Saturday, May 2, 2009

Day 85: A good night's out in breaking the law

Apologies for the late posting, all two of you faithful readers, the weekend called and I responded. This entry, although late, will still address Friday night, which for the first time in several months was a good, classic-style Suji Friday.

Fridays have always been a special day for me in Suji. This town has a number of excellent restaurants and bars, but there is one in particular that has, for the duration of my time here, been the mecca of foreign entertainment. That bar is Exit, owned by Han and chock-full of English teachers and their friends every Friday night. Many a weekend has kicked off there, playing foosball, darts, Titanic, pool, or just sitting around drinking with friends. Han's a cool dude, the music has improved greatly since I first started patronizing the joint, and all in all it has been host to many, if not most of the memories I've made here.

The times, man! There was the time Cody broke the foosball table, the time John thought throwing 777 in darts for a special promotion meant he had to throw three sevens in a row, the old texas hold'em nights with Matt and Yakubu back in the glory days, the night Cody got kicked out, and of course all the memories with those who have already left for home.

This Friday was an exemplary night of Suji done right. It started off with leaving work early with the middle school students for a Chinese dinner party hosted by the school to congratulate them for finishing their mid-semester tests. Grace, Luke, Lucy, Andrew, Charlie, David and Jenny all went to a Jajang restaurant with John, Jene and I for grubs. We had Jajangmyun (black sauce noodles) and sweet and sour pork. Excellent, and quite filling. The conversation ranged from congratulating the students on their high marks to discussing Korean soap operas.

After the students left, John, Jene and I headed to WA Bar, a Seoul-wide franchise relatively new to Suji, for a few tall beers and odd choices in bar music. Jene was one of our Korean co-teachers, and Friday was his last day at work after a too short two months. We had gone out for dinner with him once before and he's a blast to hang out with, so we are quite sorry to see him go. We stayed at WA bar for an hour or so, then we wanted to play some Titanic.

Titanic is a Korean drinking game involving a large glass of beer and a shot glass of liquor (I have played only with Soju, although variations involving whiskey and other more intimidating alcohols apparently also exist). The game is quite simple. The players begin by floating an empty shot glass in a mug about 2/3 full of beer. Then, one by one, players must pour a stream of soju into the shot glass, sinking it lower and lower into the beer. The intensity of the game increases as the glass dips lower and lower, even passing just below the beer level, kept afloat by surface tension alone. As you could guess, the person who sinks the shot glass must consume the entire concoction, a drink known as 소맥, named for its parts: 소주 (soju) and 맥주 (mekju, beer).

While the plan was originally to play a few rounds and then meet some friends back at my apartment, we ended up just staying at Exit until our friends met us there. It was a typical night at Exit, filled with more drinking, me cleaning up in foosball (I am, after all, the much celebrated local champion, although as all the people who know that leave, my reputation diminishes) and general tomfoolery.

Finally, as a coda to the night, several folks (specifically, if memory serves, Kaleisha, Valerie, Sara, Ken and a gentleman that I did not know) headed to the Noraebang (singing rooms) for a good hour or so of belting out ridiculous 80s power ballads and long-loved hits of the 90s.

Also, somewhere along the line I lost my cell phone. Po-tweet.

No comments: