one department store that these big bins full of discount shirts. It's the kinda store where 99% of the clothes are pure shite (ie: the ugliest things you can possibly imagine) but every once in a while you find a real jewel in there. Well we were in a super silly mood so we decided to play this game where it was a contest to see who could find the *worst* shirt for one of us to wear. We rummaged and dove on in to these bins and I waded through some truly awful, horrific fashions before I found a particularly uhhhhgleeeee shirt. I had to find one for Eric, Eric found one for Michael, and Michael found one for me. We went and tried on our Worst Outfits Ever and had a huge laughing fit when we all looked in the mirror. God, I wish that one of us had brought a camera cause we truly looked horrendous. Too much fun!

After that it was time to go and get ready for my big birthday bash. We went back to Michael's to clean up and change and then headed to the restaurant where I was having my dinner. I had chosen this place called Nashville Steak House and it was a nice quiet little place in Itaewon. I had a great turn-out for my dinner!! There was myself, Michael, Eric, Pauline, Nick, Angele, their friend Darryl, Addie, Luke, Ryan, Jeff, Ailish, Mark, and his coworker Paul. We all had a really great dinner and then decided to change venues.

We took cabs on over to Hondae which is the Club District in Seoul. I decided we should all go and have drinks at this place called Route66 and it was a really awesome bar. We got a table and just sat and chatted for hours over long island iced teas and gin and tonics. It was so awesome to see all my friends mixing and mingling and everyone was having such a great time, especially me. After Route66 we walked on over to a dance club called HodgePodge and had even more of a blast. More drinks, lots of dancing, great times all around...

Somewhere in the middle of all of this I realized how lucky I am to have such truly wonderful friends here in Korea. I've me some incredibly nice, amazing people who are just a lot of fun and are really good people. All during the night all my friends kept telling me how lucky I am to have such great friends, how much fun they were having, and thanks so much for inviting them. It was one of those perfect nights where everyone's in such great spirits and the whole night is just one laugh after another.

We stayed at HodgePodge until quite late and then decided to head back to Itaewon to go to another club. By the time we got there it was really late and some of my friends were tired so they either went home or went to grab some food. Michael, Eric, Pauline, and I decided to keep on going so we went to The Hill to the clubs there but never actually spent any time inside really. Eric had had a bit too much to drink and was sick so we brought him to Michael's to crash (just metres up the street.) The three of us had some more drinks and actually just chilled outside the clubs in the alley with all the people coming and going from the bars.

At that point it was just after 5:30am and the sun was starting to come up. The alcohol was catching up with us and so we decided to go back to Michael's crash. We all found a corner of the apartment to lie down and passed out in various positions, taking up pretty much all of Michael's apartment. What a really amazing, great birthday night it was! Definitely one of my best ones ever and, once again, made me realize that I have the coolest, bestest friends ever here in Korea! So many great memories with so many great people, and tonight was definitely one of them! LIFE IS AWESOME!! :-)