Day 61: SNU Abandoned Swimming Pool

If you haven't read my last post then I suggest reading it before you read this one, the significance of the place I am going to will make a lot more sense!

The girls that I am going to the pool with are named Kika and Beta. I met them a month or so ago when I first saw BTS at Olympic Park. We met up around 1 pm today and took a bus to Seoul National University since the abandoned swimming pool where BTS filmed the HYYH prologue video is on the edge of the campus.

It seemed like a bit of a sketchy area to go to since we had to walk up a small path in a forest that had tons of worn out signs along it. Kind of not so funny story about the signs: turns out that they say no trespassing. There are actually security guards for the campus that come up and check to see if people are in the pool area. I think it has become dangerous because it is so old and they don't want people getting hurt.

The path was a little steep but it only took us a few minutes to find the pool. There is a super sketchy alley looking place that has tons of graffiti and a small staircase that leads up to the pool. We walked up the staircase and the pool was right in front of us! The graffiti went all the way around the pool and some of it was so amazing! We found tons of BTS and ARMY (BTS' fandom) artwork on the pool edges. Someone had even traced out a huge 'BTS' in the snow in the middle of the pool.

We also saw a group of three girls filming a dance cover video on one side of the pool

We took photos near the a re-creation of the creature that V drew in the prologue video.

Then we took photos by the 'You Never Walk Alone' someone had drawn on the pool side. You Never Walk Alone is the name of a BTS album released after the HYYH series/era.

After all the photo taking we built a snowman, threw some snowballs, and played with the ice for a bit.

Around this time a group of four showed up and started to take wedding photos. They had balloons and the poses they were doing were super cute!

We wanted to take a picture with the small building near the pool but the dance girls from earlier had moved there to take photos. We waited for 10 minutes before I finally approached them and asked if it was ok if we took photos there. They were super nice and even took some photos for us. I found out their group name and that they do a lot of covers for Black Pink dances.

We finally decided to head back down to the campus and find a place to eat. We made it about half way down the hill before we met a security guard. Very terrifying experience where all three of us were worried about getting in trouble for being there. Fortunately we did not. We had a brief discussion with the guard and then he continued up to the pool. We were so relieved that we had left when we had and we felt bad for the couple and the dancers that were still there.

We made it back down to the university and hopped on the first bus we could find because we wanted to get as far away from the security guard as quickly as we could. Then we found a super yummy bbq restaurant nearby and had marinated lamb skewers.

After eating we decided to go to a cafe so Beta could do some school work. I didn't have my laptop with me so we took the subway to Sinsa to find a cafe near my place. We passed a convenience store in the subway that was selling coffee with cool art of BTS's faces on it. We picked a cafe called Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf and I ran up the hill to grab my laptop. We spent the next hour or so working at the cafe.

While the whole security guard thing was a pretty terrifying event, the rest of the day was awesome. I loved the pool and it was so cool to go to a place where BTS had filmed a video. I have been in Korea for almost two months now and I have done a lot of the touristy things that I originally wanted to do. The weather is also getting much colder now so I can't do things like spending the day walking along the Han River in a t-shirt anymore. I have decided that I want to spend the last few weeks going to BTS places. Kika showed me a couple Twitter accounts that post the exact locations of places BTS has been to or filmed at. I spent all evening going through the accounts and marking interesting places on the map on my phone. It was great timing since I was running out of things to do, but this will make planning each day so much easier. Today marks the beginning of the BTS adventures!

Side note: I am currently staying at a place called a goshiwon. I mentioned it in my last post but just in case you didn't read it or don't remember, a goshiwon is a super small room. The bathroom is in a little glass area in the room and has a sliding door to get into it. In the bathroom there is a toilet with a sink right beside it and a shower head over the sink. The sink and shower are connected. In order to shower, people need to turn a nob by the sink to switch the water from coming out of the sink to coming out of the shower head instead. It is a pain in the butt to shower in such a small space plus it's kind of gross to shower right by the toilet. However, this is not the main problem. When I finish showering I turn the water off like any normal shower, totally fine right? EXCEPT that I sometimes forget to turn the nob back to the sink setting... so I will go to wash my hands or get my toothbrush wet later in the day and instead of the water coming out of the sink it will come out of the shower head and I will get completely soaked while wearing dry clothes. Very lovely experience. It's pretty funny after I have dried my clothes or hair off though.

Hope everyone is doing well,

Emily

(November 25, 2018)