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.
