Still feeling fairly sleep deprived, I couldn’t ignore the fact that it was Saturday night! I met up with my friend and we looked for a place in Hongdae to eat dinner. The streets were crowded, everybody was out.
Hongdae Shopping
We came upon one of many barbecue restaurants. I do not recall the name. We walked up the stairs and were shown to our table. We ordered the beef short ribs (kalbi) and marinated pork.
Dinner
We were given plenty of small dishes (banchan) to enjoy with our barbecue dinner. We had to order a bottle of soju as well! Apparently the grapefruit flavored one is very popular. Good stuff!
BBQ Spread
Pork and Beef
After dinner, we headed back to our places to get ready for the night. We caught a taxi to Gangnam. The neighborhood made famous by a little song called Gangnam Style by PSY. Gangnam is known as the “Beverly Hills” of Seoul. The name literally means “South of the River”. The historically rich city is full of designer brand stores, malls, and some of the largest Korean entertainment companies.
Aisha and my Roomie
Seoul’s nightlife is no joke, and you’ll find some of the largest nightclubs in Seoul. It also happens to be home of Octagon which was ranked number 5 on DJ Mag’s Top 100 Clubs of 2016.
No. 5 Club in the World
It seems like the bouncers can make any excuse to turn you away at the door. It really helps if you are with a group of friends or a couple of females. We witnessed one guy get turned a way because he was by himself. Seoul also happens to have an age limit for the clubs! It’s 35. I don’t think this is strictly enforced because we saw some older gentlemen that were with a couple female friends.
Main Floor
Apparently the club was celebrating an anniversary. Some of the biggest and most popular DJs in the world play here. On this particular night, they had a couple popular local Korean DJs playing.
Maximite
We Had To
Tables
Koreans Party Hard
I gotta say that everybody knows how to have a good time in Seoul! Korean can drink and they love to party. It was well past 4am and the bottles were still coming.
Nonstop
Kindergarten
As it was getting closer to 5am, they actually started pouring coffee and serving donuts to everybody. That was a first!
We decided to leave at a somewhat decent hour. Some of the clubs can go on until around 7am-8am apparently. I was a bit too jet lagged for that and we were getting hungry. We had a taxi drop us off at another street in Gangnam to find a place to eat.
Around 5am…I Think
It’s not very difficult to find restaurants that are still open after leaving the club. Many places are open 24 hours.
Gangnam
My friend mentioned a place that she enjoyed on a previous visit. Since everything is in Korean, you pretty much just have to look for what looks familiar. We found it and headed down the stairs.
Late-Night Eats
The menu was entirely in Korean and the waiter did not really understand what we were asking for. No problemo. We just let him bring us whatever sounded good.
No English Menu
He brought us a a seafood pancake. It was nice and crispy with large pieces of octopus. It was delicious.
Seafood Pancake
The next dish was spicy pork with rice balls rolled in bits of seafood. It was very tasty and very spicy.
Spicy Pork and Rice Balls
Can’t complain about our late-night meal, it was really good and much needed. My friend and I took separate taxis back to our guest houses. People were still out and about, but I was more than ready for some sleep at this point. Saturday night in Seoul – good times!
Hit the Spot
⇓Check out the video of that night below!⇓
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Octagon
645 Nonhyeon-ro, Nonhyeon 1(il)-dong, Gangnam-gu
Seoul, South Korea
Website
– Doors open at 10pm
– Cover: ￦30,000 (+1 free drink)
