Oh Boy, What a Night...

So, Jung Min and I had an interesting night last night. We started out just planning to go to the bar for a couple drinks but then after hanging out at Ireland for a bit, Jung Min decided that she wanted to try this place that we had heard about.

The basic jist is that it's a bar, but you sit at tables and have to order "anju" or appetizers. And while you're sitting there, people jump from table to table to talk to other people that they find attractive or interesting. In Korea, they call this type of thing "booking club" though this was just a cheap, college form of a booking club. A real booking club is incredibly fancy and expensive and the waiters are the ones to usher girls from table to table so they can talk to guys and get their drinks paid for. Same kind of concept, though basically for younger people.

Both of us had heard about this bar and it's always busy with people lined up down the street to get in. We figured Sunday would be a good night to try it out, since we didn't think there would be much of a line. (There was still one...though not down the street). And we were curious. So, we go in and get a table and the first 10 or so minutes were kind of boring. We didn't think it was anything special.

Then, out of the blue, this guy comes up and in an awkward way tries talking to us. He didn't really speak English that well. And he only came up to us because he wanted to speak English. Anywho, that was really awkward. I think he asked me who my favorite English celebrity was and other sort of junior high questions. Anyway, we got them to leave after he tried asking us about five times if it was okay if he and his friend ordered more drinks at our table (we said we weren't drinking that much or staying that late). And about five minutes later, two other guys came up to us. One of which was really strange and very resilient. His friend was a Katusa (Korean military that works with the American military) but both were too young. So we tried to get them to go away, but they wouldn't. The table of guys over to our left at this time was very entertained in watching us and had been for most of the night.

I left to go to the bathroom and as I walked out, the weird guy stopped me and said that I was "beautiful". I thanked him and quickly walked to my table before he could say anything else. When I got back, one of the guys from the table to our left had ventured over to talk to us. He seemed cool and didn't speak English at all, so he wasn't looking to practice. Though, that also meant he spent more time talking to Jung Min, than me.

He ended up staying at our table for about 45 minutes then went back to his friends. Jung Min and I sat laughing about some of the things the guys said. All in all, a fun night. Awkward, but fun. We've decided that we don't think we'll go back, but might try a real booking club just once.

So that was our unexpectedly amusing night... if only I could speak Korean it would have been more fun...