KOREA THROUGH SOJU GOGGLES

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Koreans drink heavily. So in order to experience the local culture, so do we.

Most heavy drinking starts in a BBQ joint like this:

You order 2 or 3 plates of meat (like $5-8 each), and the service begins. They lower a fresh pot of hot coals into the middle of the table and set the grill on top. Then they flood your table with accompanying dishes: kimchi, a soup, pickled vegetables, a pile of lettuce to make wraps, and a variety of dipping sauces for the meat.

But despite the bounty of food, it’s all secondary to the expected self-affliction through soju and beer. They don't even serve rice because carbs soak up alcohol and the point is to drink.

We take shots of soju (Korea’s rice vodka) and chase with crap beer that tastes like the end of a budweiser keg.  But since soju is only 20 percent alcohol, we and everyone around us just keep taking shots, eating meat, and throwing back beer until about this point:

It’s right around this time on one of our nights in Busan that we decide we’re ready for the challenge our Canadian friend and host, James (pictured poorly above), has proposed for us. On the market street nearby is a restaurant that specializes in a particular type of seafood.  We sit and James orders beer, soju and a plate of sannakji.

Sannakji (sa-NA-chee) starts with a live octopus and a butcher’s knife, and ends with a plate of unseasoned, uncooked, wriggling tentacles. They are fully alive, but chopped into bite-size pieces. Here:

Yes, it comes with a sauce. But that sauce is just sesame oil with salt. And when there’s a live tentacle sucking on your tongue, sesame oil and salt are really not enough. 

Not recommended more than once, or sober.

My gag reflex starts kicking in after watching Cecily succumb to a dare and down a large pulsating spoonful, so we decide it’s time to pay and leave. We float on to a 7-11 where we find young Koreans buying soju, pre-portioned cups of ice, and flavor packets. So we follow suit and drink our Korean koolaid in the street…Through some transportive powers contained in the flavor packets or the soju, James and I end up on an elephant with two Korean dudes who are interested in more than friendship:

We manage to escape the Korean manwich, and it’s concluded that our livers are maxed out--time to hit up the jjimjilbang. The jjimjilbang (JIM-ja-bong), is a public bathhouse that is a late night tradition for many Koreans. We arrive at the reception desk where we pay the $7 entrance fee and we’re given a key and a baby blue uniform (Cecily gets a pink one). Cecily goes to the women’s side, and James and I to the men’s. Along with lockers, the locker room also houses a great lounge space for watching TV in comfort:

James and I disrobe and walk freely across the lounge and through a set of doors into the bath-room. There’s a series of tubs, from cold to very hot down the middle of the room, and along the sides are Korean dudes strattling plastic stools, letting it all hang out in front of vanities, scrubbing their dead skin off. There’s a carton of smoked eggs sitting out that James informs me are freely provided for jjimjilbangers to heat in the hot baths before they peal and eat them. Yes.

The black mold on the tile ceiling starts to look like it’s growing towards us so we get out to meet Cecily in the co-ed area. We change into our baby blue terry cotton v-neck shirt and elastic-waist shorts and like a couple of newborns, make our way to the next area.

In the coed room, it's a huge space with heated floors and Koreans in pink and blue sleeping on mats in every corner (still not totally sure why people sleep here). On one side is a small counter where you can order some food and there are a few massage chairs occupied by some saggy faced old men. It's way too hot for our particular condition so we move outside to the balcony.

My last memory of the evening is from floor level on the balcony, the three of us agreeing how Koreans make the softest concrete.

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