Gungnam

The plan for the night was to head to the biggest club in gungnam. We had a half dozen hostel guests with us for what was sure to be a great night. Unfortunately, our group would have made up a third of the people in there had we gone in. With a 30k entry fee, we checked with some of those coming out to see if it was worth it, and the answer was a resounding no.

We hit up another bar in gungnam and followed that with karaoke.  I suspect videos may have been transmitted to certain work colleagues,  but hey you've gotta share the love sometimes.

It was 6:30 by the time we got back. Gogo Poweraide.

Cheeky Kiwis

We had a really quiet day, but stick a few New Zealanders in a room and that all changes.

We headed to the Cheeky Kiwi bar in Sinchon about 20 mins away at around 7:30. We got on really well with the owner, and ended up staying there until 3 am! It was a quiet night for them, as it often is during the week. They closed up at 12 and had a few drinks with us. The owner has some pretty crazy stories about the locals, both Korean and kiwi.

I had a monster of a burger on top of a couple buckets of beer and a kiwifruit teapot, that they gave us as a late birthday present. We will head there again this weekend hopefully.

Good on you mate.

Funny you should say that

As we often do, we mission for some food to help us get over the night before. It was a heavy night of drinking and there could be only one solution - steak tacos.

It's the morning of the 2nd and we walk half an hour to the taco place. It's about the only exercise we do at the moment. We'd been to this place last year with Daniel and thought it was awesome, and it still is now.

After breakfast/lunch, we relax at the hostel as the evening approaches. John's taken care of most of the arrangements for my birthday party, and we end up at a spicy seafood restaurant to begin the night. We were a group of about 10-12 in the end.

Unfortunately for me, there's a birthday tradition in Korean culture. The guest of honor has to drink a concoction made from whatever happens to be in arms reach. I'm taunted with the threat of a sock going into the glass,  and while it was mostly soju, also added was spicy sauce, jalapeños,  cabbage, wasabi paste, and something fishy. It looked like a lumpy red mess in a cup, but I chopped it back regardless.

We moved on to the park and applied copious amounts of cheap beer, soju, and champaign. Because we were from a mix of hostels, we found a number of other guests at the park that we joined in with. Having reached critical mass, we head for Thursday Party bar, where things take a sharp turn.

One or two of the group get into words with what could have been either other patrons, or the staff. One of the throws their drink on the wait staff, and a bit of jostling ensues. They're pried apart and our group is promptly kicked out under threat of police intervention. We ditch the heavily intoxicated trouble makers and decide to get more food, hitting up the Japanese Izakaya restaurant for the task.

We eat and drink through to 5 am,  on a Tuesday, and grab some KFC for breakfast. We're contacted by the troublemaker to ask what happened, and what he might be done to end up in a jail cell this morning. We give him the details we know, but can only imagine what happened after we parted ways.

Plans for the evening get of the 3rd is to check out the Cheeky Kiwi bar in the next suburb over.

The long night approaches

We wandered around the university area and grabbed some grub, deciding that we ought to go find ourselves a clothing store as well. Shorts were on the agenda as we filed into the mega UniQlo store just outside the subway station. The Korean style of shorts barely touch the knees, and slide thigh high if seated. Despite thinking I look weird, I can certainly appreciate the even shorter pairs the girls wear. 

We met up with Younis again for chicken and beer, then went looking for rum. There are a huge number of soju/beer pubs, but finding the real deal at 6pm on a Monday proved difficult. 10 bars and 30mins later, we eventually got into Thursday Party pub for rum and darts. Doing so nearly derailed our plans for the night. 

We grabbed a taxi and headed out towards Gungnam for a Game of Thrones night, where it quickly became evident that we had a problem. The main arterial roads have a given street name, and every non-arterial street that comes off of it will have the same street name with a block number it. Despite showing a picture of the address to the driver and needing to be at the 63rd block, we were dropped off some 80 blocks away from our destination at the 146th.  The second taxi got us to within 10 blocks, and we legged it from there. We were already 45 minutes late for the meet up, but we were determined to find this fucking address as a matter of principle. Wandering around the backstreets of our meeting point, we get lucky and find Daniel, who was on his way to the GoT party we were late for. Omg that episode was one of the best in ages. 

Queue chicken and beer for dinner with Dan, the joint we went to had the new favoured soju, and we ended up going through a couple bottles of the orange flavoured kind. It's dangerously easy to drink, even when straight shorting as we did. We were a mess. 

We parted ways and tried our luck with another taxi, which again didn't get it quite right. It took some walking to find a landmark we recognised in our drunken stupor, after which we promptly evacuated the contents of our stomachs, and in Johns case it was all over his shorts, shoes, and an unfortunately nearby parked car that was holding him up. 

It's been a hazy morning, and we're trying to figure out if we actually paid our bill at the restaurant last night. I can calculate down to a 40k difference in what I started the day with to what I have now, but Daniel is going to go and double check with them today. 

Carter, the hostel manager, surprised me with some birthday treats from a mainstay bakery chain in Korea called Paris baguette. 

 

Immediate plans are food. Tonight we'll try to round a few people up for a birthday dinner in my honour, where we will not go gently into the night. 

Just a tad messy

In a mega city of 28 million people, you have to appreciate when you run into someone you know, especially as a foreigner. 

No sooner had we destroyed a platter of chicken and a jug of beer that we see Younis stroll past the restaurant. We met Younis at the hostel last year, and he happened to be visiting someone nearby when we spotted him. 

Despite his protests, we drag him in for a beer and get to catching up and reminiscing about the escapades of yesteryear. We plan to meet up again later that night and part ways. I pick up some soju on the way back to the hostel and we get started on socialising with the other guests. 

I didn't know whether to be shocked at the potential trouble we might have been in, or impressed that we have a reputation, when a guy called Nathan walked in and asked if we were the kiwis.  As always, we through caution to the wind and got him drinking with us. Nathan is from Switzerland and works with Greenpeace, so our conversations inevitably took a turn towards the political spectrum of matters. I hate that I do it, but I do so love having an opinion on everything. He's interested in going to the DMZ this week, do we may well end up joining him. 

Turns out that a couple other guests and hostel employees let him know we were coming, as there seemed to be a lack of enthusiasm for going out among the other guests that night. It was a Sunday after all, but not as far as John and I were concerned. 

We taxi up to the university and wander around looking for somewhere lively. We started drinking again in the park (not as bad as it sounds) until Younis arrived and ended up in a cozy restaurant with copious amounts beer. I was happily hammering it down and didn't actually notice the shot glasses at the bottom of my drinks for some time. Enter biligerant and loud Shayne. We were already in a bit of a state, so we had gotten the table next to us to order our food and drinks, which included a shot of soju in our beers. 

We wrapped things up at about 3am, and this morning we've downed our poweraides over some sandwiches. We'll go for a wander up towards the university and do a bit of shopping. We've really got no plans for the day, so who knows where we'll end up. 

It's gonna be hot

We've made it to the hostel without trouble, and are getting ourselves ready for some chicken and beer. Being a Saturday night, I'll be disappointed if things don't escalate to the next level.

Weather wise, it's about as horrible as you can expect. We'll need to keep ourselves properly "hydrated" for the foreseeable future, but that was on the cards already. 

Starting simple

Well, here we go again.

As I wrap up my last day at work, I still feel like I've not made enough plans for this, my 3rd year in a row heading to South Korea, and my fourth trip overall. I suppose half the fun is rocking up there and just seeing where the drink takes us. Hongdae, the area my mate John and I will be staying in, is a university district, and it's been difficult to get ourselves into any real trouble (so far) there amongst the sea of equally stumbling locals.

I'm taking Friday the 29th off from work to get some last things organized and to say adios to this bloody cold country for a while. Meat packs and beer boxes are on the menu that afternoon, as John and I have a few people around for a farewell party, something we've done the last couple years for no reason other than it's a good excuse to catch up with a lot of people at once.

At the risk of lowering my colleagues opinion of me, I've linked this blog on my work intranet profile so everyone can have a laugh at my escapades and misfortunes. I think the best part about keeping a blog like this during what's sure to be an alcohol fueled trip is that the stories are there to be remembered further down the line after the Soju (and bank account) has faded. I'm always surprised at how much I remember the next day after an eventful night, given as I'm half hangover and tapping these blog posts out on a phone, but that's the effect of noodles and Poweraide I suppose.

The last two years I've gone to Korea, there's been some massive trouble. First was a fiasco in even getting to Korea and then having no real money until we got to Japan 3 weeks later. The second was nearly getting kicked out of the flat because someone wasn't paying the rent while I was away. It's a little sobering getting a notice of ending tenancy when you're 10000km away, after which I promptly got into a fresh bottle to rectify. I'm feeling good this year though. Nothing can possibly go wrong.

Nothing.