REPORTING FROM SEOUL FASHION WEEK

We just got back from our trip to South Korea for Seoul Fashion Week and it was an insanely fun blur of a week.

Following a long light, we met up with a good friend of ours - Alex.  You might recognize her as one of the MC's for Seattle's own JKPop night at Barboza.  She's living in Seoul now so a reunion was inevitable.  

We stayed at a guesthouse in the Hongdae area - right by where Alex lives.  Former Blackbird Tyler Brown lives only one stop away as well - perfect location for meeting up with old friends. Hongdae is where Hongik University is located and is a huge nightlife and shopping area.  On the weekends, you will see people just leaving the bars and clubs at 8am, ready to finally take the subway home.  There was constantly hundreds of people just outside our door so we definitely got a feel for how alive and active Seoul can be.

A (blurry) picture of Hongdae at night

To fight the jet lag, Alex decided to take us out for some Korean BBQ followed by an outing in Itaewon aka the Foreigner District.  Itaewon is basically Little America.  It is an extremely diverse neighborhood and in a specific 3 block radius, houses a Mosque, their red-light district and their gay district.  

It was so bright in Itaewon that it felt like the middle of the day

The locals call their gay "district" (in reality it is one block) Homo Hill.  It is a small stretch of bars and small clubs tucked away off the main street in Itaewon.  

The entirety of Seoul's Gay District - Homo Hill 

They have Milkshakes in pouches - bring this to America right now

We ended up starting the night at Why Not? and ended up confused as to why it was so dead at 1am on a Saturday night.  Turns out, 1am is very early in a Korean night out.  We headed over to Queen, arguably one of the more popular dancing spots on Homo Hill, to find a diverse cross section of Koreans and Foreigners dancing to a mix of American and Korean pop music. Once Queen closed at 3am, everyone headed back over to Why Not? which doesn't close until 5.  The biggest shock came when we found out there was a club (Pulse) that didn't even open until 5am.  Apparently, Korean nightlife goes all night.  

So much for beating jet lag - that's some sleepy dancing

We had some of the best street food we have ever tasted as the sun was coming up and caught the subway back to Hongdae to finally get some sleep.  Sunday was spent preparing for Fashion Week which started on Monday.

Hongdae in the beautiful morning light

TO BE CONTINUED...