Beondegi 번데기

Happy Chuseok everyone!  One of the craziest nights I have had in awhile, and it was completely unintentional.  My friend Cody came down from outside Seoul for the long weekend. I had three days off and he had four.  The first night, Saturday, was very fun.  We went to the foreign bar, SpeakEasy, hung out, walked around, got a good buzz, and went to one of the many clubs here in Gwangju, Vanilla.  They had a “Sexy Party” so we had to go.  Ok…back up.

Sexy Party, Club Vanilla

Walking the streets, one of us decides to break bricks.  We get three chances, two for the girl, one for me.  Jami pretty much does the job for me, and I finish it off.  We win a stuffed baseball player, with a “K” sewn onto its shirt.  I assume its for the Kia Tigers, the local baseball team, but I was informed it is an anime character or something like that.  We stop for more soju.  Now its time for the sexy party.

We talk to the bouncers outside the club, and they tell our group that it is now 15,000 won to get in.  It is normally 10,000 to get in, so they are trying to screw the foreigners.  We argue and get it back down to 10,000 won, which is very reasonable since you get all the tap beer you want.  Booya.  We put the stuffed toy in a locker with our other belongings and head inside.  The place is fairly dead.  A couple refills later we head to the dance floor.  Everyone is standing around, there is no dancing being partaken in.  NONE.  We are feeling good and the music is jiggy, so we break it out.  It takes a second, but then the whole club is involved.  We brought the party.  The strange thing is that there are some girls who just stand around until a song comes on they know.  Then they perform a completely coreographed dance, that they either practiced, or they have seen in a video.  I’m not sure.  Its good either way. We dance and drink, then around 130 the DJ starts spinning electro, for Techtonic.  He throws out glowsticks that everyone puts around their wrists, and they begin dancing.  These Koreans can dance, it was amazing.  We continue to drink and dance until 4 or so.

Bringing Sexy Back at Club Vanilla

Leaving the club, we are really wanting a Noribang, a private kerioke room in Korea.  First we go back to the brick breaking man and win a Hello Kitty stuffed toy.  I’m awesome.  We are walking to the noribang, and we are all yelling, “NORIBANG!!!!”  A Korean and his friend look at us and say, “Noribang? LET’S GO!!!” So we go get a room and rock out all night.  We blew up some balloons we stole from Vanilla and have a Noribang Balloon party.  Billie Jean, Backtreet Boys, Elton John, KPop, JT, Ursher, the hits just kept coming. YEAH! We go home around 6, and wake up about 12 hours later.

Our reward for breaking bricks

When's the last time you heard it like this

Balloon Party

Bring em to the chorus

Not knowing what is going on in Korea for Choseok, and everything in my neighborhood being closed, we decide to go downtown and see what is happening; hoping something will be open.  When we get downtown, we see that it is hopping.  There are people all over and almost everything is open.  Good sign.  We still did not have any major plans other than get something to eat and go watch Bangkok Dangerous.  Bad movie by the way, but entertaining enough to sit through.  Nick Cage is not a good actor.

After the movie we head back to SpeakEasy and stay until they close.  We gathered a group of people to come out with us, including one of the guys who works at Speakeasy, Tony.  We want to find a Noribang, we need to.  Everywhere is closed or full, which prompts us to drink more poju (soju and Powerade).  Side note: there are many combinations of soju, some of which I am sure to have never heard of.

1. Poju – Powerade and soju – My favorite is the blue
2. Coju – Coke and soju
3. Foju – Fanta and soju
4. Yogloo – Yogurt mix and soju
5. Poktanju – Litterally means “bomb drink.”  A mug of beer with a soju shot dropped in like a Jagerbomb.
6. Goju – Ginsing and soju
7. Any mix of soju and fruit juice…or almost anything.

We give soju shots to anyone and everyone on the street telling them, “Very Handome!” or “Happy Choseok!”  This lasts for a long while, then we meet with the owner of a restaraunt nearby.  It doesn’t take too much convincing for us to go with him; of course we are giving shots/buying more soju all the way.  At the restaraunt, beer and soju show up at out table (as you can see it is a soju filled night) as well as fried chicken, which was delicious.  We close the restaraunt down, but before this we yell over to two Koreans and have them join us.  It turns out that one is a Korean police officer (he showed us pictures of him in his uniform).  We drink a bit more and then go.

Giving soju to the street sweeper

Giving soju to strangers

FINISHEE

We want to go somewhere, but everyone is so disorganized from drinking all night.  We wander the streets for a good 2 hours before ending up at a restaraunt who knows where.  In the restaraunt, we have more soju and beer (take into account this is around 7 or 8 in the morning).  The Koreans are drinking, spilling drinks (2 or 3 on me, several on Jami as well), breaking glasses (most of us had sandals on), and feeding me Beondegi.  Use that link, beondegi are silkworm pupae.  They are gross.  I feed it back to the Koreans.  The Korean Policeman (who put that as his name into Cody’s phone) keeps making sniping poses and tells me, “Call tomorrow, I shoot for you.”  I am assuming he will snipe someone if I just make a call, kinda strange but highly entertaining.  I hope he doesnt get in trouble for those pictures.

Yea its morning and we are still drinking

Beondegi

OK!

Stop!

Eating Beondegi

We end up leaving the restaraunt, I dont know at what time.  Its daytime and its raining.  Cody hopped into a cab.  I got home around 10 or 1030 am, I didnt hear from Cody until midnight that night.  Happy Choseok everyone, Very Handsome and Very Sexy Party.