my only korean club experience : November 1 2024

to know a different city fully, they say you have to try the food, see the spots, and experience the culture. i guess this counts as part of the 3rd, experiencing the night culture is essential.

upon initial search, seoul is a bit notorious for having all sorts of restrictions when it comes to clubbing. reddit has chapters upon chapters of stories where people were restricted to enter a club for age, sex, and even nationality (korean or not). as a member of the upper aged bracket, this was a major concern to me.

days before this trip even started, i have always been curious of how koreans go clubbing. but the fact that i could only enter limited establishments already makes this experience skewed. i will never get to experience a fully korean clubbing.

times

nevertheleas, this club we went in will be my first impression. three members decided to embark on the challenge, but the activities of the day "illiminated" one. too tired and having an early morning appointment, one backed out. that left two brave souls. we went in as late as we could, 23:30 is late enough to start parties i suppose.

people have started gathering and shots were already made when we came. 15 thousand korean won was the fee, includes 1 free drink, quite typical for clubs. and yes, that all happened after a thorough passport birthday check.

success! entering the club was a success! times was the new club in town, people were very eager to come in and people were still eager to come in. drinks were a bit dilluted though but isn't that the usual? drinks range from 11 to 16 thousand won. but one thing was for sure, women do the dancing while men do "dancing" (the typical head bops, minute sways, minimal movement no sweat involved dance).

this club we went in was a very friendly one, it seemed like a club where friends gather and have fun. the music were heavily western music influenced. i was expected kpop music but nopes, this was not the "korean" club after all.

as we were new to the the place, we went out at 1:20 am. yeah i know, very early for parties to even start getting warm. the club got full and people had a queue outside waiting to enter.

we waited for the bus to arrive, there was even another woman waiting at the bus stop. but no bus came, waited more, no bus. the last bus got cancelled.

no taxi stopped even after hailing endlessly. it was already hard framing how to communicate with the driver, but i really did not expect that hailing a cab is even difficult.

this sign has been shown for quite some time, but we had no idea it says "cancelled". if only we knew earlier, we could have transferred to a different stop.

well nothing can stop us from taking pictures of the club wristbands. it is a necessity after all.

taxi ride finally happened after installing uber. at least with uber, there is really no need to talk with the driver. we only needed a "hello" and a "thank you".