10 Days In Korea: Day 2: More Food, Family, and Partying

We woke up around 10:30 am and hung around the room for a while to recuperate. We left the Notinghill Motel at around lunch time and got some sandwiches at the local liquor store. We then went to find a coffee house to use wireless internet. We didn't find any that allowed that, so we went to a PC bang and made some calls, posted blogs and checked email.

We called Ki Young at 2 pm and found out that he had been waiting for us with his dad for over an hour. We left the PC bang and hurried back to meet them. We ate lunch with them at a nearby restaurant. The meal was a ramyun type meal with sausages and vegetables in it. It's said to help people recover from, and to prepare for another night of drinking.

At 3:30 pm we said our goodbyes to Ki Young's dad (Joe's uncle) and left to sightsee and exchange the rest of our money.

We arrived in Namdaemun around 4:00 and saw the original gate to South Korea and a street market where we would exchange our money.

There was a lady in the middle of the market with tons of cash in a little purse and a calculator. (Alex couldn't exchange his travelers' checks .. Sucka!) Ki Young bought us a t-shirt and honey water drinks ( they were too sweet.. but it's said to help with hangovers)

We left the ghetto street market and headed to a more tourist-y fashion market Myung Dong (sp?) We walked around a bit and eventually met up with Ki Young's girlfriend. We quickly left the area because it was too cold to stand around outside.

We ran into tons of traffic on the way back so we decided to nap in the car. We got back to the Motel at 8:15 pm.. (1.5 hours later!) Ki Young told us he'd be back to pick us up at 9:30 pm to take us to dinner with more family. We took a nap and watched some Starcraft on the gaming channel.

We were picked up at about 9:40 pm by Joseph's aunt, uncle, cousin YunHee and her younger brother Jin Heok. Ki Young and his friends Baek Du and Jae Wu were also there. We went to a nice restaurant to eat from a giant platter and drink from a community water bowl. (Korean Family style eating) We played some Titanic at the restaurant which amused the family some. Joseph's second cousin Un jeon arrived a little later.

We left the restaurant at around midnight and were looking for something else to do.. since it was too early to go booking ("night") the family decided to take us to a small diner called "Beer Cabin". We drank some more and met Joseph's other second cousin (who is 4 years old) and his mother.

Things started to wind down for the rest of the family at about 2 am. (YunHee and Un Jeon were both too tired/drunk to go out with us). We said our goodbyes and Ki Young and his friends took us to go booking. We arrived at the club at 2:30 am and got a nice room. We proceeded to drink Imperial whiskey and hite.

There was alot dancing, singing and drinking going on. Alex and I realized how hard it is to book girls when you can't speak any Korean. Ki Young's girlfriend came later with a friend and we all hung out til about 6 am.