Saturday Night Fever

The days are flying and so are the weeks. I am approaching two weeks. Next stop is one month and so on and so on. One of my goals here is to learn Korean at any degree, conversational to fluent. It’s a real pain in the ass to find the things you want without understanding the language that everything is written in. One of my new games is “Ask a Korean!” I do this a lot. What is this? Where can I find? What did he just say?

I visited Seoul for the first time last weekend. The first day, Saturday, a few coworkers and I went to Itaewon, which is known for having the largest population of foreigners. It’s nice because more people speak English and more businesses cater to the Western lifestyle. Last weekend was also the first time I have ever ridden the subway. On our way from Ansan to Itaewon, we were shining examples of the reason why some Koreans don’t like foreigners. We were laughing and talking loudly, publicly drinking Soju (the nation’s #1 alcoholic beverage) and more than likely being asses. Soju is about 19% alcohol and very similar to a cross between sake and vodka. 19% and we were mixing it with Coke Zero. Yeah, a site to be seen.

Anyways, my coworkers wanted to go clubbing and I was just along for the ride. First we hit up Homo Hill, the gay/les section in Itaewon. I was very nervous because my past experiences in gay clubs in the US weren't so fun. I always feel like a piece of meat and all these dirty men would stare and hit on me, the whole time I’m clenching my cheeks as a piece of mind. Not so much fun, but this was different. I wasn’t a focus or at least not noticeably. I eventually did get hit on but I didn’t feel violated. All in all, it felt like a straight club.

Then we moved on to some random club with only two speakers, one close to the entrance and the other way in the back, so if you’re close to the entrance you can’t hear shit but Top 40 bull, so we found the perfect medium and I tried to enjoy myself. I think my coworkers picked up that I wasn’t fully enjoying myself so we bounced and I was pretty much through with the night but one coworker wanted to check out one more spot before heading. So we took a stroll down the same street the club we just left was on and after passing our next destination up a couple times and we turned into this dark and shady alley and headed downstairs into what looked like some underground speakeasy. It was this small bar-ish joint with a DJ and a dance floor the size of a small bedroom and a few seating options. The good news is they sell tequila shots for 3 bucks, the better news is the DJ was pretty good. He was spinning old school rap/hip hop, old r&b, and some shit I haven’t heard before but it was good, he knew what he was doing. Needless to say I cut the rug. It was my kind of place and I will more than likely frequent it whenever I’m in the area.

After that, we spent about an hour or longer eating street food and being drunk…. Oh, the Cupid Shuffle is HUGE out here. I cannot believe it! Every club plays it at least three times a night. Clubs play the music that they're playing inside on street speakers and just standing eating I heard it about two or three times.

There’s more to come, I spent more time than expected on this subject. Holla!