Sleeping in Sanbon

With everyone living at different ends of Seoul, if indeed in Seoul at all, it's usually easiest for the weekend Itaewon salsa crew to congregate at the Itaewon dance studio at the weekends. However, sometimes you just don't wanna dance salsa. So where do you go??

Sanbon baby! All the way down south on line 4 about an hour's journey on the subway, home to Robin and Sebastian. One wonders why people would choose to live so far out until you visit and find out for yourself. Like a city within a city (no, not like Croydon), it has all your life's needs: all the big high street shops, restaurants, coffee shops, and of course, noraebang. There's pretty much no reason to leave except to sight-see, and, well, salsa.

So that's where we crashed on Friday night. Saturday morning was planned for a hike up the local mountain in view of Jaideep's imminent departure from Korea, but (un)fortunately he got called away for a conference at 7am so we scrapped that plan in favour of a lie-in. And by the time we finished brunch and sufficiently recovered after squeezing 7 people into a one-bedroomed apartment, it was time for Robin and me to whisk ourselves away for a private ladies' salsa styling lesson with Helen before class. Most helpful.

Having had so much fun the night before the group agreed to veto the all night Saturday salsa party and head back down to Sanbon. And who needs salsa bars when you can salsa and sing in any one of the multitudes of noraebang that Sanbon hosts? By 5am we were all flaking somewhat, but that didn't stop Robin from delegating brunch tasks the next morning while she sorted out her flat. Sebastian and I were on DVD duty, and in preparation for Christmas we brought back Love Actually. It was a group decision.

So Christmas is upon us folks! In 10 days' time I will be swanning about in Malaysia, far, far away from lesson plans and cold wintry weather. And get this, in less than 12 weeks' time, I'll be saying my teary goodbyes as I put my umbrella up to prepare myself for the perpetual drear of England. My flight is booked and my flat needs a clear out.