I left school early on Friday afternoon and headed home to help Grant finish packing up his things. Or so I told him. In truth, I was desperately searching for his passport so that I could burn it and he wouldn't be able to leave - he would have to go through the process of applying for a new one, and through all the time that it would take (I estimate six months) he would have to stay here. But alas, I had no luck. He finished packing and before we knew it, we were on our way to Incheon Airport. There were no queues, so he quickly checked into his flight and we were left waiting around for the four hours that were left before he had to fly away (we decided to err on the side of caution and arrive VERY early rather than being late and finding no busses to the airport or giant queues at the check-in counter.) We tried to find some dinner, but most of the restaurants were closing (at eight o'clock! SERIOUSLY!) so we ended up having some pasta at one of the chain stores. After that we sat around, had a drink, took a walk and before we knew what was happening, it was time to say goodbye. I made my teary departure as he disappeared through the security gate and made my way to the airport subway station. An hour later, I arrived in Gangnam.

Grant's flight left at 11:55, so I decided it would be easiest to spend the night in Seoul. Gangnam was the easiest place to get to with the fewest subway changes, and I knew a nice reasonably priced hotel there a short distance from the subway station (about two minutes walk) so I decided that this was where I would spend the night. It was a little more expensive than some other places I knew, but it meant less walking around on my own at night, and with my bag and camera I didn't feel safe walking too much. And so I made my way to the Hotel Richmont... only to find it closed.
Crap.

Oh well, there was a Best Western across the street. Maybe they would have a room. And they did! For 200,000 won.

Double crap.

The concierge directed me to a hostel next door! There is hope yet! Nope. Fully booked.

What. The. Hell.
By this stage I was running out of options. I knew that the Novotel would be too expensive. The subways were closed for the night. I didn't know how to direct a taxi to any of the other hotels that I knew in the area.
Dammit.

There was one hotel that I had yet to try, and I wasn't feeling too hopeful about it. The California Hotel. I made my way inside and skeptically asked if they had a room. They did. 90,000 won. Almost double what I had been expecting to pay at the Richmont, but a helluva lot better than the 200,000 that the Best Western was offering. I'd take it! Pictured left is the view of the Gangnam street reflected in the broken glass door of the California Hotel.

The next morning, I woke up to a phonecall from Jess telling me that she was on a bus and would be arriving in an hour and a half. After a bath and a checking of e-mails, I made my way to the station to meet her and our shopping expedition started. Italian food, a visit to H&M, another to Forever 21 (pictured left), a stop in at the Cat Cafe (one of the cats pictured right) and Kraze Burger and a couple of stops along the way and by the time we left, we were burdened with at least a pair of shopping bags each. Jess, who had been planning on not spending anything, ended up spending more than I did. We were supposed to stick around Seoul for a friend's birthday party, but after the day of walking, I was not in the biggest party mood. We opted for going home instead and doing a movie and popcorn at my house.

By the time we reached the bus station in Cheongju, Jess and I both agreed that we could do with a drink. Nothing serious. Just one or two. We made our way to each of our houses, picking up Adriana on the way, and arrived in Cheongju at the rather late hour of 12:30. We met up with Maria and her co-teacher at MJs and had a drink there before making our move to Roadking. After another drink and quite a bit of dancing, Maria convinced us that Roadking wasn't the place to be. To Buzz we go! More drinking and dancing to Michael Jackson (the four of us - Maria's co-teacher having left - being the only ones dancing) before heading to Pearl Jam where the rest of the night was spent in a blur of alcohol, hugs, introductions, dancing and just general fun. Before we knew what was happening, the sun was rising and we were making our way back to our houses in a taxi at 6:30 in the morning.

I was woken up six hours later by a call from Jess. Breakfast (or lunch) was in order! Half an hour later, we were sitting in Starbucks with the Hangover Breakfast of Champions - a fried egg and bacon sandwich, a croque mossieur, a cheesey bagel with cream cheese and jam, a bottle of sparkling fruit juice and a water apiece as well as a chai latte for Jess. They must have thought we were food-deprived. Or hungover. We polished off our meals, as well as the "service" Caramel Latte samplers (pictured left), and went our separate ways for a couple of hours before meeting up for dinner at Hungry Eyes with Adriana and Maria - the gruesome foursome once more. After a myriad of samosas, curries and naan breads, Jess and I headed to quiz where, for the first time in ages, we won! I would say that it was all thanks to my genius, but the truth is that Jack is awesome at sports and without him we would have come dead last.

And so a weekend that should have been completely depressing ended up being rather debaucherous and quite fun thanks to my friends and their awesomeness. While the depression is really fighting to bubble to the surface, I am keeping it down at the moment with thoughts of the week ahead - my first Taekwondo lesson tonight; a Pearl Jam burrito with Maria tomorrow; dinner with Jong Yumin (my co-teacher) on Wednesday; a possible dinner with Jodie on Thursday and Shaina's birthday bash over the weekend. Hopefully there won't be too much time for depression in between.