Jazz bar in Itaewon

Hi everyone,

on Friday I went to a jazz bar with Matt from America and Thijs from the Netherlands. We just wanted to see what it was like. The Jazz bar is called 'All that Jazz' and is located in Itaewon. If you go out exit 1 at the subway station just walk straight ahead on the main street for about 20-30 meters. It's on your right. Even though I think Itaewon is one location one should never go to unless it's going to a foreign restaurant or visiting the larhe Seoul mosque, one can find surprisingly good music over here. To be honest, if you go to Seoul your first intention should not be to seek other foreigners, but sometimes it's nice to experience something that's considered typically 'Western'. When we first went in we could see it was quite crowded. We had to wait for a couple of minutes and then went to the first table just in front of the stage. The waitress didn't mention there was a 5000 KRW (3 euro) entrance fee. We really felt we weren't really in a normal Korean place when we ordered something to drink. We had to pay right away which seemed odd. WELCOME TO ITAEWON. The live jazz bands were extremely good. We had no expectations and eventually were very happy we went to 'All that Jazz'.  There were two bands playing that night. They played old well known jazz songs from America, but also some Brazilian songs. I especially loved it when they improvised. If you come to Seoul, you should def. check this place out. After the jazz bar we went outside to get some food. We got a Moroccan sandwich which was very tasty. Because we went to the jazz bar we kind of forget we were in the infamous area of Itaewon. Soon after we would realize we were. Some foreigners, ahum Americans, were fighting in front of us while we were eating our delicious food. It started between a woman and a man. It was about nothing. They were both just drunk and the woman was looking for a fight. Her boyfriend got in the middle and the drama just continued all the time. I was just enjoying my sandwich from a safe distance. Thijs and Matt were standing quite close and other people as well. Most of them were just recording and making pictures. One moment a guy that came in between hit the woman and then all hell broke loose. Eventually there were about 6 people arguing and fighting. The irony of this was that the police station was just across the street. And no cop showed up. While we were eating some guy behind us said that there's always a fight at that particular spot every week. Me and the guys agreed we wouldn't come here alone at night. Seoul must be one of the safest cities in the world. Seriously. But Itaewon is just crap. Mainly because of the American soldiers and what they attract.

I don't want to make this a sad story or anything. It was one of my best nights in Korea. I took some pictures of the place and of course forget to take some of myself.

Matt

Matt

Matt

Thijs

Thijs