Seoul.

I got into Seoul yesterday and took various trains from the airport to meet my couchsurfing host, D. D picked me up from the train station at about 6:30 or so and we immediately met up with a few of her friends for a couple of beers. Afterward, we stopped by her place to drop off my stuff and then headed back out for Korean BBQ, which is insanely delicious, and, later, more drinks. There was a lot of drinking. The first bar we went to was called...no shit...The Ho Bar. Good times. The Ho Bar was pretty dead, being that it was Sunday night, so we had a few and then booked it out to another location. D's other spot was closed, but we heard some heavy bass invitingly being pumped out of a basement club. So, we dropped in. There were only a few people in there in addition to the DJs and the cute, head-bobbing bartenders. We ordered drinks and I hit the dance floor pretty quickly thereafter. I've been wanting to go clubbing in Tokyo for a while, but have been terrified of the expense...this was pretty much exactly what I'd been looking for. It was mellow, the music (mostly hip hop) was good, for the most part, and the drinks was reasonably cheap. Maybe expensive by Korean standards, a little expensive by American standards, but cheap as hell by Tokyo standards.

I drank a lot, I danced with a lot of girls, and I was hungover as hell this morning. D's friend wanted to do me, but I wasn't really interested and I really needed to get to the consulate today. Which I did. With a terrible hangover. It was satisfying to finally find the fucker after walking all over half of Jongno-gu, the neighborhood where it is located. It's kind of liberating to not speak any of the language, too. In Japan, I tend to torture myself trying to speak Japanese, and it's often frustrating and unrewarding. Maybe I should just be unrepentantly American all of the time in Japan, too.

Sooooo, anyway. My visa application is in, and I need to get back to the embassy by 9:30 tomorrow, which means that I need to leave by 8-ish with all of my stuff. I really, really hope that my visa will be ready, or tomorrow is going to be a long, undoubtedly frustrating day.