Soju is the Devil!

That's my thesis statement for this blog. Soju is the devil! For those of you not familiar with it, Soju is the most popular Korean liquor. It comes in these very recognizable little green bottles (which I now cringe at the sight of) and although it only contains like 20% alcohol it has the capacity to completely knock you on your ass. Like quick.

My tale begins on Friday night when I was invited to go out for Stella's birthday. Stella is the Korean girl that Nate (one of the other foreign teachers) is dating. She's a really sweet girl and we really hit it off last week at the Taco party. (Btw, as a random tangent: I think its so funny that all the girls here think its absolutely fabulous that I was a bartender. They all say "oh like in coyote ugly!" and they think its so cool). So it ended up being just Nate, Liz and I heading downtown to meet up with Stella and her best friend Alice - who teaches Korean at the YMCA on Saturdays so I think in January I'm going to take her class ;-). After grabbing some food, we hung out at this random bar for a while. I just had some beer and some shrimp crackers (yummy). Then after we left there we went to a place called "Fish and Grill" or "Passion Grill" I'm not sure, the letters were in Korean and I really don't remember the name.
-----This was pre-drunkenness. The 5 of us at Pish and Grill (me, Liz, Alice, Stella and Nate)

When we got there they ordered pitchers of something called a Soju Cocktail. Ok, so now I need to remind everyone that when I was in Seoul I tried Soju but I just tried it as a shot so I really didn't like it at all. Well, the Soju cocktail that they ordered was Apple-raspberry (I think?) and it was sooooooo yummy. Like deceptively yummy. And as if it wasn't bad enough they added one or two additional bottles of Soju to each pitcher of the cocktail. The Korean drinking glasses are these really cute little saucer-type-shot glasses, so inevitably we started playing a drinking game and got completely plastered. To add to the hi-jinks, this restaurant only had what are the common type of public toilet in Korea... the squatter toilet. Oh as I got more drunk the experience got funnier and funnier.

-----The squatter toilet in all its (disgusting glory).

Anyways, we were playing a Korean drinking game called "ddalgi" which is the Korean word for strawberry. The way the game works is: you slap the table, then clap your hands, then stick up your right thumb and then your left thumb. You're supposed to say "ddalgi" once for the first person, then twice for the next person and so on. It's not too easy to describe but really funny to play, especially the more drunk you get. I'm definitely taking this one back to the states with me. Anyways, I sucked at this game. I was horrible. They started calling me "the black hole" because everytime it came back to me the game would stop and we'd have to start over. I decided I didn't want to be the only one drinking so I started to combine a little "circle of death" in there so I started making up rules like when I drink, Nate has to drink (yup I was responsible for getting him drunk).

Well after a while, 3 pitchers of cocktail and about 8 bottles of Soju we were all DRUNK (ohmygod the pictures are hilarious)!!! So, Nate started throwing up as soon as we left the restaurant. Then we get into a club and Nate is in the girls bathroom throwing up. Liz took care of him for a while and Stella, Alice and I went downstair to dance for a bit, but since we were all drunk too we decided to leave. So Stella and I carried Nate to a taxi (and there are a pictures of all of this).
----- Samples of the drunkenness:

-----Sample #1: Me and Nate thinking that something is hilarious, apparently.
-----Sample #2: Yes, he's throwing up.
-----Sample #3: I think I thought I was dancing beautifully... not so much.
----- Sample #4: Stella and I carrying Nate to the taxis.

Well at this point I was doing fine. Just fine. Until I got in the taxi, then the buildings started whizzing by and I could not deal. So I stuck my head out the window (yes, like a dog) and started throwing up. I regret to inform that I vomitted all over the side of a Korean taxi. We finally got home and Liz and I carried Nate to his place and then I stumbled to my apartment. I have not gotten that drunk very often. But it took me less than three weeks in Korea to do it. An accomplishment as far as I'm concerned.

And the answer is yes I was very hung over on Saturday. I didn't manage to crawl out of bed until like 5PM and my stomach hated me all day. So that was my weekend (oh and I cleaned more mold out of my apartment all day sunday, but that is less exciting than the drinking wackiness of Friday night).