after the delicious meal of korean food, it was still only around 10:30p and we were up for doing something else. we all thought going to korean karaoke, or 노래방(noraebang), would be a lot of fun, but we didn't know where one was located. chris had the idea of asking a group of koreans who were standing outside the restaurant if they new where a noraebang was located nearby. so he and i walked up to them and at first he asked in english. a few girls recoiled with fear at the prospect of having to converse in english all of a sudden. one of the guys with them who i guess was more confident in english stepped up and we asked again, but this time i asked also in korean (노래방 어디 있어요?). they were delighted that we wanted to go to noraebang and replied enthusiastically that they too were going there and they'd take us with them!

their group split up somewhat as some of them i suppose were driving there, but they explained that we could walk there and we joined the few of them who were walking. they were very nice to let us tag along, we were lucky to have met them. a really cute girl in their group started talking to me about how did i speak korean, and i started telling her about how i lived in korea and all that. we had a nice chat along the way, and at one point she even said i was handsome (although having apparently never been told that before i didn't understand the word in korean she used). well now the night was really picking up. she told me her name was 미선 (misun) and that she'd been in new york studying film since september. along the way we stopped while someone got or gave directions by cell phone, so misun got a picture of us all.

once we arrived at the noraebang there was a bit of a wait to get rooms so we just hung out in the lobby chatting more. they explained that they all worked at a korean bookstore in queens and they were out for a work dinner (회�, hwae shik). i wasn't sure what the deal was, if we were going to al get in the same room together to sing, or if we'd have separate rooms. i mean, they said we could come along with them, but i didn't know how far that went.

finally rooms were available and the boss from the book store arranged our room for us, but my friends and i were in our own room just next to their room. so we said thanks and ducked into our room for some singing entertainment.

i started off with bon jovi's i'll be there for you my gold standard every since they took huey lewis and the news' power of love (yes, the song from back to the future) out of the books. chris had some great performances, my favorite of the night being an excellent rendition of guns 'n roses' welcome to the jungle. beth rocked out to metallica's enter sandman and alanis morissette's you oughta know. litza had some good ones but with apologies, i can't remember the titles. i also performed some of my usual selections like the spice girls' wannabe and lou reed's perfect day. we had a blast, there's noraebang is really great fun when you're with some close and true friends where you can totally cut loose and have a good time without worrying about whether or not you can carry a tune.

after about an hour and a half we were all losing our voices and decided it was time to get going. after paying i thought we should stop in a say thanks and goodbye to our korean hosts who helped us find the place. i knocked on their door and as soon as they saw us they let out a great cheer and ushered us into their room for further singing, drinking, and partying. they ordered another round of alcoholic drinks 소주(soju) and 복분� (bokbunja), which they happily and generously shared with us.

there were six koreans in the room, only two of which unfortunately whose names i got, misun and angela. their manager (from here on to be known as wife) brought along her fun-loving husband (aka drunk husband). along with the boss there was one other happy guy partying with the four of us.

it was around this time, after having been there maybe fifteen or twenty minutes that drunk husband seemed to start earning his title. it wasn't a problem really, except that he took a liking to both litza and beth, who found his advances more and more difficult to avoid. they tried pointing out to him that his wife was present in the hopes that would deter him, but that had no effect. wife wasn't ignorant to the situation either, she rolled her eyes and dismissed his actions with a carefree wave of the hand. those are the circumstances that led to the following priceless photo.

the party was winding down and i'm sure beth and litza were only too happy to skip out of there before drunk husband got any more out of hand. we got this last picture and then after having hung out for around a half hour headed on our way.

ever see the seinfeld episode called the stakeout? it was actually the second ever episode to air in the first season. jerry meets a woman at a birthday party and they kind of have a connection but before long she has to get going. so then they sort of have this sad goodbye moment where it's clear they're both interested in one another but there's no chance to make anything of it and in a flash she's gone. here's a clip of it, skip to 4:00 for the whole scene, or 6:35 for the quick but sad goodbye.

so that's basically what happened with misun and i. there seemed to be something there, but i was only in town for three days so i figured where could it go? i had to get going, so we said our quick but sad goodbye and my friends and i started walking out. but before we got much farther misun came after me and hugged me. well, after that i couldn't just leave so we went to the front desk and borrowed some paper and a pen and exchanged emails and phone numbers. we hugged again and then i joined my friends on the stairs and left after having had a really fun evening.

tagged: korean karaoke noraebang partying singing soju