The final official weekend

This is it, the last weekend of the program has come and gone. It's the first weekend where I didn't have some extravagant trip planned.

My dorm. I don't think I'll miss this part so much.

My roommate Sungmin and his girlfriend like seeing plays (well, more just his girlfriend) and I was interesting in seeing one of the nonverbal performances, The B-Boy and the Ballerina. The title pretty much says it all, but we met at Lotte World to check it out. I didn't know much about Lotte World, but it's like an indoor Disneyland with shopping, restaurants, and a very expensive hotel all connected. And an ice rink, you gotta have one of those.

The Lotte World ice rink. The whole place was packed with people.

Sungmin and his girlfriend, Ee-young Choi.

There were balloon rides on the ceiling I wanted to try.

We got some snacks from Red Mango before the play started. The yogurt tastes the same, but their menu options are a little different. I was a bit disappointed that I couldn't get mochi cubes as a topping, but fruits are hard to come by in this country so the kiwi and mandarin oranges were a welcome refreshment.

Yogurt, waffles, and a mango smoothie. A light snack, right?

The play was very entertaining with plenty of break dancing and only a minimal amount of ballet. The ballerinas seemed there only for the funny guys in the b-boy crew to rip on, who essentially had a distracting comedy routine while the girls did their pirouettes. Obviously the story was not very deep but there were some awesome b-boy dance offs.

We got dinner at a ddak galbi place, which I had been craving since Farzad took us in Jeju. We went out for some makoli after that, but missed the last train home afterwards. It was raining pretty hard so we tried to wait it out at another bar, but it wasn't letting up so we ended up getting wet finding a taxi ride home. It's amazing just how easy it is to find somewhere to sit down and order a beer or snack at any hour. I like it.

Sungmin being a regular gentleman and passing out the chopsticks and spoons.

A clam and noodle dish, golbangee somyun, to go with the makoli.

I spent the rest of the weekend shopping, which wasn't a bad way to end the trip. Mostly I revisited places I had already been, but I did finally get some things for myself. I think. Maybe I'll end up giving them as gifts too, we'll see.

This next week I'll be packing and doing presentations for my lab and the NRF closing ceremony. Friday I'll leave for Japan. It still doesn't feel like the program will be ending yet, but that's probably because I still have more than a month before I head back to the States. A lot of the other students will be heading home immediately or within the next week, though.

And now, I may stay in LA to visit Hiromi, delaying my return home even more! It's a good thing I don't have a job or classes to get back to, though that just makes me want to find a way to stay here for another 3 months.