Day 7: Adventures At Bucheon, Continued

(please scroll down to read the beginning of this day)

So after the Vanilla Ice/sausage break, it was back to Halloween! There were a few more people in it this time, so the three of us pulled up a seat at the bar and ordered some drinks. Alcohol varies quite a bit in price in Korea, depending what you order and where. Beer was quite cheap at Halloween, but being the more sophisticated man that I am, I stuck to ordering G&T's. (Note: All those know me, know that the drink of choice for S2H is the Tom Collins, however, trying to explain that in Korean would just be too much as I doubt they know what it is. Eventually I hope to meet some Koreans who can translate it for me, or at least write down the ingredients in Korean so I can order it in the future.)

Halloween turned out to be pretty cool. They played all English music, and you can even request songs by browsing through the 3000-CD library on the wall behind the bar. After a couple Gin & Tonics, I was in a *really* good mood (price of a G&T = 5000 won, or about $5.75 CDN - the same as what I pay back home for a Tom Collins.) Charles already had had a good buzz going by the time we got to Bucheon, so he was in the full swing of things after a few drinks at Halloween. A couple times he made his way to the dance floor, which was empty, and boogied away - occasionally attempting to get the crowd going by pretending to take off his clothes. (Don't forget Charles used to be a stripper - I guess old habits die hard?)

A foreigner sat down next to us at the bar and I introduced myself. His name was Chris, and he was a 24-year old American from Chicago teaching English here in Korea. He seemed like a really cool guy and the four of us had a blast just hanging out drinking and enjoying the music. After a little while we decided to change venues so went back up to the street, where we met 2 other guys - both of them Korean. The first guy was James who was Korean-born, Seattle-raised, and now recently-re-Koreanized. His buddy was from Korea and I was introduced to him a number of times, but alas, those darn G&T's, I forget his name... We cruised around the strip for a while, drawing much attention wherever we went (we were the only group of foreigners I saw the whole night.) Plenty of Korean girls, and boys, gave us the eye during the night, and I think Charles tried to hit on each and every one of them! :-)

James led us to a big club called "Speed", which was a very classy, VERY EXPENSIVE joint. The 6 of us were led in by men in uniform and sat at a special table, where we were immediately presented with a massive bowl of fruit, a plate of dried squid, and 12 bottles of beer, each of which were opened and poured for us... Chris and I looked at each other with a look of worried suspicion...as enjoyable as this kind of service was, we knew that it had to come with a pretty steep price tag. Neither James nor his Korean friend could tell us how much it was all going to cost us, but kept saying "Don't worry man! It's all cool!" Hmm...

So one round of beer turned into two, which later turned into three.... One tradition that I absolutely love here in Korea is that you are never supposed to pour your own drink, instead you are responsible for making sure that the glasses of all your friends/guests are never empty, and you take the iniative by pouring for them, making sure that you *always* use two hands to pour, and to receive a drink. It seems like a very friendly custom, and I love it!

The music at Speed was really good! It was comprised of about 90% fast songs, and 10% slow songs. When the fast music is on, everybody in the club, and I do mean EVERYBODY, goes out to dance. The tables are literally completely empty in the club when the beats are rockin', but then the slow music comes back on and that's your chance to order more drinks, have a rest, take a piss, etc. The 5 of us (Glenn doesn't dance) spent a good part of the evening on the dance floor and it was a total blast! The DJ was this really attractive, tiny Korean chick on stage, just spinnin' away, breakin' out on her mic once in a while to get the crowd going. (to picture it, think of the DJ in Robbie Williams' "Rock DJ" video). I kept trying to mack on her cause she was all smiles to me, but alas, she refused my gestures to come down and dance with me.

About half way through the evening, something strange started happening whenever we were all sitting back at our table.... The staff of the bar started bringing us...women...to come and sit with us. I had no idea if these were just other patrons in the bar, or maybe they were bar staff, or perhaps they were...ummm...hostesses??? Turns out they were prostitutes, ready and available for our disposal. Oh my!!! Chris and Charles that this was GREAT, and were laying on the charm like you wouldn't believe on these girls, some of whom seemed to really enjoy the attention, and some of whom looked absolutely petrified. They seemed to just come and go, these girls, and I was happy that their visits didn't turn to more.

Next thing we knew it was 2am and Glenn, Chris and I were starting to crash. And plus at this point I was getting really worried about what our bill was going to be like. After all the beer and the food and the women and the special service...I knew it was going to be painful when it arrived... Two others had joined us at this point too - 2 Chinese guys who Charles met in the bathroom. The Chinese guys, Chris and I were pretty sure, either 'swang both ways' or were just plain gay, cause even though they claimed they had girlfriends back home, they were ALL OVER CHARLES who seemed to love flirting with them. Chris gave a few winks to them just to see what would happen, and the one guy practically took Chris right there in the bar! OH MY!

2am became 2:30 became 3:00, and we were still trying to make our way out of the bar. Chris, Glenn, and I had each slapped down 20,000 won, claiming that 'that's all we had'. Something just did not seem right with James and his Korean friend - it seemed like James was doing all the ordering and stuff, and claimed that we didn't need to worry about the bill, yet weren't putting up any cash at all.... Chris and I had this feeling that we were being taken advantage of... After paying what we guessed our portion was, or should be, the 3 of us left the bar to go get some air and let the others take care of the rest. In all honesty I just wanted to get out of there - if the bill was something crazy expensive, Chris and I had agreed to just make a break for it. We waited outside for the others to come out, but they didn't... So we waited and waited and waited...getting more and more worried about what was happening back inside with the bill. Glenn disappeared inside to go and find out what was going on, promising he'd be right back to let us know what was happening. He didn't come back...

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity passed, everybody emerged from the bar, a-okay. Turns out the bill had been disgustingly expensive (I never did hear the final total), but thanks to one of the Chinese guys that Charles had met, who I guess knew the owner of the bar?, it had been bargained down to about $200. Not bad I guess for a night full of booze, food, women, and a growing table of guests... I was just relieved that we didn't have the Korean Mafia after us or anything! haha!

We all said our goodbyes, exchanged phone numbers, and Glenn, Charles, and I caught a taxi back to Shihung. By the time I got home it was about 4 AM, and I could hear my bed calling my name from blocks away... I was dead tired, but it was an awesome night, full of new wonderful experiences, and I can't wait to have a million more just like it before the end of the year! BUCHEON ROCKS!