All I could do was freeze for a second, then proceeded to laugh it off, and order some sweet potato cheese balls and water.
I walked to the counter and placed my order only to find my water in an actual glass cup with red hearts.
"Look at this! Has nobody ever ordered water here before?"
There was a stack of the normal cups, two of which were used for our cokes. They were sitting next to their water machine.
laughing, laughing, laughing, "I just don't understand why they gave me what is clearly an employee's glass."
laughing, laughing, laughing, "We are in Korea, Rachel."
Daegu, Korea to be exact. A few minutes after 3:00am.
"Our sandwiches and french fries were so good. And the nachos and burrito we had tonight."
"OMG that Tex Mex was so good! And don't forget the popcorn we had at the GoGo bar."
"That GoGo bar was so seedy."
"But we still had fun drinking our vodka mangoes. Remember those? Those were so good!"
"Almost as good as the shirts we bought from the same seedy bar! Good idea, Laurie. Now we'll always have something tangible to remind us of tonight."
"I should just say again that we may or may not get back tonight. That in itself might be enough to sear this night into our memories."
It's true. We had, in fact, stumbled across a seedy downstairs bar that was clearly the Daegu U.S. military hot spot. For 2 1/2 hours, we sat at the bar drinking our unlimited vodka mangoes while contemplating life, popcorn, guys, and everything in between. Three things happened at around 1:45am. Every single military guy immediately left to make it back before curfew, every single tiny Korean girl left because the military guys left, and Alex and Jodi left the hip hop club around the corner to come get us.
After purchasing our bright pink GoGo shirts, we hopped in a cab and sped off into the night. Since we were visiting A & J, there was no need to pay attention to the details of navigation. After all, its their city, and we were on vacation.
We arrived at their apartment, but Laurie and I discoverd, after taking a few goofy pictures of ourselves in the shirts, that we weren't sleepy. Not in the least bit.
We were hungry.
And you can't stop two margarita, sangria, and vodka mango filled girls from satisfying a hunger like ours.
Alex and Jodi were already asleep in the other room, so we decided to sneak out. As if A & J are our parents and we are going to meet Victor and Cody (or whoever you would hang out with in your younger sneaking out days).
After creeping down the stairs, ever so loudly, we start walking down the street to hail a cab. But as we walk arm in arm with our "GoGo vinyl" shirts on, we realize A) there's no restaurants anywhere nearby and B) we have no clue where we are.
"Oh! Here's a road sign for a girl's primary school. I'll text it to you, and it'll be saved in my phone. Then when we need to get back, we can just say this school. Easy leasy pemon squeezy."
"Good idea Rach! I think we should walk back the other way though to get a cab in that big intersection on the bridge."
A few minutes later, a cab was pulling over for us. We hopped in, giggly and upbeat as ever.
"Uhhhh, Lotteria?"
"or McDonald's?"
Cab driver: "Lotteria? Ok"....laughing
Cab driver: laughing..."Hungry?"
"Yes, yes! Hungry."
As Laurie and I discuss our insatiable need for french fries, the cab driver is zipping through the light 2am traffic. We arrive at the Lotteria, and he drives off.
Its at this moment I say "Man, I wish he would just wait on us to take us back. That way we won't have to worry about directions."
"We'll be fine. We've got that primary school's name."
We mosey on in, order our generic McDonald's wannabe meals, and proceed to inhale the most delicious food of all time.
It's amazing how time has such an important affect on how food tastes.
Well, that and vodka. and tequelia. and sangria.
After reluctantly leaving the heart covered glass in the restaurant, we leave. Somehow we remember to cross the street to get a cab going back the way we came. We hop in as I'm pulling out my phone.
I read off the romanization of the hangul* for the school.
"Hyeomyeong girls primary school"
Cab driver: "???"
"Uh, Hyaemyeong primary school?"
"Hyomong hakyo?"
Cab driver: "???"
He just starts driving. Its at this moment we realize we seriously may or may not get back tonight.
As we are driving, though, Laurie spots something familiar.
"Oh! There's that big Homeplus! We definitely passed it on the way."
But after a few more blocks, the cab driver stops, asking us which way. He can turn left or go straight.
The vodka quickly retreats from our brains, leaving us with the cold empty shock that comes from being lost at 3am in a city that is not ours.
"rencho?"
After hesitantly telling him to turn left, he confidently flies down the street, leaving us with nothing familiar in sight.
"Hey we're in a school zone. Maybe its Alex or Jodi's school!"
"Yeah maybe. Or maybe its not their school at all. Maybe we aren't even in Daegu anymore. Maybe we accidently told him to turn north and we are headed for Kim Jong-il's house right now."
"Like I said, we may or may not get back tonight."
Then a miracle happened.
"THE BIKE STORE! I've seen that before! RENCHO, RENCHO!!"
"THE DOG STORE!!! We made it! Yogi, yogi!!!"
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, we miraculously steered him in the exact location we needed.
There's a lesson in all of this.
Never drink alone. Do it with a friend. It makes for a much more fun night.
*Hangul is the Korean alphabet. A lot of times, when they use the roman alphabet to translate, the sounds don't exactly match up. For example: my town is spelled Seongnam, but its pronounced Songnom. In other words, its pointless.
Also, after proofreading this, I realized that reading THE DOG STORE in Korea might elicit a disturbing image in your mind. This is a pet store, like to get dogs as pets, not snacks.
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