Happy New Year, 2012

I decided to go with Liezle and Anna to Busan for New Year's. I didn't really want to do the whole bar/club scene, because I've done that before and it is always sort of a let down, but honestly I didn't want to be by myself or sitting in a coffee shop or something either. My favorite New Years are the ones where I'm at home with either family or friends, playing games and laughing. I don't need a club to do that. One of the best times I've had was with my mom and sister playing Family Feud and making Holly laugh so hard she peed her pants. So my expectations for the weekend weren't that high. Not to mention the night before I went to Liezle's apartment where she and Anna were trying on cutesy dresses and I had already decided that I wasn't going to get that dressed up, so then I felt slightly awkward.

Anyway, we left around noon on Saturday and met Dan and his co-worker Hyo (rhymes with Go) at the bus station. When we got to Busan, Liezle and I had an armpit session, so we left the rest of the group to go and find a hotel. There was some confusion because we had hoped to stay in a swanky hotel or possibly at Dan's aunt's house, but those didn't work out. When we finally got to where they were, everyone was in kind of a pissy mood. We (Liezle and I) didn't want to spend alot of money on a hotel and we knew of a cheap place to go. They (the rest of the group) didn't really care about money and booked a different place. So then we split up and just got our own place to stay.

We stayed at the Full House Motel. It was decent, especially for the price. At least it was clean.  It was also so warm that I didn't need a blanket which was good because Liezle, Vera and I shared one, which means I didn't have any covers anyway!

The excellent view from our hotel window. Trash! I could reach out and touch that balcony if I had wanted to. I didn't.

Everything ended up fine and we all went to lunch at a Mexican place called "Fuzzy Navels". I got an avocado and chicken burrito and it was pretty good, but slightly overpriced. Dan, Liezle, Anna and Hyo split a pitcher of Long Island Iced tea, but I stuck with margaritas. We met another friend randomly in the restaurant and hung out with him for awhile. We played a round of darts (I won) then moved on to another bar. We ended up at Thursday Party (it's a chain bar) and played 2 rounds of beer pong. It was pretty fun, but Anna and Liezle wouldn't drink the beer, so Hyo and I ended up drinking a lot of it.

Christmas decorations at Thursday Party.

Bear on the ceiling. Not sure why.

After beer pong we left and went to dinner. We played some drinking games and Hyo taught us some Korean swears (although I don't really remember them now). He had about a bottle of soju to himself and was really drunk. At one point he got all confused and said, "I don't know if I should be speaking English or Korean!" after asking the waiter for something in English. We took him back to the hotel and then everyone got dressed to go out. Vera, who was staying with me and Liezle, came and got ready with us.

Dinner. It's really thin slices of pork. It cooks super fast and is pretty good.

Playing chopsticks

Cooking the meat and some bean sprouts (and garlic on the left side)

Then we went to a bar called Wolfhounds. It was kind of expensive so we didn't stay for long. We saw some other Jinju people there and chatted for awhile. Then we left and went to a club(ish) called Billie Jean's. There was a band playing and they were ok, but not really the vibe we were looking for. I went to the bathroom and when I came back, Dan and Anna had decided to leave, Liezle had ordered a drink and was on the verge of tears and Vera was staying out of it. My only requests as far as clubs went was not to pay cover and to be with people at midnight. It was 5 minutes until midnight when Dan and Anna left.

Midnight was a little anti-climatic for me. There was a count down, but no ball drop, no balloons, no confetti or hats or horns or auld lang syne. I had bought a calling card earlier that night to try and call my siblings and/or mom, but it wouldn't work (it later took my bosses 10 minutes to figure out how to use it, which included calling customer service, a switch of phone numbers and a 3 am call to my sister - sorry Holly!). When I went back in the bar, we decided to play some pool. While we were playing, a random Korean guy wanted to play with us. I was so tired at that point that I could barely keep my eyes open. I had worn my contacts so my eyes were even more tired. The guy was a little creepy and we decided to leave pool and go dancing. On the dance floor we met up with a friend from another city. We danced for awhile and then Vera and I almost fell asleep sitting on bar stools, so we decided to leave. Liezle joined us about 30 minutes or so later. We chatted for a bit then fell asleep.

Busan Christmas lights. It looked like there was a whole display but nobody else wanted to go see it with me. Nerds.

The next morning, Dan, Anna and Hyo came over while we were still getting ready. They left to get some breakfast and to try and go shopping because Dan wanted pants. The original plan was to meet up with them, but I didn't want soup (which they did - it is a popular Korean breakfast. There is even a soup called 'hangover' soup. It's gross. I wanted pancakes, but that didn't happen.) so Liezle and I went somewhere else. We were both really tired and decided to just go home. We fell asleep on the way home and took naps at our apartments. Then we met up with Anna and had dinner. It was an ok weekend. I was glad I wasn't alone, we had a few laughs, but overall I think I am pretty much done with the "party" scene. I'm not saying I won't go out again, but I like other types of bars and activities. I really like beer pong, pool and darts, but I don't like smokey, loud dance clubs anymore. I think I need to be doing something to really enjoy bars and dancing only cuts it for a little while.

I included this Advent calendar here only because I bought it the day after Christmas and ate it the day after New Year's (with some help). Also, it's weird. There is no cat in Christmas stories. Weird Norwegians (at least I think that's who made it).