I'm going on a much deserved holiday tommorow in after tapping away at the computer for weeks on end! I've been busy building a website for Sortino's restaurant in addition to seoulstyle activities. Here's a preview of the Sortino's site. It's not 100 percent done yet. I based the design on a website they showed me that they liked.

http://www.sortinos-seoul.com

Anyway, tommorow I'm off to France where I'll be doing the interior design for an apartment we just bought over there in the 4th arrondisment. We bought the apt for investment  and we'll be renting it out to people on vacation. This apt. rocks because it's basically right next to Notre Dame on the Ile de la Cite. After that's taken care of, we'll be heading down to the South of France where my husband's best friend is getting married. The wedding reception takes place in an old family farm. It should be pretty romantic! After that we're cruising over to Biarritz and then hopping over to check out Dubrovnik for a couple of days. I'm glad to get away from Seoul for a while. In fact, I'm slowly starting to detach myself from Seoul since there's a big chance we may finally be leaving.

In the meantime, I've been enjoying this new ajuma visor that I bought last weekend on a road trip to Sokcho in the east. We went there with a group of triathletes from the Seoul club. My hubby wore his lucky Seoulstyle hat on the run and he came in 2nd place in his age group and 5th over all! Not bad!

 Being that I've got this massive penchant for karaoke and bursts of spontaneous song, I've always wanted to go to Sound day, but I never seemed to know when it was. (Sound Day is like Club day in Hongdae except instead of dance clubs, you get to go to all these live music clubs and hear bands play.) 
Finally I had the chance to go since my husband was out of town, so I rounded up a bunch of girlfriends for a night of soju, singing, sunglasses and screaming. What a blast! We got sooo silly after a few bottles of soju.
See evidence at this link:
http://www.liza-world.com/lizaGalleries/sound-day/collage.htm

 I'm really must admit, I do enjoy hanging out in Apkujong. I put on a summery dress and went out to meet two girlfriends for a happy hour drink at Grand Harue. That place is a scene. People be rolling up in their Land Rovers, Beamers, Benzes and even in a Lamborghini! (Yeah, like there are places in Korea where you can actually drive that fast! Right.) 
There are always entertainers, fashion people and TV people hanging around this corner. It's a fun place to people-watch and people do really watch each other here! You can feel the eyes on you when you walk down the street. Who is that person? what are they driving? what are they wearing? Everyone is getting scrutinized. But hey, it's fun if you take it with a grain of salt and just laugh at the whole thing.

On the way to Harue, I was passing by the Mnet building and I heard some frenzied screaming. I turned around to see a gang of teen-age girls crowded around an SUV with tinted black windows. They were trying to get a photo of the person inside the vehicle. The car rolled away and I never got a chance to see who was in it, but it was obviously someone famous. Apkujong really is the Beverly Hills of Seoul. 
Then, I passed by a Family Mart where  a Korean guy with dyed blonde hair was sitting with some other TV-looking people. The teenage girls realized the blonde guy was also a celebrity and they ran up to him screaming, cell phones in hand taking photos. They literally mobbed the table. They were screaming " Opa nomu moshisoyo!!" which means "Big Brother, you are sooo good-looking!" He was getting claustrophobic and he tried to run away but they chased him.

CLICK HERE TO SEE PICS OF THE GROUPIE MOB
(this is a series of 11 photos. Click the little arrow button on the bottom right to move forward.
http://www.liza-world.com/lizaGalleries/groupies/1.htm

After Harue, we went to visit Jiwon Park at "The Park". She just had her baby and she looked great. Of course we had to celebrate, so out came the Veuve Cliquot and two bottles later I was brave enough to say hello to actor Jo Jae Hyun, who incidentally was sitting at the table next to us. Jo Jae Hyun is absolutely my favorite Korean actor because he always chooses unique roles and he's just excellent at his craft. (OKay so it was my turn to be a groupie!!)

CLICK HERE TO SEE A PHOTO OF ME AND JO JAE HYUN
http://www.liza-world.com/lizaGalleries/jo-jae-hyeon.htm

 He was in quite a few movies I've seen, most notably:"Mokpo, a Gangster's Paradise" It a comedy about the mob. He was also in"Bad Man- Napoon Namja"- He plays a pimp in this intense and bizarre movie.
Apparently he used to be a painter and lived in Paris for a while. My girlfriend also told me his family is loaded and he just acts for the love of film.

After dinner I went over to Jiwon's place for a baby viewing. The newest little celebrity in Cheongdam is her 2 month old son Luca. He is sooo cute. He has really alert black eyes and he makes alot of cute noises. He seemed to be very focused on the TV where they were showing a football match (his dad is a football coach, no wonder)

This kind of carefree frivolous day makes me remember why I like going to Apku.