Drawing Show: Hero!

June 18, 2011

Today was supposed to be a full day, involving getting up early, going to Seoul, visiting the DMZ tour office, shopping, having a meal, and seeing a show. As you might guess, things didn't go as planned.

The day started off on the wrong foot when I woke up at 2pm. I blame this entirely on my dear mother, who skyped with me until 3:45 am. It may or may not have also been my fault, as I then continued to surf the internet until 5am.

Anyway, I woke up at 2pm, and in a stellar display of self-control, I was out the door by 3pm. Took the train to Seoul – standing room, of course – and by that time it was 4:30pm.

My first stop was the USO tour office at Camp Kim. The reason for this is simple – the DMZ tour I booked for Jesse and I (who's coming to Korea in July) begins at 7:30 am, so I wanted to scout out where the place was before hand. I know, how unusually responsible of me. Anyway, the office was closed, but I now know where it is, so partial victory?

Now 5pm, I was torn between eating and going to see a show. I had directions to three different shows, but the only one close enough was Drawing Show: Hero! I've found that a great way to see shows in Seoul is just to show up 30 minutes before the show and buy a ticket. They always have an extra seat or two.

This unfortunately necessitated skipping dinner, although I did consume a generic blueberry muffin. I got a seat in the middle of a row, as when I went to see NANTA (Cookin!) and sat on the edge, they pulled me up on stage, where I proceeded to fail at making dumplings and probably looked like a complete idiot.

My seat was awesome - 3^rd row, almost center stage. Before the show started, they played “Don't Worry, Be Happy” over and over, which was cheerful but obnoxious. The show itself was phenomenal! Humor, dancing, art, Superman = perfection.

After the show, I went to Myeongdong, where I intended to pick up some gifts to send home. I got myself a shirt, a cute umbrella, and various other things which I'll have to figure out who to give them to at a later date.

The only flaw in my shopping plan was that by the time I got back to Seoul station, I had just missed the 9pm train, so I had to wait until 10:15pm for the next one. This was a problem because I have a standing skype date with dad at 11pm, so I was about 30 minutes late. He didn't complain, luckily, and we had a lovely chat about, among other things, Father's Day! Jesse bought him a book about naval warfare, which dad immediately decided to return, until he actually looked at it and decided it wasn't such an awful present after all.