Welcome Back Charlie!

On Saturday, we welcomed back a familiar face, Charlie.

Charlie was editor of the magazine Liz and I worked at, SpeakEasy. Charlie, like the rest of us, cast out his line far away from Korea but found himself pulled back in. We had a big reunion last night in Hongdae. It was Vivian, Anton, Andrew, Liz, Charlie, and myself. First order of business- food.

Once we arrived at the galbi restaurant, we were ushered upstairs at the galbi restaurant..like red headed stepchildren and were tucked away in a corner by ourselves. The reason why we were denied dining al fresco? Personally I think they just wanted to save their street cred and hide the foreigners from street view. But THEIR excuse was that apparently, you can't cook pork outside.

Now can someone tell me the difference between cooking beef and cooking pork outside? There was absolutely no tell tale difference when we were cooking beef and pork upstairs on the "terrace". I'll just chalk it up to another Korean idiosynchratic pile of silly... like not flushing toilet paper down the toilet but instead throwing it into a wastebasket atop a bunch of other wads of used toilet paper... mmm toilets and galbi!

After a very enteraining dinner (conversation = A+, Food= D -) we headed to Diggins for a brief taste of Funk Music and then to Nomad for some Jenga, Captain Cocks (that's their insane version of Jack and Coke), darts and Liz dragging an unsuspecting Korean man to the dancefloor for a quick K-Pop dance lesson. After hearing numerous songs from Mariah and Janet, I simply was not content to just singing along at a table... I wanted a mic.

Next stop was the Candy Shop Noraebang. You would think with (what Westerners would deem) an excess of noraebangs in Hongdae, it wouldn't be a problem to get a room. Wrong. Even for it being rather early (around 12?) we had to stoop into several establishments before even getting someone to tell us we'd have to wait 10 minutes for the next available room. Well we certainly weren't going to let that room go after all that trouble so we rocked out for a good 3 solid hours. Songs ranged in styles and tempos. There was some Boyz II Men, Hall & Oates, Kim Carnes, Ricky Martin, Jamiraquai, Beyonce, Meatloaf, Stevie Wonder, Queen, Mr. Big..

However I am going to get on my soapbox and say that my Fleetwood Mac AND Kelly Clarkson selections were prematurely aborted! Noraebang etiquette states that should someone hit the cancel button on someone else's song, said offender should either let victim choose another song or at least fill up the victim's Buy the Way dixie paper cup with an acceptable liquid apology.

Now I don't REALLY know if there is any sort of Noraebang etiquette but there should be... maybe that will be a future blog post.

The Big Chill, Seoul Style

After a lovely afternoon in Yongsan, Liz and I went back to our old stomping grounds, aka Daerim, to meet with the SLP Teachers of '06-'07. Is it amazing that after 3 years we all are in Seoul at the same time once more? Well, it actually is.

The St. Opistel and the Funky Bunch was my first family away from home. The first night in Korea, Rick, Daniel, and Adam took me out until the sun came up. Then Andrew and Liz came into my life and I really felt that everyone had their place... even good ol Jun! There were fights, there were dramas, but the great thing was that at the end of the day, everyone would be in your corner if necessary.

3 years later, some have married, some have kids (or are expecting kids), and we've all received some wisdom lines and maybe a gray hair or two. But the fact of the matter is that we loved each other enough to get together at our old green galbi restaurant we frequented back in the day. *My gawd I just said "back in the day."

I truly hope this isn't the last reunion for the SLP Family but as I looked around the three tables that we took up I couldn't help but think of the wise words of Ms. Carrie Bradshaw:

"The most important thing in life is your family. There are days you love them, and others you don't. But, in the end, they're the people you always come home to. Sometimes it's the family you're born into and sometimes it's the one you make for yourself."

And while I'm here in Seoul, this is definitely the family that comes to mind.