Silent Disco!

On Saturday morning, Lisa and I met at the subway station at 8am...(so early for us on a weekend!), and headed out to Paju Premium Outlets. Paju ("Pah-chew") is REALLY far away from where we live, so it took us two hours to get out there after taking the subway and an express bus. Lisa found out about the Premium Outlets online, and we were both really excited about it! We didn't have anything we wanted/needed to buy, so we just wanted to check it out. There were tons of stores out there, more expensive ones like Prada, to more common stores you would find back home, like Banana Republic. We walked around all three floors, ducked in and out of the stores we were interested, and window-shopped in the more expensive ones. We had lunch at Johnny Rockets there...delicious! We put some coins in the little juke box at our table and chose some old-timey songs, so that was fun! After a long day of shopping, we grabbed some dinner at a Korean porridge place and headed to Mi-yeon's house.

When we got to Mi-yeon's, we changed clothes and headed out to Myeongdong for a Silent Disco! This was our first silent disco in Korea, so we were SUPER pumped!! We had to check-in by 8pm, so we were running to and from the subway to make it there on time. We signed in and were given a pair of headphones. They were ginormous ones like what DJs wear, and I guess they were wireless?? Anyway, they were all blasting the same music. The theme for Saturday night was "Songs We All Know," so there was a mix of Korean and English songs that are really popular right now. Pop songs, club songs, rap music, remixes of stuff. It was awesome. When everyone got their headphones, we all started a parade through downtown Myeongdong. There were about 200 of us, I think!! Anyway, we were all singing and dancing together to the same music coming from our headphones. People were lined up on the side of the street watching us and taking pictures and video. Occasionally we would take our headphones off for a second to hear what the crowd was hearing. They couldn't hear the music we could hear. They could only hear 200 people screaming off-key to random music and dancing like fools! Sometimes, the DJ would tell us to stop in the middle of the street and just dance. Other times he would tell us to take off our headphones and give them to someone in the crowd. What a blast!! We had this silent disco for about two hours, and then went back and turned our headphones in. The silent disco was completely free, so we had the option to donate some money at the end of the night for the next disco.

When we returned our headphones, we went back into downtown Myeongdong where they had a dance party going on until 5am!! It was only about 10:30pm at this point, but we just wanted to check it out. We were smack dab in the middle of the crowd, and out of nowhere, this news reporter came up and asked if we would do an interview with her for the evening news. Um...obviously? Mi-yeon, Lisa, Amanda, and I agreed, and somehow I was voted to be the spokesperson for our group. The news reporter disappeared for a minute and came back with two cameramen and a guy holding a microphone on a pole. Intense. The four of us lined up and the news reporter asked me all the questions. She asked about the Silent Disco and my experience of being a part of it. It was only about two minutes of interviewing, and we were finished! Woot! It was so exciting! After editing out portions and getting it TV-ready, it will air tonight (Korea time!) on the 9pm evening news. WHAT?! Mi-yeon is going to ask her family to record it so the four of us can watch it. So, if you were wondering, I'm famous now. :)

The dance party was kind of lame compared to the silent disco, so we got bored pretty quickly after our TV debut... :) So, we all decided to go a few subway stops over to Hongdae and meet up with some of our other friends. They were already partying there, so we went to meet them. Before we met them, we stopped for some midnight dinner at a Korean restaurant. We had Korean quesadillas and some drinks. We met up with our friends, Abby, Melea, Sarah, and some new people! It's always great to meet new people. We went to a few clubs and bars, and then decided to head home. Lisa and I had been up almost 24 hours at this point, so we were wiped out! Mi-yeon was super nice and invited us to stay and sleep at her house, so at 4am, the three of us took a short taxi ride to her neighborhood and crashed.

This morning, Mi-yeon, Lisa, and I woke up early. We were exhausted. Mi-yeon and I headed to Gangnam for church, and Lisa headed home to shower and sleep. Mi-yeon and I met Reuel, Michelle, and some other church buddies for some Mexican food, and then headed to church. Today, we signed up for small groups, so I'm really pumped about that! I signed up for a small group during the week. They are offering 40 small groups, and you have to write down your top three choices. They cap the small groups at 15 or 20, so it's really important to sign up early and put in your preferences! We will get emails this week telling us what small group we've been put into. I can't wait!! I think small groups will officially start the first week of October. It will be so nice to have some community with church friends during the week, and I'm really excited to meet new people. Because our church is so big, sometimes it's hard to leave the comfort of your own group of friends. Small groups is a great way to do that. I intentionally don't sign up with any friends, so I sort of force myself to take a step out of my comfort zone and meet people. After church, I came home, cleaned the house up a bit, did laundry, and took a nap. I texted Lisa, and she and I met up for some dinner. I'm still pretty tired, but I'm forcing myself to stay awake a bit longer so I will keep my sleeping schedule on track. Here's to another awesome weekend!! :)