AG: Just Say Yes

I try to live my life according to the phrase "Just say yes" (within reason) and I find overall it works out for me, especially in my travels. Last night was a perfect example of this.

It started off on Thursday when my school's art teacher asked what I was doing on Saturday and we made plans. Now her English is very bad so all I got out of it was; she will be picking me up at 630pm, we will be going to an event that had to do with music with her friends, we will drink afterwards. ...OK!

She picks me up, we meet up with her friends, I introduce myself as Min-ji (my Korean name and what they called me for the rest of the night) and we go to a traditional Korean cultural show. Other than the fact I did not understand a word said in that entire show, I really enjoyed it! There was a mini Korean musical that I totally zoned out for because I just could not understand but all of the other dancing, singing, and musical instrument displays were really cool and now I really want to learn a traditional Korean dance. Also half way through the show cute little Korean kids in traditional outfits started handing out gifts to the older generation, I wanted one!!!! but alas I wasn't old enough.

After the performance my teacher friend (its soo sad but I have no idea what her name is! I've just been using pet names like Unni, big sister, or girly) gave me a super cute purse and coin purse THAT SHE MADE!! *floored* and then we went to go eat my favorite food sushi!!!! But this was nothing like the sushi I'm use to. It was served very Korean style with a bunch of little dishes for everyone to share and some of the weirdest foods I've ever seen like this:

So on the left is the same type of silk worm larvae  from my first day in Korea, tried it again and its still bad. But in the center is the crazy one. LIVE OCTOPUS. If this had been a video you would of seen it moving, I was in utter shock when they brought this dish out but then I thought "Just Say Yes" and went to grab a small piece. While trying to control the thing with my chop sticks Teacher shoves a huge piece in my mouth. O_O To be honest, once I got past the whole "Oh shit its moving in my mouth!!!" thought it actually tasted pretty good. Much better then the larvae for sure.

So late night dinner was awesome! Everyone there was over 40 and they could only speak vague English but had a lot of fun teasing me for my lack of Koreaness and were super sweet. The guy who spoke the best English (and I'm pretty sure paid for everything) I was told to call Mr. Moon and he was the producer of the cultural show and Mrs. Moon was the shows host. I thought it was pretty cool to get drunk with them, oh, I forgot to mention, I out drank 40 something year old Koreans last night... I can either be very proud of this or check myself into AA. I believe I'm still young enough to be proud, please dont judge me too hard.

Speaking of drinking, after sushi we went to a bar around the corner owned by one of their artist friends and drank...more. Korean social culture is very centered around drinking and I'm so glad I'm not a lightweight, but teacher was!!! She kept getting into banters with her artist friend because he kept hitting on me (and probably saying inappropriate things but I couldn't understand so I let it go) and she defended me quite well. After we were done with the bar everyone was quite sloshed and Mr. Moon decided to give out the left over gifts from the show giving me a boy and a girl one, then everyone else gave me theirs! I now have too many of them, YAY!

So what do Koreans do when they are drunk? NORIBONG!! and of course more drinking. They made me sing my favorite kpop song 2NE1's I'm the Best by myself. It's mostly in Korea, I got 98% on it. Yeah I'm the BEST! Finally around 2am the Mr. & Mrs. Moon took me home after inviting me to their place for next weekend.

MY NIGHT SHOULD OF BEEN OVER AT THAT POINT!!!
but nooooo I had to go on facebook and message my best friend in Korea, Monica saying I got home. She writes back that her sister is in labor and she is soon going to be an aunt and I need to pick up some beer and celebrate with her.
Just Say Yes.
So I go to her place and wait with her till her sister gave birth. While waiting I meet/talk to pretty much her entire family and a few friends while she is making celebration drinks. Around 4am we get the call from her brother in law and the complete awe and wonder in his voice when he talked about his new son was the most touching thing. I don't even know these people and I was just as excited as Monica and everyone else. It was amazing.

So at 430am I stumble home positively emotional, drunk, and exhausted, finally putting an end to one of the most epic nights in Korea so far.

All just because I said Yes.