Day 196: Clown Car

After work tonight I decided to go out with Pauline and the gang for a drink. It wasn't supposed to be a late night, as Pauline and I were getting up at 6am the next morning to meet up with a big group of friends to go camping again on Dokchokdo. Pauline and Co. finished work at 8:30pm so after that Addie and I cabbed on over to Juyeop Station to go and find them at a favourite hangout of theirs' called JJ's.

JJ's is a loungey-kinda bar with dim lighting, big chairs and tables, and a small stage complete with all the equipment a band could need on it. 'JJ' (not his real name) is a really cool Korean guy who actually was at one time quite a famous musician in Korea. He's 39 now and owns a bar and loves it when musical weguks come to visit. Given the fact that most of my friends here are indeed musical, it's no surprise that we're quite popular with him.

When we go there all the POLY Juyeop gang was already there - Pauline, Ben, Lorraine, Dennis, and Jake & Shannon. We all shared a couple pitchers of beer and just lounged around and chilled. All of were not really intending to stay out late but you know how it goes... One pitcher can sometimes lead to another, and then another... I was actually behaving myself quite well and only had two or three glasses of beer. However, for some reason, it was enough to give me quite the buzz! Meanwhile JJ and then Dennis had gotten up on stage and sang a couple songs (and yes JJ really is a terrific singer!)

Sometime around midnightish or so (oops it's bedtime) Pauline and I, after talking to all our other camping buddies who were also out and about, decided that waking up at 6am the next morning was just not going to happen. This gave us more time to stay out, so we all decided to change venues, and JJ decided to tag along too. Everyone had quite the buzz going on and JJ was actually totally drunk. We all thought that we were just going to walk the 20 minutes or so to LaFesta but JJ insisted that we drive.

Thinking that *he* wanted to drive us, we all thought that this was a bad idea. I for one am not stupid enough to get into a vehicle with a drunk Korean behind the wheel! We then realized that his friend he brought down with him (sober) was going to be our little chauffeur, and this seemed fantastic until we saw the car... It was some little tiny four-door Kia or DaeWoo and there was like no way that the eight of us were going to all fit in there! JJ kept on insisting and seemed pretty confident we'd all fit, so in we squeezed.

And boy did we have to squeeze! Pauline, JJ, and his buddy sat in the front, while Lorraine, Dennis, Shannon, Addie and myself somehow managed to defy the laws of physics and all fit into that backseat. Dennis was already sitting on the girls' laps by the time he got in, and so me, being last, had only one place left to go - up on top of all of them against the roof of the car! I had my knees curled up to my face and my feet against the roof just so we could get the door closed! Man, I haven't done anything like this since high school! What fun! ;-) So there we were, all laughing our heads off, a crazy jumble of legs and arms and squished heads driving through the streets of Ilsan. It was a random, hilarious moment and a mini-adventure for all.

We were quite the sight when we all piled out of that little car at LaFesta, eight people coming out of that little clown car, much to the curiosity of Korean strangers! We went to a bar called Don't Go (yes, that really is its name) and had a couple more drinks while enjoying the music. 1:30 or so rolled around and I was feeling quite tired so Addie and I decided to leave our buddies and head on home. We were going camping tomorrow and I couldn't wait!