Coffee Helps

So, a girl can sit in and feel miserable about her lingering (but no longer contagious!) Swine Flu symptoms and her multiple horrendously itchy and painful mosquito bites…

…or she can go out to a local restaurant in her fab new country of choice, spend hours eating amazing food and drinking soju, go to a bar and befriend the locals, and generally have a great Saturday night.

What would you do?

The guy in the hat was so cool. Alex and I came into the bar after a very long dinner (as sems to be the style here – and I mean both the long dinner and the going to a bar afterwards), just to have a few beers and wind down the evening. The barman saw us singing along to a current Korean pop classic, and promptly made it his mission to entertain the Westerners – even going so far as to bring us pens and paper, gesturing that we should write down our song requests. I was mightily impressed when he played Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Simon and Garfunkel, and the obligatory American Pie for us. The night then became a game of trying to find obscure songs, and laughing at the delighted expression on his face when he found them and watched for our slightly drunken, happy reactions.

And so I had to complete No. 18 from my 101 Things list as we were leaving – get my photo taken with a stranger. When you get your photo taken in Korea, you must make the peace/victory sign. It’s, like, the law. I have yet to see someone refrain from doing so in a photo, and although I think it must be slightly weird to have your entire family photo album full of hippy poses, I have embraced this cultural phenomenon wholeheartedly.

Oh, and also, they really do say “kimchi!” like we would say “cheese!” when they’re taking pictures.

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