So maybe you noticed that it posted an old one of my blogs recently, that's because I went back to reread a couple, fixed a typo, and BAM! It published the whole thing. C'est la vie. Also for those that are new to this, I suggest you start from the beginning. I know its long, but it is fun, and starting from the beginning will give you insight into my thought process, how much Korean I know and don't know, and will explain help explain my experiences and cast of recurring characters. I know I romanized the word for bear wrong, but romanization is not a set thing, and that's why you make it the name of your blog instead of getting it as a tattoo.
This weekend I took a trip to Gwangju. I was talking before about how I was gonna try and drag Phillipa, but that didn't work out. She has been swamped at work with an open lesson coming up this week, and has spent all week trying to work out all the kinks. She's awesome, so I hope everything goes smoothly for her. I missed a couple of parties up here in the countryside, but I had a friggin' blast, so I'm not really that sad. The weekend started with me catching a bus out of town for the city of Daejeon. I had done this once before, so this time I knew where I needed to be going. No asking random people for directions anymore. I walked off the bus stop and into the terminal and ordered a ticket for Gwangju. I still had five minutes to spare before the 7:40 bus left, so I thought I was golden. "Apsoyo." She says at the counter. I now am beginning to hate that word. The good news is that they weren't totally out of tickets, just ones for that bus. I got a ticket for ten o'clock, which was about two hours and change away, so I decided I would get something to eat. I had a little walk around the neighborhood, and all I found that looked appetizing was a little noodle shop on the side of a street. I got Dul Sut Bibimbap, or "Hot stone Bibimbap." It was served in a hot stone bowl so it carmelized the rice while you were eating the rest of the dish, and boy was it delicious. I killed some time by watching you tube videos of a Korean show I have recently found, and got situated on the bus when it arrived.
I got into Gwangju about midnight, and everything seemed so different from the last time I was there. All my friends have phones now, and I was in constant contact with them from the beginning. I knew exactly where to go and how to get there, and I had enough money to get there and back comfortably. I hopped a cab to the station where Graham had told me to go, and before long I was there. It was raining pretty hard, so I put on my waterproof jacket and walked around a bit trying to locate my friends. A couple of phone calls later we were on our way into the noraebang. (NORAEBANG!!!) It was much different from my other two noraebang experiences because it was mostly westerners. We drank some beers and they made me down lots of soju to catch up to where they were at. I, of course, sang Muse because they are absolutely awesome, and many other songs were picked. I even found another song to add to my repertoire. By the end of the night we were all pretty drunk and sung out, so we paid and left at about three. I was consoled by Kristin, a Cardinals fan, because she obviously knew my pain as a Rangers fan. She was very civil through out the series. We filled each other in on big plays when we had to go teach class, and did a mild bit of trash talking. I prefer my rivalries to be mild and civil, and this was definitely both. I am a hugger by nature, and have not been getting my fill of hugs over here, so I was psyched when she gave me a big one. It was after that though that I opened my big mouth and said "I will hug anyone anywhere!" I was not prepared for Sarah Bosch to suddenly dart inbetween two people and attack me with a hug. It nearly knocked me over. Two good hugs in one night and some singing. What more could I really ask for from an evening that had started at midnight?
Everyone was on their way home and I had only been going for a couple hours, so of course I am still wanting to go out. Graham was nice though and offered to let me crash at his place. He has a magnificent hookah that he bought from Lebanon, and we smoked some shisha out of it. It was quite delicious. I haven't smoked a hookah for a good four or five months, and it was the perfect way to relax. He also had Duvell, a fine beer, on hand to drink. The best beer I can buy in stores out here is pretty much Budweiser, so I was excited to be sipping on a nice beer with a fine bit of shisha to smoke. We listened to some music and hung out, then went to sleep. Once again it was nice to have my air mattress. I would have had to sleep on a wooden floor otherwise. It seems like this thing has already paid for itself twice over.
The next morning came too early. I took a shower at Grahams place and commented on his cute little decals in his place that were of Winnie the Pooh. "Yeah, just like back home, Pooh all over the walls." That gave me quite a laugh. We got moving and headed downtown. Christina was having a birthday that night, so we had a few hours to kill before meeting up with everyone. The first thing we did was plan on getting something to eat. We went to a restaurant that served a dish called "Shabu Shabu" which consisted of a spicy broth with lots of vegetables. You would take little strips of beef and add them to the broth till they cooked, then eat them. After that you added more vegetables, then finally udon noodles. After all of this cooking of the soup was done, they gave us what was close to Bokembap. It was rice that was cooked on the thing we had just eaten out of. Of course it was delicious, and by the end of it we were pretty full. We then went to a bake-sale at the GIC (Gwangju International Center) and took a look at the books and baked goods they were offering. I know I have said it before, but I will say it again a bunch of times before I am done. I get kind of weirded out in the city. There are a lot of foreigners, and everything is so cramped. I think if I had been living there all along I would be totally used to it, but every time I go to a city and see a foreigner I want to smile and wave, and they always pretend like they don't see me... awkward. So we spent some time at the bake sale and met up with a couple of other people from our group, then headed to the place we went last time called Coffee and Cat. It was as epic as it sounds. Cats everywhere, running around and playing. I got a couple of pictures of said cats, and we had a cup of coffee, then headed out again. We ended up at "The alleyway" a place that had real Mexican food that I have been dying to try. I didn't get to that day because we had just eaten the shabu shabu, but I did get to sit around and drink beer with my homeys.
I debated whether or not to include this next part, as it is kind of gross, but I think it will probably give you a laugh, so I am gonna go for it. The shabu shabu had really spicy broth, and was pretty oily from having the meat cooked in it. All the food has sat well with me over here, but this did not. Something about the oily spicy broth just made my stomach rumble, so as I was sitting around drinking beer I felt the all too familiar uncomfortable bubbles. I thought it was just a bit of gas and that I would be alright, but very soon I realized that things were accelerating. I knew that we had a long night ahead of us, and that likely I would not be able to reach a civilized looking bathroom for the next twelve hours, so I excused myself and hit the head. Protip: Don't expect the bathroom in a place called "The Alleyway" to be very nice. It wasn't. It is not attached to any one shop, but shared by three different places. I was just thankful that it did indeed have a sit down toilet so I made the most of it. As an Eagle Scout, I have had my experiences with gross bathrooms, and compared to those, this one was pretty nice, so I did what I had to do. There was water all over the ground (I hope) so I tried to not let my pants get any on them. The door didn't lock, and the light was outside, so I was sitting there in a tiny room relieving myself while trying to keep my pants off the ground and hold the door shut. As I am sitting there I hear some guy come in and use the restroom. I thought "Oh, crap! (no pun intended) What if this guy thinks he is the only one in here and trys to come in. So I give a little cough to maybe alert him to my presence. Obviously it didn't work, because when he left, he turned the lights out. I am now sitting in a pitch dark dirty bathroom in the back of a placed called "The Alleyway" trying to get my phone out of my pants without letting them touch the ground. I had an application on it called "Flashlight" that I knew was going to come in handy one day. I found it, turned it on, went about my business, and right as I finish up and leave this poor poor girl comes in. It is then that I realize that this horrifyingly dirty bathroom has just been made even more horrifying by me, and I try to make a quick exit, hoping that she wasn't a fellow bar goer at the place where I was drinking. On the way out I, like an idiot, do the same thing the guy did before and turn out the lights. I quickly realized my mistake though and turned them back on for her, as she already had it rough enough. Feeling like a million dollars I returned to the bar and continued on with the night. The bartender put on Jurassic Park, and I reveled in the glory of the good ol' days, when crappy (again, no pun intended, and enough with the poop jokes) animatronic velociraptors still scared 11 year old me out of my frickin' mind. They played some classic southern rock, and for the next half hour, all was right with the world.
Chrissy had wanted to meet up for her birthday and get some pizza, so we did that. We went to a pretty nice restaurant called "The lemon table." It was delicious! They had all kinds of things on the menu, and I ended up getting something called the "Onion Mountain Burger." It was recommended to me by the ever beautiful Sarah Bosch who happens to have new bangs, and I will tell you exactly how awesome she looks with those bangs... well she looks awesome just like I said. Let me take this moment to give a shout out to all my Gwangjuish friends. They truly are the chosen people. Everytime I go down there they are concerned about how I am doing and how things are going. It is nice to be able to hang out with so many people that get along so well. There are a bunch of different personalities, so if I am feeling up, I can talk to someone and if I am feeling down I can talk to someone else. Well this onion mountain burger comes out, and I'll be damned if it isn't literally a mountiain of onion rings on top of a burger. I ate the whole thing ravenously. Cleaned my friggin plate. I then happened to see that they had Dr. Pepper in stock so I got one of those. What a good meal. Onion rings, a burger and Dr. Pepper.
It was then that we headed out to a place called "Speakeasy" to watch a Korean band. We got there in time for soundcheck and it was obvious that the guys were very talented. Apparently one was a drum teacher, one was a guitar teacher, and the singer was also a songwriter. They played all original material that was very high energy and sounded great. After that was a band of all foreigners who played nothing but cover songs. I have to say I much preferred the band of foreigners. I was quite drunk by that point, as we had been going for about six or seven hours by the time they got on stage, but they played a great selection. Our Irish friend Joanne hated it when they played a song by the Scottish group the proclaimers. So, like the true gentleman I am, I arranged to have it sung to her in stereo. She was a champ about it and let us sing away while she took it. Because I know how much restraint that must have taken I bought her a beer. At one point in the night an older Korean gentleman sat down at a table near ours and I gave him a friendly nod. He was in a foreigner bar as a middle aged man, and was sitting with a table full of young adult Korean women. How are you not going to give a guy like that a friendly nod? Well a few minutes later he asked me to come over and speak English to the group so that the girls could have some English conversation. I left the table full of shocked western dudes like a boss and sat down to talk to some pretty ladies. They were locals, who taught English and math, and I was more than willing to help them out. We made small talk, and I was forced to tell them which one was the prettiest. What a hard life! Being forced to talk to beautiful Korean girls while drinking! Woe is me! The band started back up and I couldn't here anything so we parted ways. I went back and I spent more time hanging around with my friends right by the front of the stage. I was cheering the band on and singing along with all their songs. The dude right in front of me was wailing on the bongos, so I told him how awesome I thought he was. At the end of the night he found me and thanked me for being such a great crowd member :)
I also met a wonderful, but very confused girl that night. After the dancing and drinking I came back to our table, which was pretty much empty except for one lady. She was not with our group, but was an adorable doe eyed beauty. I sat down and chatted her up. She was pretty easy to talk to and from New Jersey. I mentioned that my whole family spent a lot of time in the New Jersey area, and it seemed like she was from outside Newark. We hit it off, and things were going quite well. Normally someone so flirtatious would set off alarm bells in my head, but as of late I have been on a streak of awesome. So we shared a laid back drunken conversation about many things. Things were going quite swimmingly so I go to get her a beer and what does my friend tell me? "Shes engaged." "Aww damn!" I think to myself "Go figure that an attractive easy to talk to girl is already spoken for." Anyway I brought this up to her and she said they were on a break. Last time I checked it is not against any rules to talk to a girl that is on a break, so I don't feel that bad, but I also didn't realize her ex or whatever he was, was in the bar with us. In my defense she didn't point him out or tell me, and we really weren't doing anything but talking and flirting a bit. It sure does explain why he was giving me bad stares at the end of the night. I thought he was just some dude, but apparently he was THE dude. Oh well. No fight, no foul. I didn't cause any drama that wasn't already there, and I didn't do anything but talk. I still feel like a scumbag though, so I made it a point to apologize. While she was doing her own thing in the bar I saw another girl who was chillin with just her Korean girlfriend, so I invited her over for a drink and some conversation. We talked for awhile and hit it off rather well. What do you know she was South African. It really does seem sometimes that I am a "Saffer Magnet" as Craig called me last weekend. She was interesting and had a good sense of humor. Sometime during the conversation I got up to get a beer. I met a dude at the bar who had a rockin' beard and I told him so. Once again the brotherhood of the beard goes far. This guy was laid back and totally chill, which is good cause I was pretty far gone at this point. I remember some guy spilling the bearded mans own drink on him, and what is his reaction? "Can I get a towel. No dude, keep your money, it's cool, I already paid for my next drink." Straight up classy guy. Just seemed genuinely friendly, and kept a cool head when he was around dumbasses. I also befriended a girl with him from Canada because I kept referring to it as "Americas cooler northern neighbor." Graham also had brought a co-teacher of his out whose name was Stan, and the guy was really nice. We talked about baseball for awhile and he thanked me for being nice enough to talk to him. I suggested that he try to insert himself into conversations around our group, because we were all really nice people, it's just a matter of who he wanted to talk to. I honestly probably have more experience hanging out with Koreans than I do westerners in Korea at this point, as it seems like I am getting to do that a few times a week, while westerners I only see every weekend or so. Koreans are very hospitable, and a lot of fun. They love to practice English, and they love to talk about ladies, sports and beer.
It is about this time that the party at speakeasy starts winding down and everyone starts to take off for other places. I decide I am going to follow the party and head with my friend to Bubble bar. When we get there Clare Gutjahar (The Gooch) gives me a huge hug. You may remember her from my previous posts where I said she was my favorite, because... well... she is. Well she gave me a big hug and gushed to me about some things. I listened and sympathized and got a free awesome hug out of it. It was then that everyone was like "Ok we are leaving!" and Graham said "Yeah, I'll stay and drink with ya mate!" Fast forward thirty seconds and they are all in a cab and leaving without me. We were all totally drunk, as by this time it was about three something in the morning. Wait, let me check my phone records. Yeah it looks like around three people were taking off. I stayed because... well... why not? I went walkin' around for a whole minute to pull out some money, and went into the bubble bar where I proceeded to not spend a penny. How do you do that? Make friends with some Korean guys. They were way too willing to buy me drinks as I was older than them. "Older brother!" they kept saying as I would take my wallet out and they would push it away. We had some conversation, danced for a bit, drank for a bit. They wanted me to introduce them to some cute American girls. I wasn't with anyone there, so I found the first two cute Korean girls that walked by and got them to hang out with us. The South African was at the bar also, but by that time I was so drunk I just left and hopped in a cab. I apparently told him the wrong subway stop, and had to walk for a half hour to get to where I needed to be. It probably shouldn't have been a half hour, but I got really really lost. Who knew that being drunk and in a new neighborhood would keep you from recognizing your surroundings? I walked past a group of Ajumas who looked like they were getting ready to go hiking up a local mountain or something and got some really strange looks followed by laughs. Eventually after a few calls to Graham and quite a bit of walking I was back at his apartment. I was kind of drunk, and REALLY tired, so I hit the bed and lights out.
I woke up the next morning to a phone vibrating. It was Graham. I had slept for seven hours already, which put me at 2:00. I raced to shower and packed up my stuff and left his apartment still drunk. I hopped on the subway and rode it alone for a couple of stops before John Smith III came over and sat down next to me. He apparently was going to the same place I was and looked in a lot worse shape. He had the little burst blood vessels all over his face from drinking too much and getting sick. I just had a small headache. Upon arriving at the destination of the alleyway again, we sat down with all of our friends. They gave me a good ribbing for hitting on an engaged chick, but what are you going to do. I wasn't going to sleep with her, and my understanding is that she was on a break. I had a delicious breakfast of biscuits and gravy with LOTS of water, then headed out from there. I had a long bus ride back, and lots of liquor in my system. Learning from last week I didn't want to get stuck in Gwangju or Cheongju, so I hopped in a cab, got to U-station, and took the 5:10 bus out of there. I had a comfortable seat and a long nap accompanied by an uneventful journey. It was pleasant.
I have a couple of pictures that I would like to put up soon, it's just a matter of remembering to do it. This weekend I will probably take it easy, but am planning on heading into Ulsan next weekend as it, and the north eastern province, are probably the only two places I haven't been in this country. I really want to go see THIS!!!! kid who Graham the Scottsman turned me onto last night/today. He is apparently from Cheongju. I mentioned him to my co-teacher and wouldn't you know it, my co-teachers wife used to teach him. He has often been spotted practicing guitar at the local lake. He was taught by his father, and this weekend he is performing in some gymnasium. Crazy good. He is only a couple years older now than he is in that video. I highly suggest you check out some of his music, as he covers a lot of Abba and Michael Jackson and about every other pop song you can think of. Until next time, I hope you are all doing well and keeping safe with all those earthquakes going on in Texas. With all the hydraulic fracturing going on I am sure they wont be the last earthquakes, so prepare yourselves.
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