a night out & traditional Korean meal

After the ajima lunch on Friday, my friend took me out for a good old fashioned college reunion night. We went to a foreigner bar, met up with some her friends and naturally shots, hilarity and noreabang (aka ktv or karaoke) ensued. We ended the night dancing at a bar called Billie Jean's, which I kind of loved.

Korea doesn't have a bar time, most places just close when the last person leaves. It is much more of a drinking culture than China, so I was definitely a little down on my game coming here. We did end up committing ourselves to bartending at one of the foreigner bars on Sunday night though, which I thought was pretty sweet.

The day after college reunion party night we were feeling a little rough, and one of my friend's friends invited us out to her mom's house in the country for a traditional Korean meal. We took a 30 minute subway ride to meet the friend and her American husband and her mom picked us up. The 30 minute car ride from the subway to her mom's house was painful. While the Koreans are a zillion times safer drivers than the Chinese, it was still too much for those of us that were under the weather.

Once we got out to her mom's property I was absolutely amazed. She owns land on the side of a hill facing a (man made?) river. Her house is essentially a shack that she built entirely by herself and inside was so interesting, the contrast in things she has. She had an upright piano, a crazy security system with four cameras mounted outside, a pretty baller noraebang system, complete with PA and disco and strobe lights, and one of the remote control toilets. Outside she had a basketball hoop, shrine to Buddha and a backho. Naturally.

 

 

 

This woman was incredible. She supposedly didn't speak a lick of English, but she could communicate just fine with myself, her American son in law and my friend. I found out later that she used to speak very good English but just stopped. She made us the best meal I have eaten yet in my travels and was just so happy to have people over. And then she forced us to sing noraebang with her, lol.

It was definitely an experience that I consider myself very fortunate to have had. My friend that I came to visit said she had never in four years done anything like it.