Wednesday Night Madess

First snapshot of Wednesday night:

I am sitting in a tiny restaurant, only six tables. Some sort of bacon-like meat is grilling in front of me, a caldron of boiling soup is brought to my table, my soju cup has just been refilled, Sally is in the bathroom, I am feeling happy in sloppy way, and I realize that I am sitting at a table alone with four drunk Korean men. One has just been cut off.

Second snapshot of Wednesday night:

I am sitting in a noraebang pouring over the songbook, looking for “The One I Want to Be With”, one drunk Korean man is singing “La Bamba”, one has just finished singing a very sappy Areosmith song, and soon, although I don’t know it yet, another drunk Korean will start singing “Nobody”. (“I want nobody, nobody but choo, nobody, nobody but choo.” A great hit here in Korea. My kids always sing it in class. There is nothing more funny that a nine-year old boy singing a radio hit. Or, every time someone says “nobody” in class, someone always starts singing, it’s disruptive, but very funny.)

Third snapshot of Wednesday night:

Sally and I are back at her apartment, it is 3:30 in the morning. We are sitting on her floor, laughing so hard we are almost crying.

Wednesday night, out with the boys. All we wanted, Sally and I, was to find a good a good place to eat Bulgogi. Somehow it turned into the men from our school, Lim, Kim, Park, and Paul (the high school teacher, I had never met him before), taking us out for samgyeopsal and dwaeji-galbi, and a lot of soju. The meat, which just kept coming, was grilled at the table over hot coals. The side dishes, all 10 of them, seemed to be miraculously refilled. Every time I was about to bite into my pork wrapped in lettuce, it was time for another shot of soju, toasting whatever we would think of. And the toilets at this little out of the way restaurant were Asian style squatters, hard enough to maneuver over when you’re totally sober.

And because just eating is never enough, we headed over to a noraebang to do a bit of singing. We sang, we all sang. Sang our hearts out, some rap (Mr. Lim), some sappy romance songs (Mr. Park), Nobody but You (Mr. Kim, but I’ll admit, I definitely helped), and whatever Sally and I sang. There some Purple Rain from Sally. I may or may not have participated in singing Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, I Think We’re Alone Now, Have You Ever Seen the Rain, and The One I Want to Be With. Paul didn’t make it to the noraebang.

At about 3:00 AM, we finally left the noraebang and each headed in our different directions, I know that it takes Mr. Kim about one and a half hours to get home by subway, which had most certainly stopped running at this point, but cabs are cheep. Luckily, we stayed close to the school, so Sally and I were able to walk home. We went to her place, we had to debrief on the nights amazing events. We literally hit the floor laughing so hard. These men are our bosses and co-workers. It was just so funny.

I woke up early on Thursday morning with a powerful headache, nothing that a couple of ibuprofen and a banana couldn’t handle, but it was good lesson about drinking soju straight. Always have water and a banana on hand when planning to drink lots of soju.