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Wednesday, May 11, 2011

"There's no half-singing in the shower....

.... you're either a rock star or an opera diva." - Josh Groban

The same is true in the Noribang! aka Karaoke bar. In Korea, there are two types of Noribang (unless there's another out there that's hiding it's awesomeness from me). The first type is like Karaoke in the US. A big room, lots of strangers, and a waiting list to sing your song. The second type is a private room for you and your friends. You rent it by the hour. You get to choose the songs and you can order food and drinks, mainly drinks.

The second type is the type we've been going to with friends, and I've got to say I like it a lot more then the first type! It makes me wish Steph Sortwell was here to go Karaoke-ing with me!
Our little room with Karaoke machine. Shannon singing his heart out.

Sing your hearts out boys! Notice the beers, popcorn and tambourines, yep, that's right, tambourines. And we used them! (come on, some songs you just have to)
From left to right: Wayne, Eric, Andy, Doug and Shannon!

The comfy bench seats and big table are awesome.

Some stuff you should know when going to a Noribang: Some Noribangs are like the ones we've been to. Dirty dive bars in basements where not many women hang out. Some are really high class and flashy. I assume the high class ones cost a lot more. The basement ones (depending on location) cost about $20-$30/hr, not bad for 5-6 people. I assume the flashy ones would have a real toilet.... the basement dives don't, get ready to squat girls! 

Girls, that's another thing. I've heard some tales. We were offered a "cheerleader" one night for 20,000W, we said no thanks and didn't ask very many questions. I recently heard a story about a "cheerleader" at a Noribang, taking her top off and having zipper panties if you get my drift. I don't think this is typical for all Noribangs, I think it's just our luck. lol. 

That's all my insights on Noribangs for now, I'll update this if I learn any new fun factoids.

This was Friday night, before this we had gotten some Fried chicken and beer for dinner, then we went to a popular bar at Haeundae beach called the Fuzzy Navel, then the Noribang, then....
well, we had been drinking for a while at this point and we heard that there was a red light district close by and we were curious. Now that I'm sober, I'm a little horrified. We just went and looked, no STD's here, thank you. But still, these were genuine brothels with girls selling their bodies. Prostitution is illegal in Korea, but it's obviously not enforced. I was too nervous to take pictures (even drunk), but I wish I had so you could see something of what I saw.

After that, we went to one last place, it was 2am by this point and we were late night hungry. So we went and got this awesome pizza thing and talked about what we had seen. And drank some more. I didn't get into bed until 5am Saturday, which is the longest I've been up in a looooong time.
Pizza (more like bread with onions and stuff on it), edamame, and bowls of Maccoli (The milky looking substance).

Wayne drove home because he didn't drink hardly at all, but if he hadn't been able to drive, we would have called a "Representative Driver". This is an awesome service. You call a number, a guy get's dropped off and drives your vehicle home for you. So you don't have to leave your car somewhere, get a taxi and come back for it tomorrow. This awesome service would have cost us about 30,000W from Haeundae to our apartment complex. Not bad to split between 6 people!

That's the end of our Friday night out. I can't wait till our next Karaoke adventure, but I can do without the red light district next time.

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