It's over it's over it's over it's over

This could be the penultimate post on this thing. Depends what I feel like.

Said goodbye to the kids yesterday. Nearly killed me.

Then there was a party, with beer, Jaegermeister, cigars and free champagne provided by the phenomenal staff at Metropolis bar. Nearly killed me.

Then, I was nearly killed. By a psychopathic cleaning lady. Here's what happened: I (used to) live on the third floor and not once did I get the lift up those two flights of stairs (I would talk at length about the elevatorial habits of people here but I'll keep it short (as I'm in parentheses). It's customary in Korea to use the lift to go up or even down a single floor regardless of age or physical prowess. Westerners too. These people are just lazy in my opinion.) Anyway, this afternoon I tried to ascend the stairs but my path was blocked by an ajuma, a cleaning wench. She was scrubbing a stair. I'd already reached the second floor and she was between me and my apartment. I made to climb over the step she was working on and she freaked out, just flipped. She threw her sponge at me and I almost fell. We exchanged angry mutually incomprended words for a bit until security came and I relented. I used the motherfucking elevator.

Not wanting to end on a downer, here's a video. This is the first time I've used windows movie maker, probably shows. Anyway, enjoy.

Metropolis

A couple of months ago, we found the perfect bar. After months of searching, months of endless Hite and Cass on tap, months of enduring fireshows and dicks on both sides of the bar, months of bartenders unable to understand you due both to language barriers and painfully loud, awful music, months of vain attempts to watch live sport - essentially months of inadequate drinking, we discovered a gem. It's in Nowon - a five minute bike ride away - serves real beer, has darts, foosball, quiz machine, big screens, sensibly-volumed music (that patrons can request), live sport, toilets, everything.

When we made our first few trips there the owner was manning the fort by himself, and we were his main customers. He speaks perfect English, and we got ingratiated quickly, helped by the continuous flow of won we were thrusting at him. I like to think our business helped to keep him afloat in those first few weeks. Right now, as the place is thriving, I like to think we're putting his kids through college. As of today they're employing five guys and a part-time girl. In no small part down to us I'd conjecture.

Last month we watched the FA cup final there, for which I was a temporary Everton fan. Sean provided a Toffees shirt which I happily wore, over my Leeds shirt of course. It's OK so long as it doesn't touch my skin.

I plan to enjoy my good riddance to ECC party in there this Monday evening. Champagne'll be involved and the Alley Kats will flow like wine.

I'd like to add: I've been there this evening, so if you feel this blog is written particularly poorly, attribute it to that. It's fine though: unlike some craggy idiots I don't do this sort of thing on a school night - tomorrow I don't start until 2pm.

As it happens, eleven classes to go... that's it.

Too many sandwiches

Remember my unabashed eulogising of Little Jakob's, the sandwich shop downstairs? For maybe a couple of weeks now, they've known what I'm going to order when I walk in. Chicken-Ham Original, no tomato, kiwi smoothie. Mmm. I thought that was pretty cool. Today, they noticed that I'd had my hair cut. Hmmm.

I'm also on first name terms with the guy that works in the MiniStop next door to Jakob's. Josh. I generally only go in there to buy beer and yan yans though, so not sure what he thinks of me.

Drink

Listen: Koreans like to drink. The first night I was here I went for a walk down the road and back, and stepped over several guys in suits passed out on steps. This was a Sunday. After a 80 hour week at the office though you'd want to pour as much as you could down your neck. That was in Suyu, and while Junggye has less of that, there's still a very tangible culture here. Despite this the bars, in this area at least are pretty thin on the ground and never packed, which in my books is a good thing.

But this is the thing: you can buy alcohol 24 hours a day from any convenience store, and to give you an idea of their prevalence, there are at least 10 of them within a five minute walk of my apartment, open all day every day. The majority of these stores have tables and chairs outside, inviting you to buy a few bottles and enjoy them bathed in the neon lights of the store. The selling point is that you can get a 1.6 litre bottle of Cass or Hite for about £2.50. And soju is even cheaper. I've resisted going down the soju route so far, though. I've seen the consequences. Plus it tastes like toilet duck. I just read this on wikipedia:

More than 3 billion bottles were consumed in South Korea in 2004.[3] In 2006, it was estimated that the average adult Korean (older than 20) had consumed 90 bottles of soju during that year, with each bottle equivalent to seven shots.

And this sounds like suicide:

Despite tradition, soju is not always consumed in unmixed form. A poktanju (lit: "bomb drink,") consists of a shot glass of soju dropped into a pint of draft beer (like a boilermaker) and is drunk quickly. The reverse equivalent, a shot glass of draft beer dropped into a pint of soju, is called suso poktanju (lit: "hydrogen bomb drink").

Nowon is a short bus/taxi ride away and has a lot more going on. Though when I went last night with my coworker Sean with the intention of finding a club, we wandered haphazardly and fruitlessly around for a while before getting turned away from a place because we weren't Korean. Rather than making the point that that's a bit racist, we just went home. It would seem that the GI-saturated meatfest that is Itaewon is the top choice for a proper night out. Not that I'm much of a clubber anyway, as you probably know, but you crave the bright lights once in a while.

So, OK, wrap this up now. Conclusion: I drink more here than I'm used to. Had a couple of stinking hangovers at first, lost whole days after getting in at 6am and it really can't be beneficial to my health or my skin, but, interestingly, I think I've lost weight. Work that one out.