club nana

dear diary…

this past week was my friend vickie's birthday. on friday morning i got an email invite about a gathering she was planning for saturday night in itaewon. nothing like last minute planning. but hey, thats why i love her. saturday was a complete lazy day for me. i left the house once in the morning to fix my mcdonalds craving. i had drank some beers with horace friday night and my body was in need of some greasy food. the rest of the day was spent doing nothing. i called vickie at one point to get the details of that evening but wasn't sure if i was going to go or not. itaewon seemed so far and the thought of trying to get home made me a bit nervous. i have yet to be out at night in seoul. usually my nights are spent in old ansan. the thought of trying to get a cab home from there didn't appeal to me. finally around 8 pm i decided to jump in the shower and just go. afterall it was vickies birthday. i figured if people were meeting at 9:30pm i could show up then, have a few drinks and then leave by midnight to catch the subway home. or worse case i find a sauna or go to a "love" motel to spend the night. what was the big deal. taking a cab by myself was still not an option because (1). it would be very expensive to get back to ansan and (2) the communication problem. the shower was definitely a good idea. i felt much more alive and was ready to go conqueor a night in itaewon. it took almost an hour and half to finally get to itaewon. when i called vickie to ask where they her she told me that they were running late. she gave me directions to the bar and told me they'd be there in 40 minutes. seeing that i'd never been to itaewon at night i decided to walk around and check things out. before i realized it 40 minutes had passed so i made my way to find club nana. finding the bar was quite easy. i walked down the steps and entered. the bar which was small was quite crowded. i looked around and saw no one. i managed to make my way to the bar. i figured i might as well start drinking. before i could order a drink a strange girl approached me and asked if i was ethan. i said "yes" and she told me that she was vickie's friend jessie. jessie was a fellow curly hair and she's a director from south africa. we grabbed a seat at the bar and ordered some drinks. it was great that i didn't have to wait alone and had a chance to talk with her one on one. she's really cool and has a great personality. later on two other people showed up fumi and ralph. fumi is half korean and half black from hawaii and ralph was a bostonian. when fumi found out i was an american she gave me a big hug and kiss. love her. we seem to be far and few inbetween here in korea. as we sat around talking a table opened up so we grabbed it. fumi ordered some shots and by this time it was 11:30pm. so much for plan one. during our conversation i mentioned how i hadn't been out in seoul before and told them my reason why. in response they were all like "don't worry about it, we'll see to it that you make it home". that was really great to hear, especially coming from people i had jsut met. i instanstly clicked with these guys. it funny how one becomes so much more outgoing when they live aboard. it was actually great talking to other people. i actually felt like i was back in san francisco. at the club they had a dj who was playing decent music. you'd be surprised at some of the crap played here. as we were gabbing away a bigger spot opened up so we decided to take that since more people were coming. vickie finally arrived around midnight or so. they rest of the evening was spent drinking and getting to know all these people. fumi and i definitely clicked. you know how you meet someone and its almost like you've known them forever. that's how it was with her. and how could i not like her. after all she said i had "fabulous hair". the one thing about korea is that there is no last call. bars stay open until the last person leaves which can be quite dangerous. before i knew it it was 3:30 am. my options were to either go to a sauna, stay out until 5:30 am when the subway starts or cab it. fumi, ralph, and elly were getting ready to leave too so they said i should ride with them to sanbon and leave take a cab to ansan. problem solved. at sanbon i switched to a different cab since our original driver didn't want to go to ansan. fumi walked over with me and everything was sent to go. i said goodbye and jumped in. we didn't even get to the end of the block when the driver pulled over and started talking korean to me. i tried to explain that i didn't understand and kept telling him "ansan bus terminal". he continued to talk to me while the cab remained motionless. i pulled out my business card and pointed to where i wanted to go. this little non-conversation went on for awhile. finally he picked up the phone and called the station. as talked with them he mentioned homeplus which is by the bus terminal. i immediately said yes "homeplus". he got off the phone and smiled. i finally arrived at homeplus around 5 am. at one point he drove right pass it and i had to tell him to turn around. taking cabs here is definitely an experience. the walk back to my apartment was cold. all i wanted to do at this point was sleep. next time i going to have to figure out a good landmark closer to my building or at least figure out my building's name. that might be even better. it's always an adventure here. be well…