duvel beer, the gay bar, and an open air market

well, lots to report as i've had a pretty eventful weekend.

2 nights in a row i stayed out until 4:30 am. it's bizarre because there is no last call here. bars stay open until people leave, like a really really long and annoying party. even on friday night/saturday morning when i was leaving my favorite bar (lava) there were people who were just then coming to the bar from their houses. i can't imagine waking up or staying up until 4:30 in the morning and then deciding it was a good time to go out. but that's just me. so friday night, i had fun just sitting at the bar with abby while the bartenders entertained us.

anyhoo, about this bar i've discovered....i didn't really discover it so much as i went there with the other teacher at my school who discovered it. the whole aesthetic is very reminiscent of the old, dirty shattered in como. you go downstairs and there's this tiny tiny dancefloor where all the hip hop hits are blaring at you, and i think it's pretty much hip hop dance night every night. again, i'm not a great dancer, but whatever, i'm there so i might as well. the bathroom is filthy, they don't have any beer on tap, and the cheapest bottle of beer you can get is 4,000 won ($4). but at least you don't have to tip (not at restaurants either). i drank one of said cheap beers last night and it was disgusting. if you ever encounter cafri beer, turn around and run away. even if it was free. seriously. i know rory's a fan of interesting and/or gross experimental beverages, so maybe he'll like this crap.

last night was interesting. i'd decided i wasn't going to go out because i was feeling pretty irritable (still in the motel, that could have something to do with it. eventually i'll stop dwelling on this, i promise). but i had already made myself all purty just to sit and watch korean tv and mess around on the computer. but at 1 am i got a text message from the chick i had been tentatively planning to meet up with. last week when i went to lava, i saw that they had a duvel sign but no duvel beer, so i casually said to jupio (the owner, and now one of my favorite people in this city) that they should get that beer. so last night abby's text message said i had to come to lava because jupio had indeed gotten the beer. i don't know why, but that made my whole week. it could have something to do with the fact that since i've been here, he's been the only accomodating person i've encountered. so the beer was just a really nice gesture. i hailed a cab and decided to start my night at 1:30 am. when i got to lava, jupio was examining this bottle of duvel (with matching snifter) like it was a piece of mars or a lock of jesus' hair or something. so i paid $8 for this bottle of good beer ($10 for anyone else, jupio said). and it was weird to have a whole bar of people staring at me, not because i was this tall american chick in their korean bar, but because i was drinking duvel out of a glass in this dirty, but charming, piece of cra p little bar. i still can't believe he ordered it just for me. i felt very cool.

after lava, abby and i migrated to a gay bar called marlboro. i've been to a gay bar before in como, and it was no big deal. but in south korea, homosexuality is still not an open thing. it's still viewed as a blight on society or whatever and is very very much in the closet. so i knew i was in for a good time at the "cross gender" show. on the walk to the bar, abby and i passed a food stand, and this group of korean men saw me debating whether or not to buy anything, so they bought us some "banana bread" and some "egg bread." the banana bread was basically just a pancake in the shape of a banana. the egg bread was, surprisingly, just a poached egg on top of a piece of bread. so we ate the food they bought us, said thank you and told them we were lesbians so they would leave us alone. 10 minutes after we get to marlboro, these dudes show up. i don't think they knew it was a gay bar, but they danced and made fools of themselves anyway. so onto the actual show...the owner of this place was among the most flamboyant gay men i've ever encountered. he was wearing a bra and a mini skirt. at the start of the show, there was one dude who had a long ponytail attached to his baseball cap who came out and danced to a song. then the owner joined him and there was all this syncronized dancing. and then a third guy came out and they were all dancing at once. the choreography for their routine was incredible. i honestly have never seen anything like it. it was like seeing three justin timberlakes or ushers dancing a foot away from you (albeit korean and gay and dressed in miniskirts...). i've never actually seen anyone dance as well as these three did. there was this mirrored pillar thingy in the middle of the dance floor that they were all dancing around. i wish i could describe it better. anyhoo, a couple of girls joined them and then they all did this cool line dance that made the electric slide seem even more retarded than it already is. crazy crazy crazy! and totally worth the $7 to get in. i probably can't even comprehend how significant it was to be there too, considering the hostile homosexual climate i've heard about. after the show was over, we literally had to run out to escape the creepy banana bread guy. it was funny because we were trying to be cool and casual about fleeing, but i get up the stairs only to realize i had left my coat on the back of the chair right next to the dude. so i had to sprint out twice. yep, i'm smooth. went home after that.

woke up this morning at 11--not by choice, but because the cleaning room for the motel is right next to my room and i can hear any movement by persons and furniture. pretty annoying, but better than pleasure moans. met up with jules and rory to go to the outdoor market. i keep exclaiming "i've never seen anything like this." but it's true. i'm from columbia, missouri and this place is nothing like columbia, missouri. i took a whole lot o' pictures on my phone, still haven't even gotten them all uploaded to flickr. but yeah, lots of outdoor market pictures. i like the idea of pig hooves, shoes, intestines, and perfume all being sold in the same outdoor area. that's what freedom is all about.

tomorrow i finally get to meet the elusive owner of the school i'm teaching at. it will be nice to see the man behind the curtain. eager to start a new week of work, beginning with fajitas tomorrow.