DVD Bong

This past weekend has been the week of the DVD bong. Before I can jump in and start telling you all about my experiences it is first important to understand the term bong.

Bong- In Korean it simply means room. This word is very common and is used to describe all sorts of places. Some of the most popular are Nori bongs (Karaoke) and DVD Bongs.

DVD Bong- Is a genius concept on an alternative to watching a movie at the theater or at your house. They are small places where they have a respectably large selection of DVD's, Korean and foreign alike. After you pick your movie you are taken to a small room which has a large bed/couch that can fit about 4 people maybe 5 if you squeeze in. There is also a projector above that creates the felling of being in a small theater. The genius of the DVD bong is the privacy of it. Most Koreans bring they girl or boyfriend to the place and have a private place to watch a movie and hook up. However, you can also bring your own alcohol and snack to the place so you can drink and either hook up with someone or kick it with your friends.

So, my first experience was last Saturday where Eben, Christina and myself went downtown to buy a few things before the night started. I bought a pair of glasses for about 100,000 won (90$) and a Peja Stokavich jersey...... Still can't fucking believe that. After this we had a few hours to kill so we decided to check out a movie at the DVD bong. We ended watching Role Models while drinking some mekju and soju while also enjoying some popcorn. We had and interesting night downtown... lets just say the glasses changed up the dynamic of the night in a very positive way.

Anyway, we ended up meting some girls from Chicago, Briana and Julie. The next day they gave us a call and we ended up making plans to go to the DVD Bong again. First, We grabbed some beers at Oregon bar (the cool music bar) then we began the night of endless films. We bought a bunch of mekju, soju and some assorted snacks (FYI dried octopus is a good snack which they actual sell at the movies theaters over here). We all decided to watch some horror movies so we started with the Descent which I had previously seen once in IV, I think with Perry. It was a good choice but retrospectively it might have been a little to good... About 20 minutes in where they introduce the villains of the film (their a cross between Gollum from LOTR and an albino I would say) it startled the girls so much that they literally jumped which sent beer flying out of Briana's cup, spilling all over herself and myself. After this movie we watched Battle Royal which if you haven't seen it is an amazing Japanese film about a deathmatch between school kids who are trapped on an Island and must kill each other (with an assortment of weapons given to students based on their strength and intelligence) to live and escape the island.After this film I thought we would call it a night considering it was around 2am but the girls wanted to continue watching some films so we stayed for another film. After this film we ran out of drinks so Eben and I left the Bong to grab some more mekju and on the way back Eben eyed a large Homer Simpson Dangle.

Dangle- something that hangs off of the end of your cellphone which are extremely popular over here. Almost every Korean has some sort of dangle which is used as most commonly phone bling or some practical purpose.

After we returned I picked out 28 Days Latter which we watched without any further spilling instance. We then packed up are stuff and left the DVD Bang making our way to the cab area. However, when we got there it was decided that we in fact were not ready to call it a night and decided to head back to a DVD Bong and watch one final movie. At this point in the night I was rather tired but I was more interested to see how long we could continue to go on before the DVD Bong would either would close or politely say Fuck off. This time we watched The Grudge but after about 20 minutes all of us, I think, ended up passing out and I remember waking up to the credits. We left and this time it was official we said our farewells to the girls and we made for the home right as the sun was rising.

In total we went to 2 different DVD Bong's and spent about 8 hours total watching movies. Quite a successful night/adventure if I do say so myself.

One more thing I forgot to tell you all that this was a Thursday night so we all had to go to work the following day which lets just say was sloooooooooooow and looooooooong, in other words a load of lethargic shit.

School Update

I'm sorry I have not updated in awhile but I have been rather lazy of late and increasingly busy.

Public school in Korea finishes classes for winter break in a few weeks which would mean I have some time off if I worked at a public school. However, I work at a Hogwon so I actually have more work because all those students who are not in public school get put in Hogwon's by their parents (There is some Korean lifestyle for ya). Mys school has been advertising aggressively, we have small posters all around Gee-san-dong (educational district) with two large banners in front of our school and on the outskirts of the district (*see picture*, which is in front of my school). Today I had to present of Demo class to my coworkers and boss on how I plan to structure and teach a T.E.P.S class (Korean created English proficiency test). It went well, but they informed me every day, now excluding Wednesday, I have to teach an extra hour and a half and Ill be adding every week with an additional hour and a half to be added once public school is out.

Shit I thought my kids were absent today but they were just a half an hour late so I have to teach for an hour and a half right now shit.....

Ok I'm back and just to remind everyone here is a list of all the different types of class I teach...

1) Children's conversation class - 2 students -Hour and a half

(Monday and Wednesday)

2) Adult conversation class- 4 students, 3 ajimas (older women) 1 college -Hour and a half

(Tuesday and Thursday)

3)Basic Sentence Structure aka. Steps 2 - 4 elementary school student - 45 minute class (Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday)

4) Intermediate Sentence Structure aka Now 3 - 2 elementary school students - 45 minute class (Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday)

5) Advanced T.E.O.F.L (English proficiency test) - 1 college student - Hour and a half

(Monday and Thursday)

6) T.E.P.S. Listening - 3 middle school students and will increase soon. -Hour and a half

(Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday)

I can't complain about my hours because I don't teach as many hours as other teachers but I'm not allowed to leave work (I just watch movies and listen to music)

I'm almost done with work but I promise to write more in the next week where I will be talking about some very interesting events that have happened in the previous month, which are as follows....

-Attending a 1 year old Korean Kids bday extravaganza (think 100 Koreans where I was the only foreigner present)

-Night out with some hot Korean babes (looooooooooong night but great)

-Screen Golf Tournament

and much more... oh Yeah!

A night of Fright and Delight

Before last weekend I had no idea what Halloween would be like over here in Korea... Would most foreigners dress up? Would the bars and clubs have special events to celebrate the occasion? How would Koreans respond to costumed drunk foreigners? Do any Koreans celebrate the holiday? After this weekend all of thee question have been answered as well as several others I had not even begun to think about.

Saturday October 31st- Halloween: (Stage 1 -Richie and Jessie's House)

The day started like any other. I slept in late enjoying my day off and resting from a relatively relaxed Friday night downtown with a few of my Scottish friends. I had no idea if I was going to dress up for the occasion, especially since I had very limited choices of costumes from what I packed before I came over. However, my good buddy Eben gave me a call at a round 5pm to let me know that a bunch of people were going to meet up at Richie and Jessie's house before going out to the bars. He also informed me that everyone that was coming would be getting dressed up, which forced me to try and find something. After a quick search of all my clothes I discover I really only had 2 options: either wear my high school basketball stuff and go as a baller (which seemed a little boring to me) or take down the sun tapestry I had hanging on my wall and wear that as a robe and go as the Sun God. I think its pretty obvious what I decided... So, I left for Richie's house which is on the exact opposite side of Daegu from where I live and work at. I live at almost the farthest southeast corner of the city where they live on the north west. When we got there we started to drink right away and get ready for the night to come. We started off drinking Makali, and mekju but after I put on the transformed into the Sun God, I steeped up the game a little bit (if at least get a dunk shield going because I was only wearing some briefs and a pair of Jessie's girl boxers). A group of about 8 people ended up over at their apartment where we drank and watched/listened to Rocky Horror Picture Show which was playing on their TV in the background. When it was time to leave almost everyone wanted to take a cab and avoid the awkwardness of walking 20 minutes in their costumes down the streets before they could make it to the safety of other drunk dressed up foreigners downtown. Jessie, Eben and myself thought that we should walk it instead and have an interesting cultural experience, although we could not know how interesting and revealing it would be at the time...

Stage 2 (The Walk):

-By the time we headed out I was felling nice and buzzed and by the time we made it to the main road the eyes began to turn. Every Korean walking down the streets could not help but either give us the double and triple take or look absolutely shocked. After a few minuted Jessie had the genius idea that we should start scaring people as we passed them walking down the street. At first I was uncertain as to how entertaining this would be but after the first person guy we scarred jumped back 3 feet and screamed like a 10 year old girl I knew this was priceless. We continued walking casually and talking until we decided on a group of people where we would all yell and jump towards them. For a visual reference, Eben was a walking skeleton, Jessie was a hippie zombie and I was of course the son god so quite the interesting mix. We continued doing this for the entire walk making sure we only tried and scare one group every block so no one would see what we were up too. By the end of the journey we discovered that Koreans are jumpy as hell and it does not take much to get them to run in sheer fright, especially if your dressed up on Halloween.

Stage 3 (Downtown):

-We actually walked to the college part of town first, specifically to a foreigner bar. Eben and I relaxed their for a minute or so but one girl who I don't think I need to name was continuing to act as one of the most annoying and obnoxiousness people I have met in Korea so far so no offense to our other friends we decided to bounce and head downtown right away.

At this point my memory begins to become quite fuzzy I remember we went to several bars, however they sort of blur together and I can only clearly remember a few and bits and pieces of what we did. I am pretty sure we started at Ping Bar which was decorated quite extensively for Halloween (like most of the foreign bars which I would soon realize). It was packed with people and I don't believe we stayed there that long but I do remember they had long strands of red cloth hanging from the ceiling which of course hit me in the head as I walked around. At some point I got fed up with this constant annoyance so I ripped one long strand down and wrapped it around my neck and body as long holy scarf (at least this is how I perceived it at the time). We ended up leaving rather quickly but to make matters difficult the fabric they had hanging up in the staircase......

Cultural Sidenote: Similar to most large European cities everything in Korea is built up, especially in Korea with so many people in such a little country. So, you are almost always climbing up or down stairs whenever you are going to any store, bar or club.

......this fabric had fallen to become an obstacle getting in the way of anyone who tried getting in or out of the bar. Understandably, I was not ready for this unanticipated obstacle and I fell over and became increasingly frustrated with whomever was in charge of decoration at ping bar. I am still spiteful and I will try and not support the bar because of their complete disregard for tall people...

The next place I remember going to was Sky Bar which I had never been to previously but I would say did the best job on creating a Halloween decor. The place was almost a small club in reality, they have one big ass room with bars around the outside and a dj booth in the back. It was packed , like every bar was that night, with costumed foreigners which made the dance floor look like some image out of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Eben and I ended up running into our new friend Mary, who was dressed up as a Oregon baller (Fuck the blazers go sac Kings!) but nonetheless was having a good time and we were excited to run into her. I ended up talking to some twins who were dressed up as... I'm not really sure but somehow won the costume competition which I figured was only because they were twins. We stayed there for a little while then headed off.

Who's Bob was our next stop, which is one of the most popular foreigner bars in Daegu. (We went to some places between Sky and Who's Bob however I can't recall where...) This was the last place I remember well. I believe we got to the bar around 3am and ended up staying there till around 5am, at least I did. I got a little preoccupied with one of those twins I mentioned earlier and ended up chilling with her for awhile and when I finlay remembered to look for my friends they were no where to be seen. I began to worry at this point for several reasons...

1) I did not have my phone on me, allowing me to get in touch with them

2) I did not have any more cash on me. (Normally I would just go to an ATM however in Korea they close around 1am, I guess in order to keep Koreans from staying up all night and drinking)

and most importantly...

3) I did not have my keys on which means even if I could find money to take a taxi and get home I would not be able to open my door.

Its important to understand I had anticipated all of these things to happen, except running out of money, since I was wearing Jessie's small boxers which had two small as pockets I did not want to risk losing my keys and phone. Instead I chose to bring my wallet (which barley fit by itself) and my camera to record the night. At this point I tried not to panic but it was late I was dressed basically in only my sun tapestry and I my group of friends were no where to be seen. I could only reasons that I had 3 options at this point...

1) Put the mac game on and find some babe and go back to her place.

2)Go sleep at a Jin-Gu-Bong (which is a spa that has a dark room where you can pass out on the floor with other people).

3) Look around and hope I can either find my friends or someone who can help me get in touch with them

I unsuccessful tried option 1 and I really did not want to have to resort to option 2 I tried and find some people who could help me get in touch with some of my friends. There were only two people at the bar who I knew had the phone numbers of my friends so I went to them and hoped they could help me out. The first girl has Eben number but after several phone calls and text messages I figures either his phone was dead or he was passed out. She had no one else's number I knew so I went to the second girl. She had my friends Margo's number so I hoped she was still awake and could give me a place to crash for the night. Luckily I have good karma and she answered and told me I could pass out at her place for the night...Hallelujah!

I ended up garbing a taxi and head to her neighborhood and quickly fell asleep.

Stage 4 (The next morning):

-When I awoke I was felling quite drained, tired and I had a small headache. I realized quite

quickly that I was still in a bind because I my keys and phone were still at Richie's apartment

(which I did not know how to get to on my own) and Margo had an ultimate Frisbee match

so I had to leave as soon as I was awake. I borrowed her phone and called Eben and

prayed he would answer and thankfully he did and he told we to meet up with him at some

random intersection near Christina's apartment. Margo was able to lend me a shirt, which

belonged to her boyfriends and a pair of her soccer shorts. Visual reference- I was wearing a

small shirt and a pair of bright blue short shorts looking hung over and haggard. I then had to

find and ATM and get some cash out so I could get in a taxi and meet up with Eben. It took me

about 20 minutes to find an ATM to work because none of them would accept my Korean card.

Luckily I still had 15 dollars on my American one and I was able to get just enough cash to

take a taxi and meet up with Eben. It took me about 20 more minutes to hail a cab because for

some bullshit reasons their are no god damn cabs in C.G. When I finlay got in one I still had

one final problem to overcome. Eben told me the name of the intersection however the cabbie

could not understand me. After about 10 minuted of repeating the name and what I knew was

close to it he finally understood me. Thankfully Eben waited about an hour for me to overcome

all of these unanticipated obstacles and we were able to quickly get over to Richie and Jessie's

apartment which in our minds at this moment meant safety and an end to the craziness of

Halloween.

Quick Recap: I'm still not sure on everything that happened but it was an amazingly great and

stressful night. I think its all because I am one of the Unluckiest Lucky people in existence.