Meghan은 간다, Meghan ya no esta aqui

Noraebang!

Yesterday (Saturday) was a really great day. Stephanie and I met our Korean friend, Danny, for lunch at Costco. He had never heard of Costco and it was so fun to watch him be amazed. He was just surprised at everything - how cheap and big the pizza in the food court was, and how big everything was. It was really funny to watch him because he just had a huge smile on his face the whole time, and looked around in wonder.

Last night we had wanted to go ice skating with some friends, but we got to Lotte World (huge grocery store/department store/mall/amusement park), and the rink was closed. As were the bowling alley and the shooting range. And we couldn't decide on a movie to see. So, I suggested Noraebang... and off we went!

Now, Noraebang is karaoke. I don't believe I've ever karaoked in my life, save for one performance at campmeeting where April sang "Every Heartbeat" by Amy Grant and I kind of just danced around on stage. The thing about American karaoke is that you have to do it in front of everyone who's there, whether you know them or not. The thing about KOREAN karaoke is that you go to a private room with your friends!

So we found a place, and it cost 15,000Won for an hour (which is about 15 or 16 dollars), for the room. The private rooms have couches and a table, a couple tv screens (including the one where the words are, which is the main, large one), disco lights, echo-y microphones, and tambourines! Wow! So we just went all out, the five of us girls.

Noraebanging is really big here, but apparently a lot of asians take it really seriously. I say asians, because our Chinese-Canadian friend, Candice, said all of her friends take it seriously as well. They take it seriously because you get scored by the computer on how well you hit the notes. They said that most people sit back watch other people sing, and sing seriously. Now, I don't think that sounds like any fun. So for most of our hour or two we were up yelling and singing and dancing and it was a great time. We sang quality hits from artists like Eminem, Backstreet Boys, Madonna, Spice Girls, Nirvana, Outkast, etc. I now have a lot of respect for rappers. I don't know how they do it. Unfortunately we had not brought a camera with us, because we had originally only planned to go ice skating.

So that was a LOT of fun, it being the first time that Stephanie and I have done karaoke here. We had a blast and we promise that anyone that visits, we'll take them to a Noraebang. We're even going to try to find one in our neighborhood just so the two of us can go when we're bored.

To cap off the evening I had an embarrassing moment at a local store. E-Mart is our grocery store close to our house. We went there last night right after Noraebang. Candice had returned to me a dvd she had borrowed (Season 2 of the Office if you're curious... we're brainwashing her). I didn't take a purse, but the inside of my zip-up sweatshirt had a good place to put the dvd, so I stuffed it in there so I wouldn't have to carry it on the subway. We went straight to E-Mart from the subway.

Well, we went to walk through the detectors to go inside and it started beeping loudly. I didn't think anything of it because there were people going out at the same time. The E-Mart guy standing there didn't think it was me either, and then I suddenly realized I had the dvd inside my jacket. While he was checking the other people that were on their way out, I walked through it again and it beeped. My face turned red as I turned to the guy and took the dvd out from INSIDE my jacket. Now, this is where my potential Korean speaking skills would come in handy, but I do not possess those. I understood though, that he was asking if I was coming to return the dvd. I said "no, it's MINE" (I'm sure saying it louder would help him understand English).

Of course by now my face was completely red, but he said it was okay that I had the dvd. I started to walk away and he came after me again, and I realized through his motioning, and the fact that he was speaking all in Korean and then said "beep beep beep", that he wanted to de-beep my dvd by putting over the de-beeper at the register. He did it and we were on our way.

It was just so embarrassing, because not only are we the only white people, but I was making the detector go off AND I pulled the dvd out from inside my jacket. Wow. What an evening.

posted by Meghan @ 3:46 PM