I went to the movie theater again to watch Minions: The Rise of Gru, and it was everything I imagined and more. Despite language and cultural barriers, Minions unites us all!
So to start things off, I wanna say that this is a monthly thing we do with my roommate. We go on a monthly girl date and this weekend was our scheduled date, which included going to the movies. We are both in our twenties, but there was no way we were skipping the Minions movie! In all honesty, I think we decided to go watch it BECAUSE we are both in our twenties – pure nostalgia.
We live near our university. But it turns out our neighborhood isn’t very fun and is only residential. So, we had to travel to another area to find a movie theatre. Which, is fine until you get the Minion’s fever like we did.
After deciding to take a trip to Hongdae, we started our day by dying my roommate’s hair. Which, is long and a lot. Later we showered, did our makeup, and ventured out together to enjoy our lives.
We hopped into the subway and waited until our destination was behind the automatic doors. Then, we went up the stairs to the exit of Hongik University Subway Station. Upon entering the shopping mall, we couldn’t help but get distracted – it was filled with such pretty clothes! but we were women on a mission: Minions.
I will say, unfortunately, my roommate and I are not Korean speakers, although we are progressively getting better. But, we were not ready to face the ticket purchasing machines. We had to take out our cellphones for translation. It was important to make sure we weren’t purchasing tickets for another movie or causing some other kind of disaster.
After taking a sigh of relief as we received the correct tickets, we headed to the popcorn stand. There, we also had to pay through a machine. Korea is amazing in this sense. You really don’t really need to speak to anyone to enjoy a movie or even a meal. But the thing is, many times the machines only have Korean, so it can be hard if you are still learning.
So, we struggled to get our popcorn. We could definitely sense people behind us getting frustrated. Our translation app was glitching due to an unstable connection, and we couldn’t decide if we wanted only the Minion-themed soda cups or the Minion-themed popcorn holder. We’re broke university students so we only got the cups. But, we made sure to get one each because there was no way our neighbors would ever be listening to two twenty-year-olds arguing about the sacred Minions cup.
Finally, after going through that stress, we got to go to the movie room itself. It was amazing, and the seats we chose were actually pretty good. We also were blessed by whoever rules the universe because somehow we picked the movie with Korean subtitles instead of the one dubbed in Korean. Yay us!
I laughed my butt off. Even when I got a little bit distracted by the subtitles, trying to understand the Korean sentences while listening to English speakers. My brain was a mess, but my heart was happy.
In the theater, I could not see any kids, actually. There were only young adults like me and my roommate. Which, made the giggles at the movie a bit low-pitched and that made me laugh too. It was just a bunch of people who were in their early teens when the first Despicable Me movie came out, trying to reminisce on the good old days. The movie was a good lighthearted piece of animation and created a good ambiance for a date -between friends or lovers.
After the movie finished I was happy and my tummy was too. We visited a Korean restaurant we stumbled upon while we were starving to death -not even a joke. I think I even saw the light. Anyways, it was super delicious and we had a very nice time there, too.
All in all, Minions: Rise of Gru was nothing I didn’t expect, and it was nice to be able to feel connected to Korean young adults. Even if we didn’t know each other and had different uprisings, the Minions are the same for everyone, which is what I relish the most.
I look forward to having more Minions-themed adventures in Korea in the future. If you hear of any upcoming minions events, let me know in the comments below!
All sorts of fandoms can help foreigners not feel so alone in Korea. Wheater it is minions or your favorite K-pop band, you can meet people all over the world who enjoy the same things you do. Click Here to learn more about how you can meet new friends at Lucky Draw events and bond over photo card trading.
