Noraebang

Last night (Saturday) I went out for my first night on the town in Seoul. It was one of the foreign teachers' birthday (she's Canadian) so about 6 of the teachers went out with our supervisor Angie. We went to dinner at a kalbi barbeque. Each table has a grill on it and you are given strips of beef to cook yourself. In addition to the beef, you get garlic, mushrooms, and a bunch of side dishes: kimchi (the national side dish of Korea--which really means any side dish but most often includes fermented cabbage), lettuce to wrap the beef in, and different seasonings and sauces to dip the beef in. It was an awesome meal. After that, we went to a noraebang (sounds like noribong). This is Korean karaoke. If you have seen "Lost in Translation", it's exactly like the karaoke they do in that movie. You go in with a group of friends and order a room. It's $15-$20 an hour. There were 7 rooms in the place. These rooms are roughly 7x7, so rather small, with benches lining either side. There is a huge screen on the back wall that provides the words to the songs you choose to sing, as well as what looked to be a Korean American Idol going on in the backdrop. There are 2 microphones in each room. Also, there is no drinking at noraebang but of coure, some of the foreign teachers snuck in some beer, so you can feasibly get away with it. It was hilarious. Their songbooks are really thick, with a good selection of English music as well as Korean (of course). I did a duet of "Picture" (Sheryl Crow and Kid Rock) with one of the foreign teachers, as well as "Patience" (Guns N' Roses). Since I was already losing my voice (a cold due to adjusting), it doesn't sound so great today. Anyway, it was a blast, we stayed there until 3a.m.