Koreans and Booze

It's true. Korea is generally a very conservative place.

Certain age-restricted websites that make up the social fabric of American culture are illegal here.
Apparently every shirt I own is a little "low cut" because, while Koreans love miniskirts they wear their shirts up to the neck.
( See sweater dress--->
I'm serious. They wear sweaters over sweaters over sweaters to cover up that stuff).

Hand-holding and general PDA between genders is uncommon (though increasingly common over the past few years).
Public schools (at least my school) actually has a morals class for elementary school students.   Hmm. Surprise.
But that doesn't stop them from getting trashed regularly. This may not include all of the older teachers I've come in contact with, but those young whippersnappers have no limits when it comes to booze.

Our booze story:
It started out at a lovely place near PNU called The Market Place (great place, btw). We were just sharing a pitcher with some friends. Seriously, there was one pitcher, maybe two, in a couple hours. THEN Gangnam Style came on the radio. We all smiled and thought, "hey, this song is inescapable." We glanced over at a group of korean boys, curious to see their reaction to the song. Would they start dancing? Would they be annoyed?
THEY WERE STARING AT US.
WAITING
as if to say, "DO THEY KNOW GANGNAM STYLE?"
We laughed. They laughed. We did the horse riding dance. It was an instant classic bonding moment.
We invited them over.    They ask if we know "Baskin Robins 31," a drinking game we had literally only heard of 48 hours prior.
We play it...and Kai Bai Bo (rock paper scissors). Too bad that when you had to take a "shot," they meant it. In my experience, a "shot" had just been a sip--maybe a big sip if you were serious. They, instead chanted "ONE SHOT ONE SHOT," and expected you to drink an entire mug of beer.   OOoooookay, trying to make the most of our korean bonding experience, we all obliged.

Then came the Aegyo game.
Aegyo is that super cutesy asian crap.


We had to make Aegyo faces or drink.
Luckily our friend bombed before it even got to our end of the table.

We thought we were safe... then they introduced Titanic.
A shot of soju (basically vodka) dropped in a full glass of beer.....ONE SHOT ONE SHOT.
Poor Garrett...He had 4 or 5 of those on top of everything else.
Luckily, we had to catch the subway and parted ways around 11. Even though it was early, Garrett was a wreck. I had to maneuver the subway (drunk) not just by myself, but with a very annoying Garrett going "no, it's that way." "Hey, what's that."

We eventually got home, thank goodness. And we regret nothing!
But dear god, please don't make us play the aegyo game. and if we must drink with koreans, please let them realize that we are not as hardcore as they are.

This is, of course, followed up by the fact that we accidentally got a little drunk tonight.
AGAIN.
We decided to go to this cute restaurant we  had stumbled across yesterday. Very quaint, all homemade stuff--we were excited. Usually we just order something that sounds familiar, or ends in something we know (soup, ramen, blahblahblah). Too bad there was NOTHING that looked familiar. We both picked our random dish and a few minutes later......
Out came a bottle of plum wine.

Uhhh, okay, thanks lady.
Wait a second.
I read the bottle: the name looked familiar.
8$ bottle of dinner.
So we shared my order of noodles, and Garrett's wine. The lady then tells us that it is meant to be shot (big surprise, korea!). I decided to be all traditional and do as I was instructed.
Weell, by the time the lady came out and asked what else we wanted (seeing we barely ordered any food), I just let Garrett do the talking. She then asked if we wanted more wine. We asked for 몰 (water), but were apparently slurring too much for her to understand. I had to write it on a napkin...
We got some water.
Yaaaaayyy. Then we went to the grocery store, and I was still very tipsy.
Dammit, Korea! Stop getting me drunk!  This is ridiculous.