Oct 23/24
One of the fun things about living in a foreign country is that you gain instant celebrity-ness. People stare constantly, people always ask to take my picture (awkward) and people always throw their babies at me to hold. Sometimes those kids cry (super awkward.) Overall it’s a pretty exciting gig, although occasionally I can understand how celebrities get a little tired of their fame. Sometimes it’s nice to just blend into a crowd and go unnoticed. My peacock-ness has its limits.
One thing I do NOT get tired of, however, is FREE STUFF. Especially free stuff granted me just because I’m a foreigner. Last weekend was a weekend full of those things, leading to a lovely weekend of cheap fun.
PART 1: After my first few months in Korea, I became obsessed with K-Pop, a special brand of music manufactured here in Korea that melts the heart of teenagers all over the world. My students are obsessed and can bust out any of the music video dances on command. Think NSync, Spice Girls, and Justin Beiber for Western world comparisons. However, unlike the way we’ve thrown boy bands out the window out west, Asia has caught on strongly to the phenomenon and everyone is in LOVE. I mean really, what’s better than perfectly chiseled bodies dancing in perfect sync together in cheezy choreography singing poppy love tunes? Not much. There was a giant concert at the Seoul Olympic Stadium on Saturday, bringing together over TEN major KPop groups (including Kara, Beast, 4minute, 비, 2AM) and we got to go for free. Plus RAIN was there… if you know nothing about him, please go look him up, and then go watch Ninja Assassins, an American movie he starred in earlier this year. You will die. Also watch the music video links I posted above. Trust me.



PART 2: A few weeks ago, we saw an invite on Facebook stating that there were some free Formula One tickets available to foreigners. Surprisingly, I’m weirdly fascinated by Formula One and have really been wanting to go to a live race. My friend Andre in Utah conned me into watching a race on TV at 3am one time, and then I was hooked. Unlikely story.
This is the first year for the Grand Prix in Korea, so apparently they wanted to build up some hype by having a lot of foreigners in the audience. However, tickets for Formula One range anywhere from $200-$1000+ per ticket, so it seemed a little too good to be true. We decided it’d be worth the risk since the tickets are worth so much and we wanted to go so badly, so we took the 5 hour bus ride down to Mokpo earlyyyy Sunday morning to test our luck. Sure enough, it was a real deal and we were granted midlevel seats valued at almost $500!!!
Sadly it rained all day, we were cold and wet, and they had to significantly delay the race. so due to our bus schedule we had to leave before the end. But it was a fun day and we got to see some awesome cars drive amazingly fast.. for FREEEEE.

