Should Have Been Studying.....

This upcoming week is Midterms! So, naturally, I should have spent the whole weekend studying. Emphasis on the "should." Like any good college student, I spent 100% of the weekend talking about how I should be studying and 5% of the weekend actually studying. But this weekend I made some fantastic memories, so I'll ignore the fact that I'm going to have no life this week to make up for my lack of previous studying.

Saturday, we (myself and four other friends) kicked off our weekend with a trip to Hongdae to for brunch! We went to a little restaurant that served American breakfast food. I got a waffle, sausage, bacon, and hash browns. It was so nice to have a real American breakfast! The waitresses even spoke English! Such a nice taste of home.

After breakfast, we headed to You Are Here, a cafe owned by some famous YouTube bloggers, Simon and Martina of "Eat Your Kimchi." We didn't actually see Simon and Martina, but it was fun to visit their cafe. We all got coffee and settled in for an afternoon of homework. We all got out our notes and highlighters, ready to tackle the task ahead! And then we discovered that we all had snapchat. The next hour was spent adding each other on snapchat, sending derpy pictures, and sharing funny doodles we had done during class. Miraculously, after the initial distraction, we did manage to actually study! .... for about an hour. Then we relapsed into the previous chaos of snapchats and laughter. At that point, we concluded that were going to be unable to do any more homework.

On our way back from the cafe, we stopped by the Dongdaemun History and Culture Museum because Chris (a kid from my study abroad group, not my boyfriend who shares his name) heard that Seoul Fashion Week was going on. Unsure what to expect, we made a quick stop and were amazed by what we saw. Never before have I seen so many well-dressed people! We felt horridly out of place in our "studying" clothes. We left very quickly, but decided to go back the next day when we were able to plan better outfits. Of course, at that point, I realized that I had absolutely nothing to wear that was fit for Seoul Fashion Week! So the entire rest of the evening was spent in search of the perfect Fashion Week outfit. I kid you not, I was out until midnight that night searching for the right thing. Finally, I was satisfied with a purchase. (side note about Korean shopping: often times, Koreans will use really offensive English, but I can't figure out if it's on purpose or not. Sometimes shirts and hats will have really bad language, and the songs they play in stores can be awful! It's almost funny sometimes, though. For example, when I went shopping, one store played a song where the only lyrics in the entire song were "Where's my cocaine? Wh-Wh-Where's my cocaine?")

Sunday afternoon, we headed out for Dongdaemun.Seoul Fashion Week is extremely accessible to the public, almost surprisingly so. It took place at Dongdaemun History and Culture Park from October 17-20. There were a total of three different runways, which allowed for a different show to take place almost every half hour for 12 hours each day. This added up to almost 100 shows total throughout the week! I was only able to attend one show, but I was able to draw several conclusions through my trip to Seoul Fashion Week.

First of all, although the fashion shows were much anticipated, going to Seoul Fashion week was almost as much about the other attendees as the designer shows. Since the event took place in a public area, anyone could attend for free (except for seating for the shows), so it was very accessible to the public. There was always a large crowd, highly saturated with photographers looking for stylish laypeople to photograph. It wasn’t uncommon for photographers to ask people attending to let them take a photo for various fashion blogs.

The actual clothing in the shows was very intriguing as well. The cut of all the clothing was much more conservative and modest than American shows. There was also a lack of color that seemed very uncharacteristic for a spring/summer show. Almost all of the clothing was made in earthy tones, with splashes of white here and there. In the show I saw, all the models were also wearing vans-like slip-on shoes rather than the stilettos so typical of American runway shows.

In general, Koreans tend to dress up more than Americans. Wearing sweatpants in public is almost unheard of here. Koreans have a very acute sense of style, and that fashion sense made Seoul Fashion Week a designer’s dream!

Although I probably should have been studying, I don't regret the activities I chose instead one bit.