Club Cucumber and Feisty Grandma and the Underground Maze

Friday night, we headed to the local bar for our usual after-work beer. We never plan it, but I guess everyone’s got “I Need A Drink” printed on their forehead. Well, who doesn’t? After five days of “Teacher! Teacher! Teacher!”, even the most patient, child-loving person would want to pluck any 10 year old from their ADHD infested classrooms and gladly strangle them. I love my kids, but 5 days is just too much. Sometimes it makes me think that I’ll be an awful parent. Surely I can’t just see my own children once a week, right? So I often tell myself that if I vent all my hatred out now, all that I’ll have left for my own kids would be love. Ha! (ok, don’t judge me now)

Anyways, back to Friday night…..

After a few drinks we headed out to a club in SongNokSu called Club Cucumber. Yep, you read it right the first time. Apparently, weird club names are very common…Right next to Club Cucumber was Club Pumpkin and I’ve come across Club Shampoo and Superdome and Club Banana (just to name a few….) On Friday nights they have a special event called the Sexy Dance Competition where people can go on stage and pull some moves and maybe win 300 dollars. It started really fun, the DJ was good and he was quite sexy. Until he started stripping…ok, so it seems that DJs in Korea are also part dancers, comedians, MCs, AND strippers? And they have their own fan group hovering around the stage and shrieking as the shirt comes off……hm… and then the weirdest part comes. The sexy dance is obviously rigged, as one girl gets completely naked. Yup. butt naked. Talking about butt…..her butt was darker than the rest of her body. Ew~ And she was the most un-graceful stripper ever…she had a hand propped on the wall as she hopped around on one leg yanking her jeans off. So after a quick strip-off, and a bit of butt wriggling, she disappears off into the back and was never seen again that night. The host announces that she wins and it was back to dancing for us.

After a long night of dancing, with sore feet we hailed a taxi and went home. But of course, with AJ, a stop at maccas was inevitable. So at 5 am, we had our orange juices and bacon egg mcmuffins. Sadly, the bacon here tastes awful….so chewy and hard, sometimes I think it’s actually beef jerky instead. 

The next day around 12 noon, Ethan wakes me up with a phone call “Are you still sleeping?” “Yes…” “Ok, go back to sleep then.” And he hangs up. Great. Now I’m awake. I wonder why people do that? They call you and wake you up and then don’t tell you the reason why they called and hang up and expect you to go back to sleep. As I was drifting off, my phone goes off again. It’s a message from Audrey asking me to go Dream Coffee. It’s bright and the sun’s pouring into my apartment. What the heck. I need a coffee. So I rolled out of bed (literally, because I’m only sleeping on a mattress on the floor at the moment….since I haven’t got a sofa yet, this is my make-do sofa bed), brushed my teeth, threw on a cap and some jeans and down I went. I loved Dream Coffee. First off, it’s in my building so it’s so close. Second, they serve a fantastic array of coffee - ranging from Jamaican to South African to the plain ol’Americano. And they have oversized gree velvety plush chairs. And they play jazz. AND the lady is super nice. Anyways, at Dream Coffee I met Audrey and her friend Megan. Interestingly enough, I remember Megan from a brief encounter at Homeplus (the nearby supermarket). I remember this girl saying she loved chocolate coated biscuits and that she’s addicted to them and I remember thinking in my head ”how could she be so skinny still?” Sometimes, I think the world really is a small place. Yet, there’s so much to do and see and so, I think I am really really really small.

The girls were meeting up a friend in Seoul and Grace was to take me shopping so we said our goodbyes and part our ways. I met up with Grace and we walked to the Jung An train station. It was quite a ride. I mean, it did take a good part of the hour but we were listening to her iPod and the music was like a re-run of last night’s clubbing experience. As we neared our destination…I encountered something that is definitely a first for me. I saw a bitch fight. Not just any ordinary bitch fight. But a grandma vs. ajuma fight…..

There was an ajuma standing in front of where I was sitting on the train. She was probably in her 40s and was holding shopping bags. Next to her was two old grandma ladies. As Grace and I got up to leave, and the ajuma was about to sit, the two grandma’s stepped in and sat down AND hogged the other free seat and motioned for their friend to sit. An old man comes to sit and he smiles and apologizes to the ajuma and the ajuma mumbled something along the lines of them being rude (translated by Grace). And so Grandma 1 (the one who stole the seat AND hogged the other seat) got up and yanked at the ajuma’s arm loudly saying “oh i’m so sorry, you sit then.” So there was a bit of pushing and pulling and a whole lot of arguing when the ajuma pushed the grandma really hard into the seat. Then the unexpected happens. The Grandma gets up and swings a blow at the ajuma. Taken back, the ajuma flings her shopping bags and handbags at the grandma and there is a bit of hair pulling and handbags flying. Alas, the train stopped so we quickly hopped off. I couldn’t believe it. I hope nobody got hurt. I’ve never seen such feisty women before, let along a Grandma!! And I had thought MY grandma was a scary lady…. not anymore….not in Korea, in the least. It just strikes me because there is so much cultural norms about being respectful and this happens? So weird…….

But I didn’t think about that for too long. Well, I didn’t have much time to. I was too busy taking in everything, there was soooo much to see. I was in the Gangnam Terminal Underground Shopping Centre. It was a whole shopping district underground! It was huge and there was shop upon shop of shoes, jewellery, skirts, jackets, jeans, tops, more shoes and more jewellery. I was in shopping paradise. Not only was everything cheap, but there was so much stuff and….there was so much stuff! We got lost a couple of times, it’s definitely a maze down there. But I must say, it was one of the best shopping places ever!! I love to touch and feel and look at every little thing and this is the place to find everything you need. They even sell plants and art pieces down to silverware and toilet paper! I loved it!!!

Funny thing was, Audrey and her friend ended up at the same place too. But since it was so big, we wouldn’t have seen each other! See what I mean about the world being small? Yet incredibly huge at the same time…. contradictory I know, but that’s just what I feel.