Day 19 - All You Can Eat Barbecue

Today marked the first day of class for the week which involved long lectures and lots of reading. We have a substitute in my Premodern Korean History class from today through Wednesday. He doesn't seem to be particularly well-versed in Korean history because he is just reading exactly what's on the slideshow presentations.

After class, I decided to go to Yongsan station to try to find a shopping mall called ET Land, which I had heard had a lot of electronics as well as a few stores that sold vinyl records. It took me about 30 minutes to get to Yongsan station from campus. There is actually a 9 story shopping mall inside of Yongsan station complete with a grocery store, but it was not the one I was looking for.

I ventured forth from the station following the directions I had found on the internet (which turned out to be wrong, haha). I wandered around for about 45 minutes trying to find my way. I wasn't really too concerned about getting there so I let myself figure it out instead of asking for directions.

The train station in Yongsan station. The shopping mall is around me in all directions (every side, above, and below)

When I finally got to ET Land, I realized that I was not in a tourist place at all. It felt very much like a place where locals shop. I was the only foreigner there that I saw, all of the signs were in Korean, most of the vendors did not speak English, it was a new experience! Going to this place in Yongsan made me feel like Sinchon was in America, haha.

After looking around ET Land, I decided to head back to the mall inside of Yongsan station and look around there. I quickly glanced through a lot of the areas because the mall is downright gigantic. On the top floor of one of the buildings is an "e-Sports Stadium" where people play live competitive video games head-to-head. I then ventured down to the eMart grocery store on the bottom floor and bought some gluten-free buckwheat soba noodles.

Buckwheat soba noodles

I then walked to Daiso, a dollar store, that was also in the shopping mall and bought a bowl for cooking the soba in. I had been out for a few hours at this point so I decided to head back to Yonsei.

All you can eat meat!

I got back mid-afternoon and then ate a bowl of soba, which was quite good, before taking a nap. After I woke up from my nap I met up with 5 other friends to go to this all-you-can-eat Korean barbecue place that was awesome! They have a buffet where you pick the meat you want and then you go grill it at your table, as well as unlimited rice and desserts. I ate a TON of food and it was well worth the price (11,000 won).

An octopus that I grilled but actually did not want to eat after I cooked it

Afterward, I headed back to the dorm and did my homework before calling it a night.