Hyejin's Birthday

Today was Hyejin's Birthday. She is the girlfriend of Wesley that I work with at GnB. Tonight we went to the bar right near Haeundae beach called U2 for her birthday. Hyejin is a unique Korean girl. She is very outgoing and a bit rebellious when it comes to women here. She is a blast to hang out with and she speaks very good English
As I said, we started the night at U2 and met a bunch of Hyejin’s Korean friends. Everyone was very inviting and we soon had drink flowing from everyone’s cups. Us English speaking folk may not have been able to communicate well with the locals but there is one language that everyone seems to speak. Drunken dancing. Soon we were all requesting songs and urging each other onto the cramped dance floor. There truly aren’t many social barriers when people are dancing. We all move differently but we can all relate through common things like these. Singing happy birthday in our own languages, dancing and sharing good company.
We gathered around Hyejin’s cake and lit sparklers as we sang. Many good photographs come from these moments. People stuffing cake in their faces, sparklers dangerously drifting through the air. The Camera was hijacked at one point and Westerners and Koreans alike began to take prank pictures. The old “I’m Squishing Your Head with My Fingers” optical illusion seems to be cross cultural as well.
Soon we parted with many of the Korean friends that had to be back home earlier than the rest of our rag-tag crew. We took a taxi to the Kyungsung area and went to the Vinyl Underground. A seething pit of a bar, the two times I have been there, that is located in the basement of a building. The tow times I have been there it has been packed from shoulder to shoulder and no standing room at the bar. They also play house music most of the time and have arrhythmic DJ’s… le sigh. This was fun for a bit but then something went wrong. Perhaps it was the mass amount of people writhing around in the place. People always look, to me, like reptiles carelessly crawling over one another in these situations. Or perhaps it was the Jumbo Cass Red(6.9% alc.) that Ashley, Hyejin and I split… and I had to chug the last quarter of… that was causing a sudden feeling of uneasiness. Oh, let’s be honest it was probably both combined with a healthy(?) dash of crappy house music. The group was beginning to overload and the next thing I knew, much to my relief, we were leaving.
In the cab ride back I don’t remember too much except that I really didn’t want to talk to much. I was in the misty cloud realm of Cass Red… and not in a good way. People would ask me questions only to receive the Korean Ne(Yes) or Annio(No). I’m not entirely sure why but it seemed to amuse the other passengers.
We made it back in one piece and I managed to get to my apartment door. I tried my door code about thirty times before I got it correct. This probably pissed my neighbors off to no end. Instead of keys we have electronic door codes to open our apartment doors. These keypads beep relatively loud with each press of a button. So thirty attempts to get in times six button presses per try equals about one hundred and eighty electronic beeps at three in the morning. It’s alright because the next day I would learn to ascribe to a ban, no exceptions, on Cass and all of it’s inferior faux beer products.

Pusan, South Korea