Asia Travel Journal by Will

Rainbow

// March 6th, 2010 // 1 Comment » // Uncategorized

Had another crazy night in Gangnam last night. I met up with Michael Paul, Dylan, Candance, Michael, Yun, and Matt at exit 7 of Gangnam Station in Seoul. First stop – Indian restaurant. I had the kadhai paneer (I might be spelling that wrong), or cheese curry. It was delicious. Only 13,000 won too. After that, Yun and Matt left, but the rest of us went to Rainbow.

I really need to take some pictures of Rainbow. It’s an underground, psychedelic hookah bar with music ranging from live didgeridoo to the fast beats of DJ-provided techno. Black lights, laser lights, candles, tapestries, and posters adorn the place, all covered with images of mushrooms, counterculture icons, cannabis plants, peace symbols, and other hippie paraphernalia. Denizens sit on colorful cushions surrounding small, wooden boxes marked with graffiti in multiple languages. Looking around, you see people who are white, Asian, black, and other shades darker than white whose ethnicities you can’t really place.

There are dozens of hookah flavors. Last night, we sampled green apple and another flavor – I never found out what it was. The alcohol comes in two liter, square buckets filled with straws. They also offer individual beers and cocktails for the selfish drinker.

After going through three to four buckets and two hookahs, witnessing a hilarious dance off, and discussing everything from first impressions and Texas culture to the French Revolution, we left Rainbow and went to Woodstock. Woodstock is a record bar, where the patrons write requests on cards and submit them to the bar. Eventually, your song may or not play. It may be played from a record or it might be played from a CD.

After being there for awhile, I got pretty tired and convinced Michael that it would be a good idea to take a taxi with me back to Bundang. After some haggling, we got a driver to take us back for 25,000. We were there in less than 15 minutes. By subway, it’s a 45 minute ride. By bus, 25-30. This guy was going 150 km/hr the whole way. That’s 93 mph for those of you without calculators. He ran every red light and had to weave between other cars to avoid hitting them. But that’s Korea for you. It’s not really unusual for cab drivers to be insane drivers.

Welcome to will.mx!

// January 31st, 2010 // No Comments » // korea

I’ve taken what used to be Space Gazelle and turned it into http://will.mx/wow. I wanted a simple name with a simple look. The old site wasn’t complicated at all, but I really wanted to create an essence of simplicity with this new theme. I took the WordPress theme Aether and redesigned it with a white background, some color swaps, and a different header.

I’m going to make an effort to blog more so you actually know what’s going on with me in Korea!

I went to the Kooksoondang facility yesterday. They are one of the largest, if not the largest, Korean liquor manufacturer. The tour was wonderfully sponsored by TheYeogiyo.com, a fantastic resource and social group for foreigners living in or near Seoul. TheYeogiyo.com arranged for two buses of foreigners, one from Seoul, the other from Bundang, to make the three hour trip east to Gangwon-do.

We ate lunch at a restaurant above this interesting business

The first half of the tour introduced the history and functions of the facility. There were many artifacts from decades or centuries-old methods of making makeolli, soju, and baekseju, the three liquors produced in Korea. Rice is to soju what potatoes are to vodka. Makeolli is a milky, white rice wine. And Baekseju, a golden substance, looks more like the white wines we are familiar with in the western world.

Father and son

The sitting, young looking father is chastising his standing, old looking son. The father looks so young because he drank Kooksoondang liquor, but the son drank some other company’s liquor and aged at a much faster pace.

Assorted bottles arranged decoratively

Where we would later be sampling alcohol

We got to see (through glass panels) the laboratory where they create new wines, the production facility where the wine is bottled and boxed, and shelves upon shelves of all the different bottles and wines that Kooksoondang has made since its foundation in 1952. There was even a part of the tour where we could scoop of handfuls to smell all the different spices and herbs that ferment in the wines.

One of the hallways

The Laboratory

Employees happily checking the bottles

Production Area

Shelves of bottles

This guy/technician was happy to pose for us

The second half was the “stand around and drink for free an unlimited supply of many kinds of wine” part of the tour. My favorite was Bookjookbe, a very sweet, berry wine. I probably butchered the name. I got rather tipsy within the first half hour so I slowed my intake down to about a tablespoon every fifteen minutes. We had entirely too much time to drink all this alcohol, so the bus ride back started off pretty rowdy. Eventually people either fell asleep, became hungover, or shouted, “Stop the bus!” when they had to urinate.

Sampling

All in all, it was a great trip. I look forward to more adventures from TheYeogiyo.com!

Just a select few of the bottles we emptied