I wrote something earlier about the chances of seeing Amanda again being slim. This was before I found out she was planning on visiting Canada. So I'll definitely see her again. And so will Claire. And when Amanda comes she'll probably bring a U-Haul, a toothbrush and a sheep, because that's what lesbians from New Zealand do. (There are like four million New Zealanders and 300 million sheep.) And who am I kidding, I love the stupid instances on Facebook.
This retraction is for Claire.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Monday, March 9, 2009
I WANT MY MONEY and EXTRME DRINKING
Every bank in Korea has these so-called "blackout hours," which essentially means you don't have access to the money in your bank account; your debit card (or ka-du) is essentially useless. It usually lasts for an hour every day, and this hour falls between 11pm and 1am depending on what bank you use.
Now that doesn't seem that bad 'cause you could plan around that. However, your debit card will fail to work at random times through out the night, which can last upwards to a day. There's no rhyme or reason to when your access is cut off (there probably is, but I can't read the Korean error messages at the ATM), and this can lead to embarrassing moments where you have to borrow money from anyone around you. The worst was when I was stranded far from home, and I couldn't take out any money for a cab ride home.
People here get unbelievably drunk. There are many foreigners (and Koreans, for that matter) passing out in bars, on subway cars, on benches (though the latter is usually reserved for the Korean business men). The cheap and immediate access to alcohol might have something to do with it, but, on top of that, there's no such thing as cutting someone off if they've had to much. The bar tenders will keep serving you and serving you until you come to somewhere in a forest with a bleeding leg (that wasn't me). Back home, if I was to order a pint and I dropped it as soon as it was in my hand--and not because someone knocked it out of my hand or I bumped into something, but because I just literally forgot I was holding it, causing gravity to snag the pint out of a loosened grip--that would be a signal for the bartenders and me that I shouldn't drink anymore. That doesn't happen here. Someone dropped their drink twice in a row before ordering a third, and they were still served with a smile.
Now that doesn't seem that bad 'cause you could plan around that. However, your debit card will fail to work at random times through out the night, which can last upwards to a day. There's no rhyme or reason to when your access is cut off (there probably is, but I can't read the Korean error messages at the ATM), and this can lead to embarrassing moments where you have to borrow money from anyone around you. The worst was when I was stranded far from home, and I couldn't take out any money for a cab ride home.
People here get unbelievably drunk. There are many foreigners (and Koreans, for that matter) passing out in bars, on subway cars, on benches (though the latter is usually reserved for the Korean business men). The cheap and immediate access to alcohol might have something to do with it, but, on top of that, there's no such thing as cutting someone off if they've had to much. The bar tenders will keep serving you and serving you until you come to somewhere in a forest with a bleeding leg (that wasn't me). Back home, if I was to order a pint and I dropped it as soon as it was in my hand--and not because someone knocked it out of my hand or I bumped into something, but because I just literally forgot I was holding it, causing gravity to snag the pint out of a loosened grip--that would be a signal for the bartenders and me that I shouldn't drink anymore. That doesn't happen here. Someone dropped their drink twice in a row before ordering a third, and they were still served with a smile.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
WHITE WATER BIRTHDAYS
Charles had put together a white water rafting trip that just so happened to fall on my birthday weekend. It was a lot of fun, but there were times I was embarrassed to be a foreigner. The white people here take the whole motherfucking ten miles when given an inch. We get away with so much here, and the foreigners take full advantage of that fact. One of the few rules that you really, really shouldn't break is the 'never hit a Korean' rule. On one of the stops at a rice wine factory, after everyone was pretty drunk from drinking on the bus, a bunch of foreigners broke into the water park we weren’t allowed to go in, and someone ended up smacking a Korean. The police were called, and a long, uneventful wait took place as the police tried to get to the bottom of this debacle. I felt incredibly bad for Charles, who doesn’t deserve any of this bullshit. He didn’t want to get involved, but because he was the only one who spoke Korean, he was forced to mediate.
ANYways, that aside, the white water rafting trip was great. It had rained the day before we hit the waters, so the rapids were pretty intense, and a lot of us got thrown around. We were allowed to jump off the raft at certain points and be carried down the river by the current. A bunch of us attempted to do back flips off the raft, with only a few people succeeding. One guy’s attempt had his head bouncing off the raft before the rest of his body fell into the water. We were supposed to go bungee jumping as well, but the rain made the water rise too a point where it was unsafe to jump. I was really disappointed--I think I was more excited for the bungee jumping the the white water rapids.
The trip was an overnight excursion, and that night Charles gave Rich and me a bottle of traditional birthday whisky, along with two wooden hammers. The two wooden hammers were used to break the whisky bottle out of its ceramic casing. I was really excited to try this drink, and Charles poured two big shots into two rather large Dixie cups for the two birthday peeps. Oh, fuck, it was the worst tasting thing I ever let caress my tongue. After one shot, my stomach burned and did things I didn’t know it could do. I had to calmly excuse myself from the group to throw up quietly in the bushes. I wasn’t drunk at all when I had this shot, but every fiber of my being rejected that drink. I was kind of hoping that maybe it was just a strong drug and I would be coming up at some point...but all it did was make the pizza and galbi I chowed down on taste a little off.
ANYways, that aside, the white water rafting trip was great. It had rained the day before we hit the waters, so the rapids were pretty intense, and a lot of us got thrown around. We were allowed to jump off the raft at certain points and be carried down the river by the current. A bunch of us attempted to do back flips off the raft, with only a few people succeeding. One guy’s attempt had his head bouncing off the raft before the rest of his body fell into the water. We were supposed to go bungee jumping as well, but the rain made the water rise too a point where it was unsafe to jump. I was really disappointed--I think I was more excited for the bungee jumping the the white water rapids.
The trip was an overnight excursion, and that night Charles gave Rich and me a bottle of traditional birthday whisky, along with two wooden hammers. The two wooden hammers were used to break the whisky bottle out of its ceramic casing. I was really excited to try this drink, and Charles poured two big shots into two rather large Dixie cups for the two birthday peeps. Oh, fuck, it was the worst tasting thing I ever let caress my tongue. After one shot, my stomach burned and did things I didn’t know it could do. I had to calmly excuse myself from the group to throw up quietly in the bushes. I wasn’t drunk at all when I had this shot, but every fiber of my being rejected that drink. I was kind of hoping that maybe it was just a strong drug and I would be coming up at some point...but all it did was make the pizza and galbi I chowed down on taste a little off.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
PROPS AND STAGES
One rather large downfall about living temporarily in Korea is the high turnover rate of the really cool and incredibly interesting people. Each awesome friendship I've created with the people here comes with a sort of expiry date, and maybe that's why we're able to forge pretty deep relationships in the short amount of time that we have--live like it's your last day kind of thing. There are a few people that have left an impression on me in the short time I've spent with them. One example is a girl from New Zealand, Amanda. She's such a fucking treat, and every moment with her has been pretty memorable, but she leaves tomorrow and the chances of seeing her again, other than the random and banal instances on Facebook, are slim.
Conversely, the many douchebags I've met are a won a million and tend stay longer than the one-year contract.
Korea feels like a giant stage, with the Koreans being the props. Because it's hard to fully interact with the Koreans due to various barriers, they almost feel like inanimate objects and are viewed as such. I don't know. I have made a few--full disclosure, one--good Korean friend, but on a whole, with the thousands of Koreans constantly around me, they are on another level, one that I, as of right now, can not fully reach to fully interact with them. I can understand and say a few things in Korean for when I'm at the store or the like, but it's still such a foreign language to me that the interaction almost feels fake and unnatural, and, like with an inanimate object, one-sided. The only interactions that do feel two-sided are with other foreigners, and so there are just pockets of interactions taking place on this stage.
Conversely, the many douchebags I've met are a won a million and tend stay longer than the one-year contract.
Korea feels like a giant stage, with the Koreans being the props. Because it's hard to fully interact with the Koreans due to various barriers, they almost feel like inanimate objects and are viewed as such. I don't know. I have made a few--full disclosure, one--good Korean friend, but on a whole, with the thousands of Koreans constantly around me, they are on another level, one that I, as of right now, can not fully reach to fully interact with them. I can understand and say a few things in Korean for when I'm at the store or the like, but it's still such a foreign language to me that the interaction almost feels fake and unnatural, and, like with an inanimate object, one-sided. The only interactions that do feel two-sided are with other foreigners, and so there are just pockets of interactions taking place on this stage.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
LOOKS AND SINGING AND BECAUSE AND MISSING FOODS
three posts in one week?! WHAT?!
Wherever there’s a reflective surface you’ll find at least one Korean – a guy or a girl – checking themselves out. It doesn’t matter how many people are around, they’ll all do it at least once. Did I just fail to notice this happening back home? Everyone here (the Koreans, at least) makes sure they look their absolute best. I’ve even seen girls on a full subway take a picture of themselves just to make sure they look okay upon review.
So I’m sure you all know about karaoke. It’s fun, ridiculous and generally all will have a good time. Here, it’s like their bread and butter. Noraebongs (literal translation: music room) are a dime a dozen here, and they really do karaoke right. They add some sort of echo/reverb on the mike so everyone sounds halfway decent, especially me, because I have a voice that’s like a combination between a cat getting raped by a baby. Work dinners are always followed by a trip to a Noraebong, where my bosses and Korean co-workers, who are extremely drunk, are hamming it up like no tomorrow on the mike (usually to Korean pop songs or classics). It’s a site to behold, really.
Did your elementary school ever forbid you to start a sentence with ‘because?’ I remember the teachers telling us (repeatedly) that starting a sentence with that conjunction is, like, the worst thing you could do, and they would always, always circle it with the reddest of red ink if it preceded a sentence. Well, we all know that that’s not necessarily true... BUT I NOW KNOW WHY THE TEACHERS WERE SO ADAMANT ABOUT IT. “Because I am full.” “Because Korea is the best.” “Because it is delicious.” Oh, man, it’s such a pain when correcting their journal entries. I now get so unbelievably frustrated when I see ‘because’ at the beginning of a sentence, and have since banned every single student from starting a sentence with ‘because.’ (As it turns out, the Korean teachers said that that was okay.)
So there are a few – actually, a lot – of foods I miss. One of my favourite snack foods back home were chips. The chips they have here are shit, and I wouldn’t feed them to my dogs. 85% of the chips here have a weird tinge of sweet about them, and the chips that aren’t sweet are bland as fuck. Who started replacing salt with sugar? I don’t understand. When I’m lamenting about my craving for ketchup chips to an American, they’ll stare at me blankly before saying, “…well, they have ketchup here.”
Another food I miss is pizza. It’s not like they don’t have pizza here - in fact, Koreans are bat-shit crazy about their pizza. It’s just that they’ve heavily Korean-ized their pizza. The most Western toppings you can get on your pizza are cheese, pepperoni and…corn. Aside from a really expensive pizza from Domino’s, you cannot get pizza with out corn. I love corn and all, but…I just don’t want it on my pizza. And the pizza chains here, including Pizza Hut, refuse to allow you to customize your pizza. It’s their way, or the going hungry highway. As it turns out, Koreans really have a thing for Koreanizing foreign food (because whatever Korea does is the best, and that’s that). At this sushi place I once ate at, they included kimchi and processed cheese in their maki rolls. WHAT THE FUCK.
The thing with Korean food is they love the red pepper paste, and they use it for just about anything (it’s what’s in kimchi). So after awhile a lot of the food starts tasting the same if you don't know what to order.
Wherever there’s a reflective surface you’ll find at least one Korean – a guy or a girl – checking themselves out. It doesn’t matter how many people are around, they’ll all do it at least once. Did I just fail to notice this happening back home? Everyone here (the Koreans, at least) makes sure they look their absolute best. I’ve even seen girls on a full subway take a picture of themselves just to make sure they look okay upon review.
So I’m sure you all know about karaoke. It’s fun, ridiculous and generally all will have a good time. Here, it’s like their bread and butter. Noraebongs (literal translation: music room) are a dime a dozen here, and they really do karaoke right. They add some sort of echo/reverb on the mike so everyone sounds halfway decent, especially me, because I have a voice that’s like a combination between a cat getting raped by a baby. Work dinners are always followed by a trip to a Noraebong, where my bosses and Korean co-workers, who are extremely drunk, are hamming it up like no tomorrow on the mike (usually to Korean pop songs or classics). It’s a site to behold, really.
Did your elementary school ever forbid you to start a sentence with ‘because?’ I remember the teachers telling us (repeatedly) that starting a sentence with that conjunction is, like, the worst thing you could do, and they would always, always circle it with the reddest of red ink if it preceded a sentence. Well, we all know that that’s not necessarily true... BUT I NOW KNOW WHY THE TEACHERS WERE SO ADAMANT ABOUT IT. “Because I am full.” “Because Korea is the best.” “Because it is delicious.” Oh, man, it’s such a pain when correcting their journal entries. I now get so unbelievably frustrated when I see ‘because’ at the beginning of a sentence, and have since banned every single student from starting a sentence with ‘because.’ (As it turns out, the Korean teachers said that that was okay.)
So there are a few – actually, a lot – of foods I miss. One of my favourite snack foods back home were chips. The chips they have here are shit, and I wouldn’t feed them to my dogs. 85% of the chips here have a weird tinge of sweet about them, and the chips that aren’t sweet are bland as fuck. Who started replacing salt with sugar? I don’t understand. When I’m lamenting about my craving for ketchup chips to an American, they’ll stare at me blankly before saying, “…well, they have ketchup here.”
Another food I miss is pizza. It’s not like they don’t have pizza here - in fact, Koreans are bat-shit crazy about their pizza. It’s just that they’ve heavily Korean-ized their pizza. The most Western toppings you can get on your pizza are cheese, pepperoni and…corn. Aside from a really expensive pizza from Domino’s, you cannot get pizza with out corn. I love corn and all, but…I just don’t want it on my pizza. And the pizza chains here, including Pizza Hut, refuse to allow you to customize your pizza. It’s their way, or the going hungry highway. As it turns out, Koreans really have a thing for Koreanizing foreign food (because whatever Korea does is the best, and that’s that). At this sushi place I once ate at, they included kimchi and processed cheese in their maki rolls. WHAT THE FUCK.
The thing with Korean food is they love the red pepper paste, and they use it for just about anything (it’s what’s in kimchi). So after awhile a lot of the food starts tasting the same if you don't know what to order.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
CALLIGRAPHY AND GOING TO HELL
On a whim, Cindy, a few new friends and I went to a temple to learn calligraphy. (There’s this organization that plans culture-rich activities for foreign teachers, and this was one of them.) Most temples have a large sculpture of Buddha somewhere within its walls – but not this one. Instead, it housed the largest painting (ever) of Buddha. There’s a strikingly similar painting in Thailand, apparently, and no one is quite sure how the two paintings that were created so far apart look so similar.
The calligraphy lesson proved to be difficult. I was the sort of child who had a really tough time staying within the lines when colouring anything, and this was painfully obvious when I started the painting. We had a copy of what the painting was supposed to look like, and where the colours were supposed to go. Right from the start I painted an area with the wrong colour. This brought about a few laughs from the teachers and the fellow calligraphy-learners around me. After a few trial and errors, and a few pointers from the professionals, I was able to complete it. (Actually, this was taking longer than the organisers intended it to take, and so when everyone was on the tour of the temple, they secretly helped out and painted a fair chunk of our piece.)
The character that was in the centre of the painting is called “ohm,” which means the universe or cosmos. It’s an Indian word, and a lot of the Buddhist chants start with “ohm,” because they are praying to the universe. “Ohm…something something.”
At this temple I finally learned why Koreans use metal chopsticks (this was a burning question of mine). Back in the day the metal chopsticks acted like a poison warning; they would change colour at the potential adulterant in the King’s or other high ranking official’s food. This is similar to the cheers custom; when one was clinking the glass of a friend, a bit of the liquid was supposed to move from one drink to the next, so if you were poisoning someone, you would get the poison as well. As an aside, metal chopsticks can be annoying to use, because they are more flat then the ones I am used to using.
On the way home from the temple on the subway, these two really cute Koreans sitting across from me started obviously talking about me. The one would take the other’s finger and point it at me while saying something in secret. Eventually one of them mustered up the courage to talk to me, and all he wanted to do is call me handsome. This is a very common occurrence – and not because of my wicked good looks. Koreans view white people as the pinnacle of beauty. Thus a lot of the white men in Korean will be called handsome at the drop of a hat by anyone – old ladies, young guys and girls, etc. Though this takes away a lot of the meaning from being called handsome, it’s still nice, because, hey, it’s better than being called a fag by some random douchebag back home.
I started having impure thoughts about the one cute Korean boy on the subway. He was wearing really tight clothing, and that kind of clothing helps for, y’know, fantasies. He looked a little young, but from my experience here, the boys who look young are usually 23 or so. When I asked him his age, he told me he was 17. Hell’s a fine place – or so I’m told.
Flash forward a month:
I made two Korean friends named Kay and Nicole on the beach. There was a bit of confusion with age, because he told me he was 25 (he looked no more than 20), but he was born in ’84. It turns out that as soon as you’re born in Korea, you’re one year old. So whatever age a Korean tells you, subtract one and you get the actual age. Whenever a Korean asks me how old I am, I usually bump my age up by a year, which kind of sucks because it seems like I got older with out doing anything. After Kay and Nicole explained this Korean age to me, my mind immediately thought of the ‘17’ year old on the bus. He’s actually 16. Oh, my god. I’m definitely going to hell, and those impure thoughts are really damming now.
Kay and Nicole also told me about their versions of anniversaries. Instead of, like, one-month and six-month and one-year and etc anniversaries, they celebrate 100-day and 300-day anniversaries. That must really get annoying, because there’s some calculation that goes into finding that special day. On the 100- and 300-day anniversary, couples usually dress in the same clothes, be it shirts, sweaters, whatever. It seems like this ridiculous tradition is localized in Busan, as the amount of couple outfits are almost zilch in Seoul. The ‘couples’ look is kind of silly, and I really want to meet the guy or girl who came up with this idea. I mean, the couples are wearing the same shirts and same pants. I would die if someone saw me with my significant other in public wearing the exact same clothes. Anyways, it’s become kind of a thing to punch one another if you notice a couple outfit, just like the punch-buggy back home.
On my birthday, Nicole and Kay surprised me with a birthday cake and a present. I was totally taken off guard, because I had just met them maybe a week before my birthday, and wasn’t expecting anything from them. They sang me the Korean version of Happy Birthday, and gave me a book to learn Korean, which is slowly collecting dust. :(
The calligraphy lesson proved to be difficult. I was the sort of child who had a really tough time staying within the lines when colouring anything, and this was painfully obvious when I started the painting. We had a copy of what the painting was supposed to look like, and where the colours were supposed to go. Right from the start I painted an area with the wrong colour. This brought about a few laughs from the teachers and the fellow calligraphy-learners around me. After a few trial and errors, and a few pointers from the professionals, I was able to complete it. (Actually, this was taking longer than the organisers intended it to take, and so when everyone was on the tour of the temple, they secretly helped out and painted a fair chunk of our piece.)
The character that was in the centre of the painting is called “ohm,” which means the universe or cosmos. It’s an Indian word, and a lot of the Buddhist chants start with “ohm,” because they are praying to the universe. “Ohm…something something.”
At this temple I finally learned why Koreans use metal chopsticks (this was a burning question of mine). Back in the day the metal chopsticks acted like a poison warning; they would change colour at the potential adulterant in the King’s or other high ranking official’s food. This is similar to the cheers custom; when one was clinking the glass of a friend, a bit of the liquid was supposed to move from one drink to the next, so if you were poisoning someone, you would get the poison as well. As an aside, metal chopsticks can be annoying to use, because they are more flat then the ones I am used to using.
On the way home from the temple on the subway, these two really cute Koreans sitting across from me started obviously talking about me. The one would take the other’s finger and point it at me while saying something in secret. Eventually one of them mustered up the courage to talk to me, and all he wanted to do is call me handsome. This is a very common occurrence – and not because of my wicked good looks. Koreans view white people as the pinnacle of beauty. Thus a lot of the white men in Korean will be called handsome at the drop of a hat by anyone – old ladies, young guys and girls, etc. Though this takes away a lot of the meaning from being called handsome, it’s still nice, because, hey, it’s better than being called a fag by some random douchebag back home.
I started having impure thoughts about the one cute Korean boy on the subway. He was wearing really tight clothing, and that kind of clothing helps for, y’know, fantasies. He looked a little young, but from my experience here, the boys who look young are usually 23 or so. When I asked him his age, he told me he was 17. Hell’s a fine place – or so I’m told.
Flash forward a month:
I made two Korean friends named Kay and Nicole on the beach. There was a bit of confusion with age, because he told me he was 25 (he looked no more than 20), but he was born in ’84. It turns out that as soon as you’re born in Korea, you’re one year old. So whatever age a Korean tells you, subtract one and you get the actual age. Whenever a Korean asks me how old I am, I usually bump my age up by a year, which kind of sucks because it seems like I got older with out doing anything. After Kay and Nicole explained this Korean age to me, my mind immediately thought of the ‘17’ year old on the bus. He’s actually 16. Oh, my god. I’m definitely going to hell, and those impure thoughts are really damming now.
Kay and Nicole also told me about their versions of anniversaries. Instead of, like, one-month and six-month and one-year and etc anniversaries, they celebrate 100-day and 300-day anniversaries. That must really get annoying, because there’s some calculation that goes into finding that special day. On the 100- and 300-day anniversary, couples usually dress in the same clothes, be it shirts, sweaters, whatever. It seems like this ridiculous tradition is localized in Busan, as the amount of couple outfits are almost zilch in Seoul. The ‘couples’ look is kind of silly, and I really want to meet the guy or girl who came up with this idea. I mean, the couples are wearing the same shirts and same pants. I would die if someone saw me with my significant other in public wearing the exact same clothes. Anyways, it’s become kind of a thing to punch one another if you notice a couple outfit, just like the punch-buggy back home.
On my birthday, Nicole and Kay surprised me with a birthday cake and a present. I was totally taken off guard, because I had just met them maybe a week before my birthday, and wasn’t expecting anything from them. They sang me the Korean version of Happy Birthday, and gave me a book to learn Korean, which is slowly collecting dust. :(
CAVE BAR
I'm so behind in backlogged entries. My FOUR MONTHS LEFT resolution is to actually update this bitch and to get to the half-finished posts that I started like months ago. Here is one about the cave bar:
Back in the day, during the Korean War, there was a giant cave in Busan – Busan being one of the few cities not to be overtaken by North Korea - used to store weapons, ammo, artillery, etc. Where once it stood as war symbol, it now stands as a place to get your drink on. Yes: a bar in a fucking cave. It’s damp, it’s dreary, it’s wet – but man is it awesome. There are low-wattage lights strung along the sides of the narrow cave (which coats the cave in a soft, yellow glow), a couple of wooden statues (one of which is a dragon, who, legend has it, appeared in the current cave owner's dream, telling him to turn the bar into a cave), and a somewhat winding pathway (riddled with puddles) running alongside the tables. If you really wanted to, you could even cross the barrier where the lights stop and the darkness begins to really see how deep this cave goes – but that would be silly, as something like the Descent might happen to you.
Their alcohol of choice in this cave is dongdongju, a sort of rice wine. It comes in a brown ceramic bowl, with ice chips and bark floating on top. This wine was sort of an acquired taste, but when it’s … acquired … it’s really easy to get drunk, because the drunk slowly creeps up on you, and by the time you stand up you’re pretty much done for (many people have blacked out at this bar). The cave bar also has the best kimchi I’ve ever tasted (you can become quite the connoisseur of kimchi when you have it all the friggin’ time).
Dave, Cindy and I visited this bar one Sunday night, after a heavy party weekend. We were all staring into our drinks, lost in our own thoughts, and almost ready to call it a night. Eventually the best game of “would you rather” broke out, and some of the questions would turn into 30-minute discussions, all thanks to several helpings of dongdongju. One of my favourite questions was, ‘would you rather fuck animals and everyone knows, or fuck children and no one knows.’ A close second was, ‘for the rest of your life, every time you take a step you make the noise “wacka-wacka” (the pacman noise), or, for the rest of your life, every five to 10 minutes you fart or burp noticeably, and you’re not sure if it’s going to be one or the other.’ Another gross would you rather: would you rather snort two lines of dick cheese or eat two cups of poo. I’ll leave that up to you to decide.
It took Dave, Cindy and me awhile to find this cave bar (it’s pretty hidden in the depths of Busan’s alleys), and the entire time Dave was complaining about his need to take a “major dump.” We got sort of lost, and he started walking in a way where he had his ass clenched for dear life. Once we found the place, Dave runs to the bathroom and Cindy and I order a round of dongdongju. A little while later, Dave comes back with the most disappointed look on his face, crossed with a look of worry…remember how squatters are popular here? That’s what they had at this fine establishment. His bowels must have worked in reverse when he saw the squatter, and that somehow made him able to hold it for a few hours before leaving the bar. I’m sure the dingy-atmosphere of the cave didn’t traverse well into the bathroom.
Back in the day, during the Korean War, there was a giant cave in Busan – Busan being one of the few cities not to be overtaken by North Korea - used to store weapons, ammo, artillery, etc. Where once it stood as war symbol, it now stands as a place to get your drink on. Yes: a bar in a fucking cave. It’s damp, it’s dreary, it’s wet – but man is it awesome. There are low-wattage lights strung along the sides of the narrow cave (which coats the cave in a soft, yellow glow), a couple of wooden statues (one of which is a dragon, who, legend has it, appeared in the current cave owner's dream, telling him to turn the bar into a cave), and a somewhat winding pathway (riddled with puddles) running alongside the tables. If you really wanted to, you could even cross the barrier where the lights stop and the darkness begins to really see how deep this cave goes – but that would be silly, as something like the Descent might happen to you.
Their alcohol of choice in this cave is dongdongju, a sort of rice wine. It comes in a brown ceramic bowl, with ice chips and bark floating on top. This wine was sort of an acquired taste, but when it’s … acquired … it’s really easy to get drunk, because the drunk slowly creeps up on you, and by the time you stand up you’re pretty much done for (many people have blacked out at this bar). The cave bar also has the best kimchi I’ve ever tasted (you can become quite the connoisseur of kimchi when you have it all the friggin’ time).
Dave, Cindy and I visited this bar one Sunday night, after a heavy party weekend. We were all staring into our drinks, lost in our own thoughts, and almost ready to call it a night. Eventually the best game of “would you rather” broke out, and some of the questions would turn into 30-minute discussions, all thanks to several helpings of dongdongju. One of my favourite questions was, ‘would you rather fuck animals and everyone knows, or fuck children and no one knows.’ A close second was, ‘for the rest of your life, every time you take a step you make the noise “wacka-wacka” (the pacman noise), or, for the rest of your life, every five to 10 minutes you fart or burp noticeably, and you’re not sure if it’s going to be one or the other.’ Another gross would you rather: would you rather snort two lines of dick cheese or eat two cups of poo. I’ll leave that up to you to decide.
It took Dave, Cindy and me awhile to find this cave bar (it’s pretty hidden in the depths of Busan’s alleys), and the entire time Dave was complaining about his need to take a “major dump.” We got sort of lost, and he started walking in a way where he had his ass clenched for dear life. Once we found the place, Dave runs to the bathroom and Cindy and I order a round of dongdongju. A little while later, Dave comes back with the most disappointed look on his face, crossed with a look of worry…remember how squatters are popular here? That’s what they had at this fine establishment. His bowels must have worked in reverse when he saw the squatter, and that somehow made him able to hold it for a few hours before leaving the bar. I’m sure the dingy-atmosphere of the cave didn’t traverse well into the bathroom.
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