Spicy Quinnchi!: Booze cruise, noraebang, bomb shots, and Nami Island.....just another Teachers Field Trip

The week leading up to Mud Fest, my school had a field trip for the teachers. They told me a few weeks prior that I would be going on an overnight trip to some lake in Namyangju (east of Seoul....Sammy and B represent). That's all they really told me. That and the fact that my vice principal (the booze hound that he is) would try and get me really drunk. That might sound weird to some, but it's rather common practice here in Korea (see: earlier post). After eating lunch on Thursday, all the teachers got ready to board our coach bus. But not before grabbing a mini keg, 4 cases of beer, 2 cases of soju, and many bags of chips.

"This is for tonight?" I asked my buddy Oo June.
"Oh no. This is for the bus ride," he replied.
Jeeeeez. These people are ridiculous and I love them for that. As each teacher boarded the bus they were given a coffee drink. 20 minutes later each teacher is handed a beer. 20 minutes later each teacher is handed some chips. Like clockwork. Any time you wanted a beer, someone was willing and ready to grab one. We didn't go through all of the beer but, yikes, the teachers of Young Seong Middle know how to have a good time!

The first place we got out at was Cheongpyeong Lake, a manmade lake of the Bukhangang River. It rained cats and dogs so we all waited under a canopy for our boat to arrive. I helped carry the mini keg onto the boat and we took off. 20 minutes and a Krombacher draft later, the rain subsided and many of us went on the upper deck to check out the sights and take photos...

Waiting for the boat

Oo June and the VP

After the booze cruise pregame, we boarded the bus and headed to our next destination: the Garden of Morning Calm. The rain started up again when we got there, but I feel like every beautiful Asian garden has mist and drizzle at all times. Apparently, Morning Calm is the oldest private garden in Korea. It attracts some 600,000 tourists every year. We only spent about an hour walking around, but it was pretty cool.

The ladies and I

After Morning Calm, we drive a short distance to our restaurant. The rain was full on torrential downpour at this time. I sat down next to Jimi, my main co-teacher, far away from the soju instigator, i.e. the vice principal. After putting down some bossam, or steamed pork slices, the VP had me in his soju sights and requested for me to join his table. I wouldn't return. Shot. Makgeolli. Shot. Shot. Bomb shot. Makgeolli. Bomb shot. Bomb shot. Bomb shot. Things started getting messy. Apparently in Korea, every man has his "number" when it comes to drinking. The "number" is the amount of soju bottles you can consume in 1 night. I don't exactly know how many hours "a night" constitutes but regardless, most Korean men have a number. They compare them like a bunch of teenagers. Anyways, my VP's number is in the double digits. The dude can drink. He warned me back at our last teacher dinner that we would be taking a lot of bomb shots. He wasn't lying.

If I wasn't being force fed soju or bomb shots by the VP, I was having conversations with teachers who pretend not to speak any English at school (per usual). Nothing new there though. I remember the Spanish skills being much better after a few fernet y colas. Here are some photos of the dinner (but mainly just the drinking parts).

Now that the night was in full swing, we got back on the bus and headed for the hotel. Not to finish the night though of course. Only to drop our bags off before continuing the night at a noraebang in the basement of the hotel. The room was huge. Easily big enough to hold all ~40 of us. As we all sat down, some teachers were shuffling around making sure each area had beer, soju, watermelon, and other snacks. You could tell it wasn't their first rodeo. I sang 2 songs that night. I tried picking songs that (a) I've sung before (b) were familiar to Korean ears and (c) easy to sing by myself. My first choice was "Summer Love" from Grease. A fellow English teacher took the Olivia Newton John lines and it turned out pretty well. Feeling confident, my second choice was "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen. Criteria (a) and (b) were satisfied, but boy is that song tough to sing solo. The whole scalamoosh scalamoosh and let me go! parts were awfully difficult. I was also able to take some photos with the Principal and VP so I'm stoked about that. After a few hours of crooning, the VP grabbed the mic and told us if we wanted to continue the party then we should move upstairs to the party suite the school booked for the night. It was about 2am at this point. I obviously went to the suite to continue the night with about 7 other troopers. At about 4am I started dozing off and Oo June, the good dude he is, prepared a bed for me in one of the suite's rooms. This worked out nice because I was supposed to sleep with 4 other ajusshis in a much smaller room. Now I had a room to myself. Here are some photos from this part of the night.

"Summer Love"

Ajusshi Love

My bro Oo June

Looking for a good one

Bohemian Rhapsody

VP telling us to move upstairs

The party suite

View from the party suite

Post is starting to get a little on the long side so I'm going to start to "Winehouse" it (too soon?). The next morning I was woken up by the VP (slightly awkward) and we went to breakfast. Nothing quite beats pungent, fermented Korean bean soup at 8 in the morning (not true). After breakfast, we went to Nami Island, which is famous for being the site of a famous Korean Drama (soap opera) named Winter Sonata. The 1 season it aired was fairly popular in Korea, but exploded in other Asian countries such as Japan and Thailand, turning the 2 main actors into millionaires almost overnight. The majority of the tourists therefore were not Korean. Here are some photos.