Saturday, August 26, 2006

On the hunt...

Last night I experienced my first bit of night life here in Korea. Mind you, we are on the outskirts of Suwon outside of Seoul in an area that is mainly just a road with some bars and restaurants and a bunch of other weird stores that make no sense to me.

We started off at a norebong, which means karaoke room in English. You go there, pay 25000 Won (about 25 bucks) and you get a room for yourself with a full fledged karaoke machine. I didn't know what to expect but I had a great laugh there. Me and this British guy did a few tunes, including Barbie Girl by Aqua and an N'Sync song. The Brit really could sing but my terrible skills were drowned out by the over the top amount of reverb they have on the mics. It's actually more of an echo than a reverb but I won't get into any music jargon right now.

Then we went back to the resort and the crowd I was at the norebong with split up with most people going back to their rooms. I was not going to allow myself to go back to my room. It was my first chance to party in Korea so I went wandering the streets looking for my fellow teachers.

One really cool thing about Korea is that you can drink on the streets so I went to the Family Mart and bought a bottle of beer while I walked around peering into each bar for Westerners. As expected, I found my Aussie and New Zealand posse at the Beer Hunt. The pitcher's of beer kept coming and we didn't leave there until 3 AM. At the table next to us were some locals and these guys weren't out for a just a few beers. They were out to drink anything and everything they could.

One guy same over to our table with a pitcher of dark brown liquid. Turns out it was a mix of beer, soju (Korea's poison liquor, but it don't taste bad at all), and Coke. They poured us up some glasses and wanted us to chug them, so we did. It sure hit the spot, but I'm not quite sure what spot.

We tried to leave a number of times but the jugs of beer just kept appearing and the bartender even gave us a couple of free ones. When we got the bill, it only came to 80000 Won (80 bucks). We split this between us and paid about 12 bucks each to drink for 4 hours. Not bad at all.

Unfortunately, today we have to play some traditional Korean percussive instruments. I don't know how this is gonna go over because there are a few people who aren't feeling 100% today, to say the least. It starts in 20 minutes so I'm off.

I think I'm gonna get some earplugs.

2 comments:

Lar said...

Hi Newfie nephew,
- just came down from a visit to Deer Lake where we got your webpage address. Jennifer was up for her first visit after getting back from Korea. Jennifer came home this week, Suzanne leaves later this week for Halifax. Jennifer & Craig have no regrets about their Korean experience, and by the sound of your blogs, you seem to be off to a good start too. Jennifer brought home some susu( spelling?) and we sampled it. You seem to be sampling just about everything.Stay away from the live octupus meals. Keep on spreading the Newfanize and having the good time!
love,
Uncle Lar & Aunt Di

Richard said...

I hope I leave with no regrets... I think a lot of my year is gonna depend on where I'm living. It's onthe outskirts of the city and some people tell me its fine and others say its kinda bad. I'll find out in a few days