Free Hugs & Good Feelings

NYE was fantastic - spent it in Seoul with all the new people I've met here. We counted down in a park near the college in Hongdae with hundreds of other people. When the clock struck midnight, we all screamed and hugged. Drinks magically appeared for everyone and we cheered to the new beginning. Fast forward eight hours and we managed to make it on a train and headed home. Ah Seoul...I love going there, always an adventure.

Earlier this week, Janet came up with the idea of giving out Free Hugs on Saturday. Free Hugs is a campaign introduced by someone or another. It is what it says basically. You make signs that say "Free Hugs" then you go out and give strangers hugs. I had some of my kids make up signs in Korean & English that said "Free Hugs" and a few more of us made our own signs. We spent a few hours in Hongdae, holding our signs and giving out free hugs to everyone who wanted one.

We were immediately well received - before we all even passed out our signs, we had a few foreigners taking pictures of us. Once we all had our signs and were scattered down the street, the campaign began. I originally was counting the number of hugs I was getting from people but it soon turned into too many to keep track of. A lot of people were shy about hugging and would timidly walk up to one of us while some would full on run - slamming into us for their hug.

I had one foreigner who asked us why we were giving out free hugs, to which I replied "Why not?". He was skeptical and inquired to our reasoning once again. He asked if we had some political reason for doing this or if we wanted anything. Once again, I assured him that we were just out to be nice and he finally relented - giving me a hug and a goofy grin while commenting "Oh well I can support Free Hugs!"

After our Free Hug adventure, we went to this cafe called Tom's Cat Cafe. Guess what it was full of? Yup, kitty cats. Cats of all sorts of colors, shapes, and sizes. You pay to get in then you get a drink and the chance to play with cats for however long you'd like. I promised Jacob (who opted to play video games with the rest of the guys instead of participating in our campaign) to take him to the Cat Cafe so he could play with the crazy creatures.

Once we had our fill of furballs, we took a train to a Boardgame Cafe where we played Disney Monopoly for 3 hours. I got to be Banker (I didn't cheat for once! haha) and was first out of the game (I should have cheated!). The Boardgame Cafe was great - you get to choose what game you want to play out of their 50 or so choices. They had everything.

The end of the day was just as great as the beginning - we went to Burger King. This might seem 'blah' to some of you but imagine me - a girl who hasn't had a fast food hamburger in...ten years? The last time I ate a Burger King burger, I think I was still eating from the kids menu! I had my very first bacon and cheese Whopper. It was...magical.

All in all, this has been a great start to a new year.