Halloween in Korea

Halloween isn't a holiday in Korea and outside of hagwon parties and bars there isn't much sign of it here. In fact, our school is so serious that they didn't have a party (which is pretty unusual, actually). This didn't stop Matt and I from slapping together some ghetto costumes and recognizing the day. We also brought candy and I snuck in a Halloween word search at the end of my lesson. I know, pretty lame, but you have to work with what you've got.

Our costumes were big hits though, even if some people didn't know it was Halloween and looked at me like I had totally lost my mind when I walked in.

After work we decided to go and get something to eat. We could have gone to one of the many parties in Itaewon, Hongdae or Apujeong but we were feeling kind of tired and needed a low key weekend so we didn't go far. Matt had taken off his "costume" but I decided to leave mine on and see what happened. Well, I did get more attention than usual, that's for sure. A group of drunk businessmen (and one businesswoman) started talking to us on our way to find dinner. They had decent enough English skills and they were having a work dinner party and invited us to come and have free drinks. Hahah. Maybe we should have gone with them but we were starving and probably would have been puking drunk after a few drinks since our stomachs were empty and they were probably drinking soju. We chose a new restaurant to try but it was kind of crappy unfortunately. Then we headed over to a bar we'd been at with Min Jeong where they gave us a lot of service stuff last time.

Even though it was advertised as a Western bar, there really wasn't anything Halloween related happening there. A few of the same employees were working and at the table behind us there was a group of three friendly university students. They liked my make up and decided to play a spoon game and invited us and the bartender to play. Basically everyone has a spoon sitting on the table face up and we all do rock, paper, scissors until there is a loser(s). The ones that lost have to flip their spoon over and it keeps going until one person's spoon is flipped a different way from everyone else's. That person is the loser and everyone got to draw something on their face with eyeliner. Matt and I never lost but the bartender got it pretty bad. It was really funny. It was a pretty quiet Halloween but that's okay. I'm looking forward to making a big deal out of it next year when we are back in Canada.