The trouble with soju

July 3

My first (real, Korean) meal out takes places, with Anna and Amber from work. Previously, I had been eating only the pre-prepared meat and sushi-type foods from the grocery store. Especially convenient, because after 9:00 these delicious treats are 50% off – and I get off work at 8:50, just enough time to make it to the store for the bargains. Anyway, on the way home from work, the girls decided they wanted to try to restaurant across the street from the block out building is home. I wanted to go home to change my clothes first, because, since I’m still not quite accustomed to the heat and humidity, I had probably sweated through my shirt. Plus, if I was going to make new friends, I wanted to make a good impression, not go around in my grody work clothes. So I go home and change, and then find the way to the restaurant (all by myself!), only to find that Anna and Amber had sat at a table with two other guys… OK… So I went over and said hi, and immediately knew how awkward I was going to be for all parties. Oh well, they invited me first. Anyway, one guy was Korean and one was Russian, Anna is Polish, Amber is American, and I’m Canadian, so we were working the multi-culti at that table. The girls were just eating the food that the guys already had, since you just cook the meat on your table top; they invited me to do the same (this meant that they were going to pay for it too – BONUS!).

Then they got out the soju…

I had heard of soju. Brittany and Alaina had some a few nights before, and they told me that it tasted like watered-down vodka. So, I figured that it was actually similar to vodka, only…you know… watered down. Only later did I find out that soju can be up to 45% (!!) alcohol. But I drank it is if it was, in fact, watered down, since no one told me differently. After several shots at the restaurant, we went to a bar down the street somewhere. This part I seem to have forgotten, except that Amber stopped to have her picture taken with some chicken. Then at the bar I had some more soju, and there was some sort of food dish made with hotdogs – which apparently became quite popular in Korea after the war, when all that the refugees could find in the military bases were hotdogs, and for some reason people still eat them all the time, as if they’re actual food. So after a few more shots, I declared that I thought it was about time I went home, and left. By myself (which means, I guess, that they paid for my drinks too – suckers). Now, I had only been in my apartment for a few days, and still had trouble finding it stone sober, in the daylight. And somehow I managed to get home, in the middle of the night and more than a little tipsy. I did manage, however to fall on the sidewalk, and rip the new pants I had worn “to make a good impression.”

Oops.