A night out in Jeonju

Ok so last night we decided to head out for a meal and a few drinks as it was Friday and the end of Sophie's first week at work - which has gone well by the way - but I'll let her tell you about that when she get's round to joining the blog :)

We went to the area around Cheonbuk university towards the north of the city, the area is Bukday (not sure of spelling sorry). Here is lots going on, arcades bar's, clubs, restaurants and even a guy on the street with boxing gear and pads that for 1000 won I think it was, allows you to challenge him to a good hearted, friendly boxing match on the side of the street. It's all in good spirit with lots of people gathered around - a far cry from the violence and attitudes back home.

Anyway after not quite being brave enough this time to challenge the boxer we made our way to a bar, I'll update the name of it when I remember. On entering there's a sign 'westerners encouraged' which is a nice thing to see when walking into a new place for the first time. Once inside we're instantly welcomed by the friendly and English speaking bar staff, we take a seat at the bar and free bar snacks are provided. It's a serve yourself culture I'm starting to learn as we grab our own beers from the fridge by the front door and pay at the bar.

After the one we leave to find somewhere to eat, we end up in a place that was serving Daghgahlbee, again you will have to forgive my spelling for the moment, everything is still very new here with allot to pick up. 

Daghgahlbee

The best way I can describe it is like a chicken pasta dish in a tomato sauce. It's not actually pasta though it's rice cake and is an extra to the dish I recommend ordering. In the middle you can see a river of melted cheese. This is gorgeous and maybe taken the top spot for dishes tried so far. This with 2 bottles of Soju and mixers for 4 came to 52,500 won, just over £6.50 each.

Afterwards we headed out for more drinks at bar 151, a western style bar that plays alternative music instantly reminded me of home. Here we stayed enjoying drinks such as Makers Mark with apple soda mixer, Gentlemen's Jack and I'm sure a few other's that seem to have slipped my mind.

 Here again the bar staff were all really friendly and got us to write down music we wanted to listen to and sourced it from the internet for us. 

Once suitably pissed Sophie had her dancing shoes on and off to Music Bank, a night club not to far away where we stayed for the remainder of the evening. I really enjoyed music back, a mix of western and korean music from dance to Limp Biskit. I love the Korean night life, the dancing is funny and full of routines. At one point in the night a local handed a load of shredded paper - at first we were a little confused - but then at a certain point in the music he prompted us to throw the paper in the air, and with what seemed like the entire club doing so, paper rained down across the dance floor!

Music Bank

It seems westerners are very much welcomed here and invite you to dance and join in the fun, everyones in good spirit and out for a good time.

I think one of my favourite things about Music Bank has to be the set up, the way the DJ takes centre stage just as any frontman would armed with sunglasses in a dark room and a wall of CD's behind him. I like to think he did actually use them over the modern DJ that is - iPod shuffle - and everyone on the dance floor aims there dancing shuffling feet in his direction just as you would for any performing musician that takes centre stage.

Just makes me think how different it is to the clubs back home where quite often the DJ is hidden away in the corner, unappreciated and anonymous.

Mr DJ take a bow