BUSAN!!!! Epic fail!

So, Friday arrived and Laura, Amy and I jumped on the number 113 after work and headed to Suwon, so we could meet up with Rubes the birthday girl, Phil - Rubes friend, who was lovely, Faye and Tambo and head to Busan for the weekend! We all arrived in plenty of time, bar Tambo, who seemed to be stuck on the otherside of Seoul. Our train pulled up and pulled off and still no sign of our bespectacled bud, though we weren't too worried, as we hadn't actually gotten tickets so, after speaking to him and ascertaining that he was still at Seoul station, we did the smartest thing and headed to Lao for a couple of drinks before the next train, which Ruby assured us was at 11.50pm. Can you guess what happened? You're probably right. Ben finally turned up with about 20 mins to spare, but alas, Rubes was off grabbing something from her flat. Still, we would have made it in time, had she not read the time wrong, the train was leaving at 11.40 not 50, so we watched, helpless, as another train disappeared to the party town without us onboard. Sad times indeed!


Still, not to be brought down, we crossed the street and headed straight into the nearest norebang in a bid to lift our spirits, and lift our spirits it did. Now, I'm not sure if I've explained a norebang before, but for the benefit of those who don't know, it's basically a karaoke bar, but much, MUCH more besides. For starters, you get your own room containing sofas and a big screen tv, microphones and a choice of about 300 different songs. Choices that night included such classics as 'Enter Sandman,' 'Celebration,' 'Zombie,'something by P Diddy and the never fading classic 'Ting, Tang, Tong', as performed by Miss Butcher, to a completely mortified, yet ecstatic, crowd. At one point Ruby even invited the Korean owner in, who seemed to take Faye's impression of Hangeul very well indeed. As did the rest of the norebang. That girl has some lungs on her! We spent pretty much the entire night singing our hearts out and dancing round to the sound of, well, whatever we wanted really and hitting ourselves with tambourines. Which we all enjoyed immensely. I think the general consensus was the it was the best norebang night ever but the money ran out, so we decided to head to Crazy Ducks, chatting up a taxi man (so, you have many wives then? Do you love us? Will you take us as your wives too? We're not prostitutes, you understand) and being accosted by a crazy Korean couple and having our photo taken lots on the way. Crazy Ducks, which is a RnB bar, I suppose, turned out to be as Crazy Ducks normally is. Which is to say I can't really remember much, though Amy did fall rather comically and Tambo's sense of humour bombed with a really rather terrible joke about Biker Mice from Mars. Awful, just awful.

The night came to an end and Laura, Tambo and I headed back to mine for some zzzz's and so Tambo could meet Henry. The mutual love was intense. I'm pretty sure that if Laura and I weren't there there would have been some hedgie loving that night and I don't think that Henry would have instigated it, though I am pretty sure that he would have been a willing recipricent. Rumour has it they're texting each other frequently and are planning a date this coming Wednesday.


Saturday afternoon we left Henry weeping into his spikes to join Faye and Amy for a slap up meal at Outback, the local Western steakhouse. There we were served by a lovely girl named Cheese and I was dished up a plate of raaaww steak with garlic sauce. Bloody brilliant. I adore Korean food, but sometimes all you want is a steak, with some chips (and cheesy at that), covered with garlic. We all pretty much ate our own weight in fat and then slowly walked over to the local DVD bang, where the proprietor got a bit of a shock as 4 girls headed off into a room with one man - a jealous guy he was indeed.







After the banging, we split, with Amy and Butchie heading off for a relax, before heading out in Insadong and the rest of us heading into Seoul to meet this time with Frank, Frank's friend Chung-geun, Mike and Anda. I have to admit that I was feeling pretty tired by this point, but off we went to 'All that Jazz', a place in Itaewon that plays, you guessed it, live jazz. This obviously filled me with joy and the first band that we heard were bloody brilliant. We popped off for a min for a nice street cocktail, served from the back of a van (you just have to, don't you) and then after listening to not such a talented musician who had stolen both mine and Anda's shirts we crossed to the Raggae bar, which, again, you guessed (you're doing well here), played Raggae, though this wasn't live. It did, however, have a pool table, so all was forgiven as Frank and I won to Chung-geun and Laura and we made our last transition of the night to the 'UN BAR' - which was possibly the best club ever. Ok, so by 'best club ever' I pretty much mean skanky and weird, but still. I met a nice Russian man, dressed entirely in white and white flares at that, who kept looking at me and repeating, 'Are you rrrrready?' before thrusting his nether regions at me and swinging his mane of hair about and a nice old Korean guy, who I needed saving from (thanks, Mike), when he got a bit too hot to handle. After leaving Mike snuggled this tramp and we were all so ashamed we left. I ended up heading to Anda's house after we'd partied out, it was nice to see the rice fields and smell Seoul air that wasn't polluted.











Sunday brought a trip to a jimjilbang for Anda and I- we found an awesome one, with a selection of different rooms (silver, charcoal, salt, ice, cave, pine nut) and a ginseng tea bath, which was amazing. After, Anda headed to home and I popped to say bye to the Woodhouse. We headed to a Japanese restaurant so I could fill my hungry belly and then a tearful goodbye was said as I jumped on the subway. I really wish Laura could have stayed here with us, but c'est la vie - I'm looking forward to South Africa!


True to form, as I always get everything wrong, getting the subway home wasn't as simple as it should have been. Due to the fact it was 12am, my connecting train to Suwon wasn't running (What? It was a connecting train! Come on!) so I was unceremoniously thrown out at Guro and left to fend for myself. Great. I walked out of the train station and was accosted by a man asking me if I wanted a taxi - Suwon was W30,000. Being the well travelled girl that I am, I thought, 'nah, you never get a taxi straight outside a station, they always rip you off.' so took a quick walk and then found another taxi. I asked the price and was told 30 again but after a bit of bartering got him down to 22, so I hopped in. Great. What was less great was that as soon as I got in the car the driver wound up all the windows, turned off the radio and locked the doors, which freaked me out a bit. We drove for about 10 mins and then he stopped to speak to another taxi guy, then pulled over. By this point, I was feeling slightly anxious, so 'you travel now with my friend' wasn't what I wanted to hear. Taxi man number one then charged me almost 10,000, for nothing. I got out of the taxi and refused to get in the second one. This meant that I was stuck, in Seoul, at half 12 at night, with no phone and God knows where I was. Worrying times. I took my phone to the nearest Family Mart to charge it and then headed to a pc bang to try to get hold of Seoul Ben, see if he could help me. Last time I saw Seoul Ben however was with Laura, so I knew that he was pissed and therefore wouldn't be awake. In fact, the only person that was was Tambo, who got about half an hour of my ranting, before he couldn't take it anymore. Poor guy! After the standard half an hour phone charging I returned to the shop to get my phone, only to be stared at by a weird looking Korean, who proceeded to follow me out of the mart and attempt to talk to me. I thanked him and said '언 이 여' I didn't want to talk to him. Which didn't put him off at all. He followed me for a while, trying to talk to me still, so I went into the nearest shop. He followed me in and started talking to the shop owner, who I had just questioned. I was starting to feel pretty freaked out by now, so tried to phone people and as soon as I got an answer (by this time I was back outside) he disappeared - which filled me with joy. I gave Ruby a call and woke her up as I thought she could help me find out where I was, and guess who came back round the corner? Crazy guy. Bloody hell. I carried on talking to Rubes and walked into the next shop again and after hanging around outside for about 10 minutes he finally left. Ruby was a complete star and found out that I was somewhere near Geumchong (after talking to the shop owner) and that I was pretty far from Suwon still. She bartered with the taxi man for me over the phone and then got me sorted out for the long ride back. Rubes, you are a true goddess and for that I am forever indebted to you. 40,000 later I was back in Suwon and then another 10 after that I was at home, in YoungTong and hitting my bed. All in a night's work really. Bloody expensive night at 60,000. Just goes to show that you can sometimes just get taxis from outside of stations. Oh, and note to self; leave Seoul before half 11. Tool.