Friday went much as any other Friday would have gone. We left school and came home to catch an episode of Law and Order, before heading to Masan to have dinner and catch a movie. While enjoying a little SVU, we got a phone call from one of our friends (Yes, we do have friends!), inviting us to an open mic night of sorts at a Korean coffee shop. Our friend Lindsey was going to be reading some poetry from a famous Korean poet that is from the same area we live in. The poetry reading was pretty cool, the poems were read in both Korean and English. They even had the echo going in the background with music playing. It was pretty entertaining. We assumed that this was going to be a pretty chill experience (I mean how crazy can "open mic" nights get?), but we were wrong! After the readings, a man with a guitar took the mic and sang what we assumed to be a popular Korean song because the people in this cafe started going crazy. I mean hands were waving, shouts were given, and people were dancing away. We loved it! After our open mic night, the organizers of the open mic night took us all out for Korean barbeque and soju. What is soju you ask? Soju is the national drink of Korea. It's a potent liquor, made of sweet potatoes, and Koreans love it. It's served in shot glasses and you take it like it's a shot. These Koreans are hard core! After our dinner, we went with our friends to a couple bars.
And then it was Saturday. After some much needed sleeping in, we headed to Changwon to meet up with our friends. We didn't have any plans for the night, just to meet up with our fellow waeguks (that's what we're called here, it means foreigners). We had a nice dinner then went and had drinks at a quaint little bar. Any ideas what we did next? Well bowling of course. We never expected to be bowling in Korea, but we had a lot of fun! Just in case you wanted to know, Stephanie beat Shawn hands down, with a score of 134 to Shawn's 93. After our experience with bowling, our Korean friends decided that it was time for us to be broken in to the world of "noraebongs." Noraebong literally translated means "singing room", which is exactly right. You rent a personal room where you and your friends can enjoy a few drinks and sing to your heart's content. We had an amazing time here! We treated our friends to a little early 90's rock, singing Mr. Big's "just to be with you." Steph decided to following this up with a little Britney Spears, which the Koreans loved!! Side note, most of the music that is popular here sounds like the days when N'Sync and Britney dominated the charts. So, of course they loved all of that music. We even did a little duet with our two Korean friends of the only Korean song we know, they sung the Korean part and we did the English...what a cultural exchange. Feast your eyes on the selection of photos from our first noraebong experience.
This picture pretty much sums up the insanity that is Noraebong.
Steph and Shawn rockin' Mr. Big
1 comment:
This post brings back so many memories. I experienced the wonderful world of the Karoke Rooms in Japan and loved every minute of it. We sang many Disney songs which were huge hits with the Japanese people we were with.
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