This past week hasn't been all that exciting. What started as a dry, sore throat turned into a Mr. Cold and he's been stirring up a tornado in my nose. In Korea, blowing your nose in public is not a very polite thing to do, but more than often, I just couldn't contain my wailing trumpet. This time around, Cold FX didn't fight off Mr. Cold for me, but I'm so glad to say that I'm finally not congested or suffering from phlegm no more.

During the week, I was anticipating for Friday. It was a skeptical, curious, and a lack-of-expectation type of anticipation. My language exchange partner had decided for us to have a 'meeting' with my friends and his friends. So with the knowledge I have of the term 'meeting' in Korea, it pretty much refers to a blind date, though nowadays its more of a comfortable setting to meet new friends. Well, you never know what will happen through the meeting, but he had planned it so it was one guy for every girl. You can see now why my friends and I were a little skeptical about this whole set up now. As common as Koreans do these meetings, for us foreigners, it was a first, so we really didn't know what to expect. Also, we were meeting to go to a 술방-literally a drinking room, a bar like place set up into rooms where people come to drink soju, play drinking games, and eat snacks.

So the day arrived and we headed to a place in Sinchon. The rooms in the 술방 actually reminded me of traditional tatami rooms in Japanese restaurants, minus the taking off your shoes and sitting on your knees part. It was slightly awkward at first with five guys on one side and us five on the other, but I'm glad there's always that one guy who has an outgoing persona to break the ice. We were first taught a drinking game call 딸기 딸기 ("Strawberry Strawberry" which was supposely the easiest game according to the guys, but then again they learn these games since they're fairly young, so they're pro at it by now, and disclamer: it wasn't the easiest for us, we were so slow compared to the guys). We ended up splitting off into pairs to play as a team as it actually didn't work very well girl vs. guys, and it turned out that being paired off was to our advantage too, well initially haha.

You wouldn't believe the amount of drinking games we learned. I personally don't know any drinking games in North America except beer pong, but the culture of drinking is so different in Korea. Each game has an introduction, sort of like a 3-4 line rhyme or song to kick off the game, and then you start. It was so hilarious and entertaining to see these guys sing and do the hand actions to some of these drinking games-priceless! Most games required sufficient hand-eye coordination (like the Animal game, if you have ever played it) where you had to say something to a beat or point to someone while maintaining your clapping rhythm. Whoever hesitated, lagged, or didn't know what they were doing would obviously drink with their partner. I lost count of how many of these games we learned, but it was over ten for sure. It can get so loud too, sometimes, you could hear the room next to you shouting, but we were shouting too. I actually didn't mind losing because I liked the selection of drinks we had. For us females, we ordered strawberry, yogurt, and pomegranate soju. Its pretty much a super diluted, water down soju drink, you can barely taste the alcohol, so it tasted like a fruity drink to us. The guys on the other hand, downed soju shot by shot.

Turns out, we had over analyzed this 'meeting' and it was a very enjoyable night for us ten with lots of laughter. Despite some of the guys not having a proficient level of English, they still tried to converse as much as they could. I couldn't believe it, and you probably wouldn't either, but we lasted 6+ hours in that room! Crazy eh? Apparently you can stay until sunrise if you have the energy to. Time sure flies when your having fun.

Another cultural thing in Korea is that when you go out with your group of friends, you usually do three rounds of activities known as 일차, 이차, 삼차 (first, second, third round respectively). First round is usually a meal/dinner, second is usually at a cafe for dessert or a drink, and third round is usually karaoke. It doesn't really matter what order or what you do, but typically Koreans just do three rounds of activities. It was already around 1:30am when we figure we should wrap up our time in the drinking room, but we were all quite awake from all the games so we headed to a restaurant for some snacks (이차). We conversed and asked some questions that made us think, but the energy was dying slowly as it was hard for us to think by now, so around 3am we called it a night? and headed home in rainy Seoul.

Note to self: buy an umbrella!
Insider: After Eight no more!