A while since
the last; here’s another edition from The Tefl-on Don with two weekends to
catch up on.
Another week
gone by and more exciting activities ticked off that I’ve never done before.
This travelling malarkey’s quite fun! Every Friday I have usually finished work
by 10:50am and in an attempt to not waste (nearly) an entire day off I decided
to go to the Seoul Olympic Park, or Olpark for short. It’s started to warm up
here, and by that I mean it’s just about above 0°C,
so time for a brisk stroll. I got there and there wasn’t much happening, many
arenas and stadiums but on a clear day I didn’t want the crowds just somewhere
nice to walk. As I wandered I looked at all the art dotted around the park in
celebration of the opening of the 1988 Summer Olympic Games. I’m not really
into art, for some people it’s used to express themselves in ways that words can’t,
for others it’s used for seeking unnecessary attention such as this man. This
particular art student decided to lose his anal virginity on stage, in front of
his peers as part of a university project. He’s just a poor man’s Paris Hilton.
There were kids at my school that got in trouble for fingering girls by the
bike sheds, but if you take a ride down a man’s dirt track on stage you’re an
artist, apparently.
I don’t know what these are about; a giant thumb and two attempts at a
Scrapheap Challenge. The sculpture (right) was unnamed by the artist, to be
honest I wouldn’t know what to call it either. Maybe, “Fuck it, that’ll do”. The
park was very nice and I felt a certain pride to see the flags of my nations
blowing in the wind.
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Anyway, onto the main event of that particular weekend and we went to
Seoul Race Park. I’ve never done a day at the races, I’ve always wanted to but
it never seems to be something that you do on a whim. I met Josh and James at
the subway station and we headed in. There were lots of sculptures of past
winners around the grounds of the park, to a Korean racing aficionado they may be
well known, but to me they were just horses. Upon closer inspection the
sculptures had cocks, I know the artist wanted them to be as genuine as
possible but honestly you can add too much detail sometimes.
We paid the enormous entry fee of ₩2,000 (£1.20) and headed for the bar,
only to find no such thing. We saw a convenience store within the ground so we
went over in an attempt to subtly drink a few cheeky cans, true class just like
the Royle Family. But again, only disappointment. What do you do in that
situation? We did like all other alcoholics living in denial and headed out of
the Park to search for soju and beer. We found some easily, enjoyed one beer
and took plenty of soju for the day ahead.
Once back inside we enquired into the logistics of gambling. I am
familiar with the process having done it a few times in the past betting on the
National but what made the selection process difficult was that all the horse
names and betting form was in Korean (unsurprisingly), so I opted for numbers
sticking with 4, 6, 7, 8, 10 and 14 (Vieira, Adams, Pires, Ljungberg, Bergkamp,
and Henry if you’re wondering).
I wasn’t betting an awful lot but even so it was pretty exciting. A few
races in and my plan wasn’t working – I was losing money! How could this be
happening? Gambling is a sure fire way to make money, everyone knows that. Race
by race I’d repeat the gamblers code “I’ll win the next one for sure. I’ll quit
when I’m ahead. By the end of the day I’ll be a millionaire!” Then the
unexpected happened, I won a race. Patrick Vieira came in! I collected my ₩20,000
winnings and was as happy as if I’d just won ₩2,000,000.
We decided to skip the last race and headed for Hongdae. James went to
meet Susie and we decided to meet up later in FFs (a club we often frequent).
James, still feeling a little tender from the night before had held back from
the soju during the day which left more for Josh and I to drink. We continued
drinking in Shamrock and Roll, an Irish pub in Hongdae at this point we
realised how drunk we were. Christ, this is what happens when you start
drinking at 3pm.The drinking didn’t stop there though. By the time James and
Susie had arrived in FFs we were both passed out. I was completely asleep
taking no notice of the 100 decibel music pumping from the speakers, and Josh
semi-conscious in a state that James described as “couldn’t stand unaided”.
Somehow we made it home. 
I will now fast forward to the next weekend and it was a big one. We had
two new arrivals, and two peasants came to visit all the way from Masan. The
Friday night was my first exposure to Gangnam, the wealthy, upper class region
of Seoul and probably the only place in Korea where it’s unacceptable to do the
Gangnam Style dance. Alejandro set us up with free entry to a very swanky club,
certainly too good for us. The bouncers looked down on us as our tragedy of
commoners strolled in. Gangnam is good, rubbing shoulders with the elite, going
to the nicer drinking holes, but only for one night. The girls were incredible,
like nothing I’ve ever seen before. I’d brag to them about my seven-figure
income and they’d walk away unimpressed like I am a short, overweight Russell
Brand wannabe. A far cry from the girls of Nottingham, the kind of girls that
would be impressed if you told them you had a job. But anyway, one of the main
problems with drinking in Gangnam is the cost, something that will bleed your
wallet dry. We opted for a cheaper option of making dashes to the nearest
7-Eleven to polish off a few bottles of soju and then head back to the club,
past the judging bouncers, and onto the dance floor to enjoy the always
delightful house and techno music. While everyone else was trying to keep face
by giving the illusion they belonged in Gangnam our group was like the Price
Harry of the party. A bunch of Jack the Lads crashing a party they shouldn’t be
at.
We nursed Saturday’s hangover with some sightseeing around Dongdaemun.
Later that afternoon I got the call I’d been waiting a few weeks for, Karl Egan
had arrived in Seoul and was ready to get his drink on. Karl’s a good friend of
mine from university. He's not from Brum, not from Leicester, not from Leeds,
not from Manchester. He's from Nottingham, AKA Shottingham, Hottingham. (Although,
he actually lives in D*rbyshire, but I won't tell anyone, Karl). Petro, Leon
(the two peasants from Masan) and I met him and immediately went to Hongdae to
meet up with Josh, James, Susie, and the other new arrival, Ben. We had a few
drinks in Shamrock and Roll (surprise, surprise) and then went to FFs
(surprise, surprise). A rather uneventful night, the usual drinking, storytelling,
joking, laughing, occurred and we eventually got a cab home.
In the drunkenness Karl got in the front seat of the cab, and before we
knew it everyone was asleep. We arrived in Kundae and the taxi driver was
demanding ₩40,000 for a journey that shouldn’t even cost ₩15,000. In my best
Korean I was trying to say that we wouldn’t pay that and that he was ripping us
off, Karl still asleep during the commotion awoke to an angry Korean man
shouting in his face demanding money. Karl had no idea what was going on which
was hilarious. I had the opportunity to inform Karl of the situation but what
kind of friend would I have been if I did that? The Korean man got louder and
angrier and Karl began to get louder and angrier. Karl gave the driver ₩20,000
but the driver still wanted ₩40,000. Karl would shout “I’ve given you the money;
I don’t know what you’re saying!” Karl then started to throw ₩1,000 notes at
the driver and eventually told him to politely “go away”. Karl got out of the
cab, angry but in a typically British fashion ‘I don’t know what you’re saying
but I’m still right’ kind of attitude. It was one of the funniest things I’ve
seen in Korea. We woke up on Sunday to discover Karl had lost his wallet and it
was most likely lost in the taxi. This story sums up why Karl is one of the
best and worst human beings I know.
Sunday’s hangover was rather bad. Two nights of drinking was taking its
toll. So what better way to get over a hangover than go to Noryangjin fish
market and eat raw fish?! There’s only one man to blame for such a silly idea
and that is James. It was really interesting as it happens. You buy your fish
from the market traders then take the fish to a restaurant to be cooked. The
fish are still alive in tiny tanks, once picked out the fish receive a
heartless blow to the head with a wooden stick, not a sight I needed to see
when I was already close to vomiting. James and Susie put a selection of fish
together which included salmon, flatfish, oysters, mussels, prawns, and live
octopus. Not your typical hangover food. For the most part it was good food, I
was slightly out of my comfort zone eating raw fish but YOLO ‘n that. The one thing
I refused to eat was the live octopus. It had gone from straight out of the
tank to cut up on a plate in a matter of minutes. When it is sliced apart the
muscles continue to twitch for an hour, I just couldn’t eat it morally. During
the meal beers and soju were ordered, this was not on my agenda for today but
it continued. I lost count of how many drinks we had during that meal.
We headed out and as we were all saying our goodbyes someone suggested
going to a noraebang (a karaoke bar). Going to a noraebang was not only not on
my agenda for that day but it was not on my agenda for the entire year. I know
I can’t sing, so why do I have to demonstrate it to my friends like I’m some delusional
X Factor contestant? Luckily my friends were there to record it. I can only
blame this misjudgement on the copious amount of alcohol consumed that weekend.
With the exception of one final error of the weekend it’s been a cracking
couple of weeks in the Land of the Morning Calm.
