I mean, I thought I was filled with party living in Colorado, but nothing like this ever happened:
The body count is three, here. That's my friend Myrna in the foreground, John on the floor, and Jasmine in the far bed. I happen to have two beds in my apartment for the time being because my school director brought over a bigger one and hasn't come back to take away the original small one yet. And a good thing, too, because Friday night hammered these jokers pretty good. See that spot between the chairs on the right? That's where I spent the night. Being the only non-drunk left gives you few options, really.
Our story begins at International Pub about 11 p.m. I went over there to meet up with Sun-A, Greg, John and Aaron, after finding an ATM that actually accepted my card. Also at the pub was Sun's friend Myrna, who I'd met the night before at the badminton court, and Myrna's friend Jasmine. Both of them are English teachers: Myrna here in Changwon, and Jasmine a little ways down the road in Jinhae. They're both from the Philippines originally.
We ran into Aaron on the way over, and he was headed to a different bar with his wife, so I just got a chance to say hi. The rest of us hung out at IP until about 1 a.m., telling the stories of how we came to Korea and how it's treating us. Jasmine's dream is to go back to the Philippines and teach there. I'm not sure what Myrna's after in life; come to think of it, she was playing darts with John most of the time we were there.
Anyway, about 1 I asked Jasmine if she ever went to noraebang (karaoke rooms). She said yes, and I replied that we'd have to take our whole group sometime, "but not tonight." Well, the idea caught on and we actually decided to go. So we wandered around briefly before finding the same noraebang that I went to last Saturday after arriving here.
It was fun, again; Sun-A was in her usual great voice and Jasmine has a lovely voice as well (and probably the best English of any non-Westerner I've met here). I even got to sing my first "request" when Myrna asked me to do "Hotel California" (a song I hate, but who am I to disappoint a fan?). John introduced us all to soju, which is the Korean alcohol of choice; my Army friends back in the Springs had warned me about the stuff. Apparently, they were right. I tried a shot of it, but Myrna, Greg, Jasmine and John hit it pretty hard. However, they were also articulate and upright when we left there about 3.
My apartment's close by, so someone suggested "house party" and we all took cabs over here. (It's about a six block walk, and we took taxis. Maybe they were more smashed than I thought.) We picked up some supplies (water, snacks, some more beer for John, Greg, Jasmine and Myrna) and set up at my place, just hanging out, listening to my crappy MP3 collection, and talking. This part pretty much rocked, because I got to know everyone better than before. Sun-A has a kidney condition that prevents her drinking alcohol, and I was done with that for the night, but between the four others, they took care of two pitcher-sized bottles of Hite beer.
Then Myrna decided it was time to go, but she was fully incapacitated. She made it about halfway down the hall out of my apartment before Greg, Sun-A and I carried her back into my room. We put her in my old, small bed to rest for a bit, and of course, she's still there six hours later. Greg lives just a couple of blocks away, so he headed home; Jasmine hadn't been drinking much since the noraebang, but she was pretty tired so she crashed in my new bed. John passed out on the floor between the beds. Sun-A and I started watching "Enchanted," but we were only about half an hour in before she decided to head home. So I took the laptop onto the floor and finished the movie, dozing off for about half an hour between the Central Park scene and the shopping bit. And now, here we are. In three hours, I'm meeting Sun-A to do some volunteer teaching at Changwon National University, and then after that we're supposed to help John clean up a building he's working on, and then it's on to Yongji for badminton with Aaron later. Hopefully I can at least take a shower in there somewhere...
I'm pretty sure this is worth a whole bunch of party-awesome points, and that's why I'm posting (even as the other three start to stir from their soju-comas). Rest assured, my Colorado and Kansas brethren. I'm making friends; I'm having fun. I like to rock the party.
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