Ice Bar and Han Cruise

On Friday night after school Melodie and I made the trek to Hongdae with some friends to check out the "Ice Bar". We'd seen lots of pictures online and were pretty excited. It was a night of temperature extremes as we got on an express subway train that was p-a-c-k-e-d and sweaty. You could feel the steam pouring out of the car each time the doors opened. We were lucky to get on the express train though, becase it only took us about 30 minutes to get to our destination and it's usually an hour's ride. Hot and dizzy, we arrived in Hongdae and headed for a Thai restaraunt we'd read about.

The meal was oooooookay, but didn't hold a candle to the Thai place we'd enjoyed so much in Songtan. It was definately koreanized, which was obvious when they served us a plate of pickles. Sweaty memories of the subway returned for some of us when the green curry was much spicier than expected. The noddles were good though! Khaosan restaraunt: 4/10 stars.

After we'd finished eating we still had about an hour before our reservations at the Ice Bar, so we went to "Ho Bar" where all the korean homies were hanging out. It was a cool place, and we made a lot of new friends when we brought out the horse head mask and it got passed around the bar. The humor resulted in complimentary nachos being served to our table. Score! Ho Bar: 8/10 stars

After that we were off to the ice bar. We were each given big silver parkas and headed into the giant meat-refrigerator-turned-bar. It was pretty cool (pun intended). Everything was made of ice: the bar, the walls, the tables, even the cups our drinks were poured into. There were lots of ice sculptures as well. It turned out our reservations were irrelevant as there was nobody at the bar!! It was fun to have the place to ourselves to slip slide around though, and eventually two other people showed up...

... and they brought costumes! Never ones to resist a photo op, we pulled out our own "fancy dress" and snapped this pic. The horse head, once again the most popular inanimate object in the room, was passed around and even tried on by the bar owner. After our toes started to go numb, we reluctantly returned our fashion parkas and went to a norebang, and then called it a night after a crooked cab ride home and some fireworks on the roof. Ice Bar: 9/10 stars

On Saturday, Mel and I decided to take a ferry ride along the Han River off Hangang Park. We left at 6:30 so we were cruising along as the sun was setting and it was really nice. The shoreline along the Han is really cool, with lots of skyscrapers and bridges to look at. We met pleasant old Minnesotans, and a nice local man next to me offered additional information about the sights we were passing as well. It was a nice and relaxing way to enjoy the night. Han River Cruise: 9.5/10 stars

I felt the need to share this picture with you... before we got on the boat we hung out around the water for a little while and notice this woman hanging out with her chicken. Woman with a chicken: 10/10 stars (priceless).