!!I'm A Fly Boy - Crown J!!

Last week was a busy week at school as far as classes were concerned. There was no classes on Friday because of test day, so I had 5-6 class days all week with the grade 4's and 5's. I'm really start to appreciate the grade 5's as students, which is exciting because I will at least end the year off with students who are not nearly has misbehaved as the grade 6's. The best part about teaching last week was when the grade 5 English co-teacher told me she wanted to end the classes showing Big Bang's newest music video, Sunset Glow. That really excited me because they are my favorite Korean pop group, so I have no problems or objections to showing their music videos. I went to baseball training every night of the week last week. It has been exhausting and hard on my body getting so into shape and working so hard, but it has been worth all of it. Nicole, Mike and I have a lot of fun at baseball and we definitely keep the Koreans we train with entertained. Some nights after baseball the three of us will go and grab a beer or two together to chill out and relax after a hard night of exercise and drills. Thursday night Nicole and I headed over to Diana nightclub to see Crown J perform. He is a Korean hip hop star who I really enjoy listening to. Plus, the fact that he was playing a nightclub in Incheon made it that much more exciting to go see him. We got ready at Nicole's house after baseball where we enjoyed a bottle of soju and pitcher of beer before heading to the club. We got to the club around 11:00 p.m. and found out that Crown J wouldn't even be performing until 1:00 a.m. That gave us enough time to drink more and dance. Nightclubs in Korea are far different than back home. You can't just walk to the nightclub order drinks, dance and sit wherever you want. Here they seat you at a table, make you choose a food/drink option off the menu, plus you pay for the table. Also, they are booking clubs, which means that men book women - invite them to private rooms or their table, feed them alcohol, chat and maybe get lucky. However, some men just want the company and are not looking for much else. The private rooms cost a lot of money to book, so they obviously get major V.I.P. treatment. Anyways, I was going somewhere with this. While Nicole and I were taking a break from dancing one of the waiters came to our table grabbed me by the arm and dragged me to my first booking. It was embarassing and I felt bad for deserting Nicole, but I wanted to see what they were like. Anyways, the guy was really nice and young and he just wanted an English speaker to help him with his job. He needs a fluent English speaker to record their voice for some book, so he gave me his card and I gave him my number, blah blah blah. I had a few whiskey shots with him before I left because Crown J was about to perform. It was a completely harmless booking and the guy spoke great English, so that made it less awkward.

Crown J performing at Diana nightclub. It wasn't very busy there and none of thise pictures are zoomed in, we were this close to him. Another picture of Crown J. There is a reason they calle me photographer extraordinare, I take good pictures and lots of pictures. This was the best picture of the night, but it was zoomed in a bit. I apologize for the girls hands that got in the picture and ruined it. They were screaming and freaking out and putting their hands in front of the camera. This was the end of the Crown J show. He played 4 songs and although that wasn't nearly long enough he put on a great show. Nicole and I showing our support to Crown J after the show - "A"

After the show Nicole and I decided to stay and hang out a bit longer. Her and I both then ended up getting booked by two young Korean guys sitting across the asile from us. They were really cute and although their English wasn't great they weren't horrible to hang out with. Once we heard a song we liked though we took off to the dance floor, but we were sure to invite them to join us. They did come dance with us and we kept randomly bumping into them on the dance floor the rest of the night. About a half an hour to an hour later we both got booked together again, but this time in a private room with an older man who just wanted to speak English to us. We had a drink each before we heard a song we liked and invited him to come dance with us. He didn't even last 30 seconds into the song before he headed back to his room...oh well, his loss. The highlight of the night was Nicole asking our waiter if she could request a song to the DJ and he took her to Crown J's room with his DJ's. Unfortunately, Crown J had already left, but Nicole got to hang out with the DJ's. I was left by myself at our table for a little while before the waiter came back and got me and brought me to the room as well. We talked to them for a few minutes before the one had to leave to DJ at the club. We got his friends to come dance with us, but they ditched us after the first song :( When we had enough of the nightclub we headed to Rodeo Square in Guwol-dong, which is where Diana is to get some food. We opted for dukgalbi because it was still open and it's delicious no matter what time of day you eat it. We ordered two orders of food and a beer each. We were soon joined by the two young Korean guys who booked us at the club. They were wandering by and saw us inside, so they came inside and sat with us. We chatted for a bit, danced to some K-pop, ate and drank before we left. They ended up paying for our food and drinks, which was so nice of them since they had maybe two bites of the food each. They walked us to the nearest cab and we parted ways. It was about 5:30 in the morning at this point, so I just slept over at Nicole's and both of us called in sick the next day...Oops! I had no classes, so I didn't feel so bad about calling in.