Friday, March 14, 2008

Weekend escapades

I haven't written about my previous weekends in Suwon. It's because I didn't have the time. I was busy at work... and yes, there's a tinge of laziness floating somewhere around. :)

Two weeks ago, KG, SuResh, Rag & I went to Itaewon. I knew that we were headed for a tourist shopping area, but knowing myself, I thought I wouldn't be tempted to buy much. So I carried some 50,000 wons ($50 approx) and also some dollars for money exchange (the rent was due, you see).

We got off at Yongsan station and then we took a taxi to Itaewon. We went to a shopping area that is mainly along both sides of a street. It resembles Commercial Street of Bangalore, but not as crowded. Since Itaewon is sorta tourist-ridden, there are many international eat-outs like Subway, PizzaHut, BurgerKing etc. Needless to say, you don't feel like a outsider there... because 75% of people that you see on the roads are foreigners too! :)

SuResh is great at bargaining. I think it's one of his hidden talents! :D He helped me buy many, many, MANY things (my supply of 50,000 wons got over during my third purchase. That's when I plunged into my rent-money!). I was amazed to find guys (read SuResh and KG) who are very into shopping as well. We got into any shop that tempted us, haggled about the prices and got out with at least one of us having bought something.

After spending a good two hours in Itaewon, we went back to the electronic market in Yongsan. The guys bought even more electronic gadgets from there and then we started our way back to Suwon. KG showed me a good knick-knacks store at Suwon metro station itself. Once again, all of us got into a shopping-spree mode... Needless to say, it was lots of fun. :D

I spent the Sunday that followed watching Terminator-2 on TV and working for a couple of hours at the office. I also went to HomePlus with KG, Rag and SuResh to help (read watch) them buy clothes and other miscellaneous goodies.

The next weekend was the last KG, SuResh and Subbu would be spending in Korea since they were headed back to India on 15th of March. On Saturday, we went to Galleria for a couple of hours.

Galleria is a departmental store. It's mainly devoted to international brands like Hugo Boss, Calvin Klein, DKNY, Chanel... Well, you get the point. :) I had my fill of admiring women's clothing and gawking at the respective prices. Some of the guys bought a few sports shoes from the Fila showroom.

After Galleria, Sid, Subbu & I spontaneously decided to go watch a movie at the theater nearby. We got tickets for Vantage Point. About the movie, well yeah it was ok. You can watch it, I guess. It's just that at one point while I was watching it, I got a lil tired of the flashbacks. Climax could have been better... Ok, I can seriously go on (and on and ON) criticizing anything, so I'll just stop. :)

The next Sunday, we went to Namdemun market. I think it's called the biggest market in South Korea. The guys were as usual in shopping-spree mode. :) I didn't buy that much though.

After shopping loads, we decided to check out N Seoul Tower. There's an observatory at the top of the tower. We thought it would be a different experience. Unfortunately, the gang got split up. The group I was in arrived at the Tower first. We waited for the second group to arrive. But they reached a different entrance and them (or us) not knowing any better, went in. After waiting in vain for around an hour (and hence missing the other group completely), we decided to go in as well.

63City had been a good experience. That was also my first time in an observatory. But N Seoul Tower had a similar observatory and so was very pretty boring. Anyway, after getting out of the tower, we rode on a local bus (my first time!) to Itaewon. From there, we went by metro to Suwon (had to change 3 trains and hence took around 1.5 hours). But the company I had was good. We exchanged stories about college and other fun topics. :)

Whew. So that's what happened the past 2 weeks. For the weekend that just went by, well I guess I'll post that later. <-- Yes, procrastination doing it's work here. :)

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