Welcome Problem Drinkers,
To Foley in Korea: Hangover Edition. For this entry, I’ve compiled stories that all more or less follow the theme of the sheer excess of Korean booze culture. My main goal, as always, is to educate you on this lovely country where alcohol poisoning has a national pastime.
In America, many people binge drink, but always, at one point or another, they will be subjected to our Puritanical system of guilt. Now not every country is like that. Sure, there are plenty of countries where people drink to excess, some places where’s it’s even acceptable, but perhaps nowhere is it as shameless and integrated into society as it is in Korea. In fact, if one was cynical enough, one might make the claim Korea is, in fact, built around drinking.
There are the little things, like the fact that night clubs stop running at the same time the buses and subways start running (6:00AM) or that many businessmen are required to drink to excess with their bosses on a nightly basis. Those are the little things. Some stuff, though, is just plain ridiculous.
For example, the convenience of getting mega-smashed. Korea prides itself on being a nation of convenience. If your cell phone runs out of juice, you can charge it at any 7-Eleven for less than a dollar, and most department stores and bars. You can use a computer anywhere in the city for about an hour for about the same price as well, complete with comfortable chairs and high speed connections. And, if you’re super hungover, you can just go to the hospital and get an IV.
Yes, sports fans, it’s common practice in Korea to go to the hospital if you’re feeling super hungover. Not alcohol poisoned. Just like the blazing-head-ache-promising-to-never-drink-again-kind-of hangover. That’s all you need to get medical attention. You don’t even need to lie. You just show up, say, “Doc, I got so sloshed last night and got an important meeting in the A.M.” and for a small fee, he’ll pump a needle and a bag into your arm and your hangover will be a distant memory.
And if going to the hospital is too much of a struggle, there is a multitude of food and drink available to he who has partaken of, or shall partake of, a surplus of spirited beverages. They have medicine that lines your stomach. They have vitamin powered anti-hangover supplements. And of course, they have the oh-so-popular “Hangover Soup.”
What is this powerful potage, you ask? It’s a tasty and thick broth formed from ox bone, soybean paste, and soybean sprouts. As it turns out, these soybean sprouts are absurdly good at detoxifying alcohol. Science has recently proven this fact, but Koreans have known about it for centuries, as the plant is native to Korea. It’s almost as if God was prepping the Korean Peninsula for a society of binge drinking.
All that being said, I have nothing against alcohol. Nor do I have anything against the Buddhist faith. Now that I’ve made myself clear, I may continue. Korea is occasionally plagued with a problem you rarely see in America: drunk monks. No, it’s not common, but it does happen. These are Buddhist Monks (or, perhaps shaved-bald headed men dressed like monks) who get silly on soju and cause problems. There’s one in Gwang-ju with just such a reputation. I experienced his hospitality a month ago when I walked by him on the street and he punched me. Sure, it was just in the arm, but what the hell? The worst thing I did was smile at him. He’s also been known to go into bars and start fights…and has a taste for grabbing girls on the ass.
But I guess it makes sense. I mean, there are so many righteous monks in Korea, there have to be a couple assholes. Still though, it’s a weird feeling, getting grilled by a monk after he hits you for no reason. Maybe it’s because I had such high expectations of him. Or maybe some unconscious part of my spirit remembered how I totally screwed him over in a past life. Who’s to say?
To shift gears slightly (but stay on the subject of alcohol), this goes out to my fellow Americans. I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but on television beer commercials in America, you’re actually not allowed to show people drinking beer. Now, before you think of correcting me, try to remember a commercial where people drink beer. Here’s a hint: it doesn’t exist. Commercials can show beer being poured, people holding beer, and those people looking like they’re just about to take a sweet sip of that delectable barley-hops fusion…but they never actually do it. Why not? Because we think it’s a bad influence to children. Boooorrrrrrrrrr-ring.
Korea takes a slightly different approach. Rather than encourage healthy drinking habits, they decide to show children the proper way to binge drink. During every Korean Major League Baseball Game, Cass Beer Corp. sponsors a little healthy competition between fans of the opposing team via the jumbo-tron. What is this event? A homerun contest? A pitch-off? Hell no. It’s a beer chugging contest! You, versus a rival, to see who can crush a cold one faster while thousands cheer. It’s every frat boy’s dream come true. The best part is, alongside the fame and prestige of competing in such a game, the winner is awarded a roaring round of applause and a cool case of Cass Beer. Awesome.
I know all the talk of alcohol is fantastic, but I must digress for a moment. Recently, I was able to move out from my ha-suk-jib (boarding house from hell with no bed) and into a deluxe apartment in the sky. It’s actually only on the third floor, but having a bed, and a kitchen, and two bathrooms for me and my two roommates, well, that feels about as close to heaven as you can get.
And, while my previous neighborhood population was predominantly elderly Korean women with a permanent expression of disdain on their faces, my current neighborhood is located in the hyper-rich embassy area. And when it comes to living near hyper-rich foreigners, you can be sure you see a good amount of really, really fat people daily, usually a rarity in this land.
It’s also located a ten minute walk to Itaewon, or as it’s often referred to as, “The Land of Wide-Eyes.” Itaewon has strange and legendary appealing in Seoul, as it is the breeding ground of all foreigners. They all come to party, eat, and generally mingle. Let’s look at this bizarre location from both the eyes of the optimist and the pessimist.
The Optimist: Awesome food (Greek, Mexican, Brazilian, etc.), real microbrewed beer and imported liquor, a budding international community, and a place where you can talk about the Celtics and people will actually know what the hell you’re talking about.
The Pessimist: Expensive food (seriously, who wants to spend twenty bucks a person on Mexican food?), real expensive microbrewed beer and imported liquor, foreign douchebags, and a complete and utter lack of Korean culture within the country of Korea.
Itaewon was originally dominated by the American military, but after they caused so many fights that noise disturbances that the government kicked them the hell out, it’s become a lot nicer. Sometimes, it’s a much needed getaway from all that which is Korea, and gives just a little flavor of home. It’s kinda like a Chinatown for white and black and Hispanic and Japanese and…well pretty much, just think of it as the “Non-Koreatown.”
Oh, and speaking of Japan…I went to Japan two weeks ago. Sounds like a big deal, I know, but when you start to realize the distance between Busan, South Korea and Fukuoka, Japan is about 159 miles, it sounds way less impressive. (For point of reference, it’s 190 miles from Boston to New York).
Why did I go? To get my visa, so I could get paid for my new job. You see, you can’t get a visa for a country inside of that same country. For instance, if you live in America, and you want to renew your visa, well my friend, you best get ready for a road trip to Tijuana or Montreal (though I highly recommend Montreal). I know, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but just roll with it.
Now, because I couldn’t get paid until I acquired said visa, this had to be a budget trip. How budget? Like instead of springing for a hotel, I reasoned it’d be cheaper to stay up all night partying…in a city where I knew no one. You ever see the show “24” before? Well, it was kinda like that. From the moment I left my apartment on Saturday until the plane took off from Osaka Airport on Sunday morning, it was exactly twenty-four hours. So, you can imagine, while leaving my apartment, I was thinking:
The following takes place from 10:00AM to 10:00PM on the day of the Dan Foley Osaka Trip. Events occur in real time.
10:00: I leave my house with nothing but my wallet, my passport, a T-shirt and pair of jeans. No bag, no camera. No bag because I don’t want to lug something around all night and I didn’t want the crutch of bringing a computer. No camera because, well, I dropped it a couple weeks before and the lens got all messed up.
13:10: I exchange my money for 5,000 Japanese Yen and board my plane for Osaka, a city known for its octopus balls, wild fashion, and cheap plane tickets. (Shown below, octopus balls)
15:03: I arrive alongside a middle-aged white suburban mom type who doesn’t seem to have a damn clue on how to operate the commuter rail into the city. I share her dilemma. Turns out, their automated machines make about as little sense as possible, and have avoided using Korean or English at all costs. The computer rail ends up costing 1,100 Yen into the city. This means I would have to pay the same amount going out. Quick math will tell you that leaves me with 2,800 Yen for the rest of the ride.
17:22 I find my way to Osaka Sky Building, one of their must-see sites. It looks kind of like the Great Eye of Sauron at night and on its side is a glass elevator to the top that makes me queasy in all the wrong ways.
17:49: I stop in a dumping restaurant for some sustenance and take in the sites and the sounds. Strangest thing I find so far is the vending machines on every corner, selling a wide variety of tea-based drinks. By the end of the trip, I will have spent a cool eight dollars on these alone.
19:23: On the outskirts of Namba, the downtown district, I run into four middle school Japanese girls. They convince me to buy these fried chicken fries that are evidentially all the craze. I talk with them for a little while but slowly slink away, lest I be thought to be a pedophile by onlookers.
19:41: Arrive in Namba. I am immediately struck by the sheer absurdity and gnarliness of Japanese fashion. The chicks: way too much make-up. It’s caked on, in the sense that it looks like their faces have literally have cake on them. But their clothes, holy crap. I’ve never noticed fashion in an entire city before, but the bright colors, strange combinations, wild hair…it was impossible to ignore. Especially on the grandmas (not a joke).
19:52: Eleven minutes later, a notice the dudes. Every one of them looked like a Dragon Ball Z character, complete with radical, dyed, blown out hair, and wacky and bright combinations of jackets and shoes. There was something undeniably unique and just plain cool about some of these guys…and then there were the ones who took it way too far. These poor souls rocked David Bowie haircuts, space-age shoes, and glitter jeans. It all screamed for a return to the the glorious sexual ambiguous rock of the early 1970’s.
20:20: Upon biting into a sixer of octopus balls, I have the sudden realization that I’m going to be stuck in a city for the next ten hours with very little money, no language skills, and where I know a grand total of zero people. A minor freak out ensues, but I manage to finish my octopus balls.
20:57: I decide to take matters into my own hands. It’s only 9:00PM on a Saturday night. It’s far too early to succumb to fear and accept defeat. It’s time…to meet some people. I have no idea how I’m going to do it, but as God as my witness, I’m going to make moves.
21:23: I come across a white guy dragging a trash can across the street. We strike up a conversation. Turns out he’s a Mormon Missionary/street drummer/foreign language specialist. We walk and talk for a bit, turns out he’s got a decent grip on Korean. He shows me around a bit, to the main bridge in Namba where all the action goes down. Here’s the famous light up boardwalk along the bridge (why the running man is selling no one seems to know):
.21:49: We part ways and I meet some French blokes who were making their rounds across northeast Asia on holiday. We part ways quickly, because they have to go eat baguettes and go to bed.
22:50: After wandering around for a while my T-shirt starts to gather attention. I am wearing a T-shirt that says “외국인” (way-guk-in) on it, which translates to “foreigner” in Korean. Doesn’t sound that funny to English speakers, but Koreans truly appreciate the irony of the shirt. So much that, every Korean I see has the exact same reaction. They stop in their tracks, start laughing, and then have to ask me about my shirt. One woman went so far as to offers me a tutoring job. Another dude was willing to pay me fifty dollars for my shirt and give me the one he was wearing on the house.
(Yes, I was peacocking hard).
23:47: While walking along the river, I happen across a group of twenty-something’s crushing Asahi by the river. It turns out they were a mix of Korean and Japanese students, with a random guy from Uruguay. None of them really speak English, but luckily, I’ve been taking Korean lessons. And so the drunken river conversations begin.
04:32: (Next morning): We’ve been talking and drinking together for four hours. Turns out, somehow the fusion of sake and octopus balls makes my Korean loads better. Despite my almost beastly amount of energy prior to this moment, something about the sky going from black to navy to blue is making my eyelids heavy. My newfound friends promise to come visit me in Korea, and cook me and my friends a giant feast when they come. I tell them that sounds good, and hop aboard the computer rail again, with just enough money to make it back to the airport.
06:00: Upon arriving in the terminal, I fall dead asleep on the row of seats. There are no dividers, so my long, goofy ass has plenty of room to get cozy.
10:00: I board my plane in a state of mind that is neither awake nor asleep, making me seriously wonder if this Japanese excursion was just some strange alcohol induced dream. And just as quickly as it began, my intense 24 episode ends, visa in hand, mission accomplished.
That, my friends, was my first taste of Japan. Do I want another? Absolutely. But in the future. It was relieving returning to Korea. It solidified a profound truth in my mind. There was something I believed, but always questioned. It became apparent the with each new country that I traveled to. After China, and Thailand, and now Japan, I’m pretty sure I can be certain that Korea is definitely the place in Asia that suites me best.
And the reason for that is the girls. Korean girls are clearly the hottest.
But I miss and love you all. I hope you enjoyed my drunken observations. The next time you’re hungover, I hope you think of me.
-King Lush
