Epic Weekend Act 1: Sangnam-dong

This weekend was amazing! I finally had my first real exciting weekend of excursions in Korea, and it really was all thanks to the great friends I've managed to make here. It honestly didn't even start with the weekend. Thanks to Katie and Casey being on vacation while I still had work, we went out Thursday night in downtown Changwon (Sangnam-dong) to get an early start on the weekend.

Now I know why Koreans are obsessed with chicken.

As I'm coming to learn, Korean nights out typically involve 3+ venues of varying grades. Most involve food and booze and they almost always end at a noraebang (karaoke bar). Our first restaurant was a chicken and beer kind of place where we met up with Casey and Katie's Korean co-workers, Jessie and Sophie. They surprised us by pulling out a big bottle of pomegranate juice and immediately ordering some chicken and a bottle of soju.

They had an established set of soju drinking games that I had never played before, so obviously by the time I picked up on the rules and such, I was already a solid five or so shots in. Lucky I was really good at some cap flicking game and spared myself some unnecessary drinking through that, but Casey should have warned me sooner that Katie has a sneaky way of constantly refilling your glass without you noticing. I was getting a good buzz going after being there for only about 20 minutes. The chicken was also the most phenomenal chicken I have ever had in my life.

I call top bunk!

Next, we headed to a restaurant that served different food and makgali in big wooden bowls. Makgali is kind of like sake, but sweeter and smoother. I imagine makgali's only reason for existing is the same reason Smirnoff Ice exists: to get girls wildly inebriated with minimum discomfort. But by no means is it a girly drink. It's just absolutely delicious. The restaurant we were in was also really really cool. It had a sort of treehouse-y, Swiss Family Robinson vibe. You sat on padded mats on the ground at a low table and it was multi-leveled like bunkbeds. We obviously chose to sit on the top bunk.

Caitlin always steals the spotlight.

This is what you drink makgali out of.
Like a soup...that gets you hammered.

I don't remember what the thing we ate was called...Casey/Katie will have to remind me and I'll edit this later. It was really, really delicious. It kind of reminded me of a better, more family style version of a latke? I was so full from the chicken. but I just kept eating anyway. We were downing makgali, and I felt pretty good so I started looking around and noticed the hostess at the door. Casey and I started making guesses as to her age. I said 19, I think he guessed slightly older. I asked the hostess if she spoke any English when she walked by and she said no, so we got Jessie to ask her how old she was in Korean. Turns out she was THIRTY-FOUR. I wish I took a picture of this girl. I mean...she was a Korean 34 which means she was 32-33 in America, but still...unbelievable. We started realizing that Korean's hit a temporal break when they hit 16 and they just stop aging until they get to their 40s. Anyone in that range is nearly impossible for us to guess their age correctly.

Casey demonstrating how to get soup-hammered

The delicious thing we ate called
kimchi jeon (thank you Caitlin).

I think I promised to sing Big Bang's "Monster" with Jessie
...but I only could sing the one English line in the chorus.

We got pretty solidly drunk off that makgali, even though no one realized it at the time. After food, we soon decided to head off to our final destination: the noraebang of course! Katie took some rather embarrassing videos of Casey and I drunkenly singing and hoarse and...it's just awful. She's taking them to her grave. But I think Jessie and Sophie were extremely tired, drunk, and feeling a little left out since we were all drunk and speaking English very rapidly. They ordered some pork or chicken or something (it was really good) and a bunch of beer, but Sophie soon began falling asleep and they left shortly after leaving three drunken Americans alone in a noraebong. What did we do? We got drunker. And then we started singing the anthems of our homeland, like Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" and Tenacious D's "Tribute". It was hella fun.

Out like a light!

Casey and I singing Tribute

We fuckin' love Tribute.

No no no no...actually...fuck YOU!

 After the noraebang, we decided "Hey...JD has work tomorrow...we've been drinking soju and makgali all night..but let's go for the trifecta." So we hit up some beer place I was just way to drunk to even bother remembering, but it's kind of like World of Beer, I guess...if the world was only full of overpriced Hoegaarden and Stella. But it was still nice to have familiar beers again. Casey and I ended up in our usual drunken conversations about things we both only have a very limited knowledge on. This topic of conversation was the eventual fallout that would result from North Korea attacking South Korea/China telling America it wanted all its debts repaid/Communism vs Democracy in general. Pretty sure I won like always.

Oh hey! LEt's drunkenly play some sports I suck at!

Of course, we had to eventually leave...so we wandered back through Sangnam-dong and found some familiar batting cages we passed on a previous night. We were inebriated enough to wander right on in, pick up a bat and let fly a few balls. Except Casey was the only one who did that. Turns out, I'm just as bad at baseball when I'm drunk as when I'm sober. I probably hit like 2 out of 18 balls? Whatevz. I beat Casey at the punching bag, which is all that really matters. But then I almost missed the bag entirely the second time, so I would get a solid first hit in and then totally get my ass kicked in whatever drunken brawl I managed to get myself into. Going through this pictures, I learned Katie is a phenomenal paparazzo, because as I got drunker and drunker, I took less and less pictures. She, however, was goddamn dedicated to documenting this shit..and I am glad of that. Because I literally have zero pictures after the makgali restaurant. They are all hers.

Obviously venting my
frustration over the batting cages.

So after that we all grab a cab home and Casey checks out a public bike for me. I really can't wait to get my ARC (Alien Registration Card) so I can get my own bike pass. They're way more convenient than I ever considered. I go home, pass out, and SURPRISE! Wake up the next day with the worst hangover in recorded history from slamming soju, makgali, and beer all night. Luckily it was only 10am and I had 3 hours to recover before class. I still felt like Jack Black from School of Rock...

Omg, this food is so good, even the onions want in!

Friday was supposed to be our rager day, but we went so hard on Thursday, the club we had intended on going to had a $15 cover and we were like "fuck that, we're foreign" and just ended up grabbing some Korean BBQ which was fine by me. Casey did all the cooking while Caitlin and I solely participated in the eating, but it was some of the most tender meat I've ever had. I also learned that I love onions raw, I do NOT love cloves of garlic raw. New things learned every day. Also, I should mention it's rude to wait for your waiter at a Korean restaurant and whenever you need anything you push this little button on your table. However, here, it's sort of like a buffet of side dishes that you go and help yourself to to cook with your meat. Caitlin even grilled some kimchi, but I'm still learning to love it. It's a hit or miss flavor with me because it really actually varies a lot. I'm sure with time I'll master it..just like the general spicy-ness of Korean food.

This is really anyone's guess...

After BBQ we hit up O'Brien's for some beers and darts. Oh wow! Look! Another recreational game that involves hand-eye coordination that I suck at! Fun! -_-; But it really was fun. I didn't think we got that drunk, but we obviously were buzzed enough to try this...

I was going to do this whole weekend as one post, but it's super late and I have so much more to talk about and post pictures of, it'll just have to wait until tomorrow I guess!