So after two very busy first weeks, filled with work, appartment hunting, red tape and finding our marks in the many changes of our lives, we’re starting to get it together. To have an almost normal rythm, with weekends dedicated to social life and party! So, after tacos in the French village and a nice veggie barbecue on a rooftop with new friends and an adorable pug, Wally and I headed to Hongdae Saturday night.
Hongdae is short for Hongig University – all the numerous universities here are nicknamed something-dae, which could get confusing if you didn’t know. Hongik University is famous for its arts department and -maybe even more- for its party life.
This is Hongdae
I had been there once already with a backpacking friend, who had been blown away by what was for him a first experience of Asia. Lights, lights everywhere, music and a dense crowd flowing in the streets. It reminded me of many Tokyo night life districts – a mix of Shinjuku and Setagaya, maybe – with its own personality too.
As we get off the subway, the crowd is so dense we have a hard time climbing the stairs. The streets are covered in flyers – advertizing anything from new restaurants to clubs with names like “Luxury” to more alternative-sounding events – the “Green Plugged Music Festival” was a recent one. On the main streets, cafés and cocktail bars leave their windows wide open to compensate for the lack of terrasses. Students set up little stands in the middle of the streets where they sell hand made jewelry, badges, clothes. A few taxis try to make their way through the dense crowd with very little success.
Some bar accesses are perched so precariously on rooftops or facades that you wonder how no one has fallen off them yet. A big karaoke club (or “unique singing entertainment center”, as it’s marketed) has large windows allowing the street passers-by to watch what is going on in the rooms, and admire the retro wall paper.
Off the main streets, tiny live music bars display funky decoration. Street food carts and korean family restaurants seem to be full no matter what time it is. Tarot card readers set shop next to designers, and sometimes seem to be working together.
Our evening included a kitty bar (Wally called dibs on that story), live Korean rock, free money, flaming drinks, spicy food, and a long, tiring and smelly subway ride back home.
I really enjoy this neighborhood. It’s more energetic and uplifting than Anguk / Insadong. It’s more casual than Gangnam, where the other big party scene is – full of beautiful people with plenty of money, cosmetic surgery and luxury hotels. It’s more Korean (and for the most part, definitely less shady) than Itaewon. If all goes well, we’ll very soon have an appartment much closer to this district than we do now, and we’ll have many opportunities to explore its diversity.
