Party time for my Bday!

After finishing our tour, we were to get dropped off in Itaewon.  We had been talking with several guys on the tour bus and we all decided to try a traditional Korean BBQ lunch together.  We asked our tour guide, Jenny, where we should go.  She invited us to go with her to where she was dining for lunch.  I have no idea the name of the restaurant as everything was in Korean! LOL.  Thank heaven for photos on the menu!! HA HA.  We asked Jenny what the best thing to order was - she suggested the beef and mushroom combination with steamed rice and kim chee.  She also suggested a seafood pancake.  We decided to order both and see if that was enough food for the 5 of us.  OMG....it was more than enough food - we enjoyed the food, OB beer, Soju shots, and awesome company.

  We had a pretty diverse group and it was a great time!  Dave was from UK, Jason from Washington DC, Andreas from Denmark, and obviously we were from the US.

We spent quite awhile talking at lunch with Jenny and I hope she will take us up on the offer to come visit! We had been in the restaurant for a few hours and decided we better get going.  We opted to wander around Itaewon and see if we could find a bar to continue our great afternoon and my birthday celebration.  We found a place called "Seoul Pub" and it had a Guinness neon sign in the window so I figured it couldn't be all bad.  It was upstairs and overlooked the main street in Itaewon.  Pitchers of OB were 9000 won which was about the equivalent of $10 US.

  The beer was great and the company even better. 

After a couple pitchers and some great conversation, the owner of the pub, Mr. Jung,  came over and decided to show us some "tricks".  He talked Scott into playing a game called 'follow me'.  If Scott wins, the owner buys Scott's shot of Jagermeister.  If he loses, he has to buy Mr. Jung a shot.  It started off pretty easy, too easy of course, where Scott just has to move the match books in the same order he does.  Sounds easy, right?  Wrong...LOL.  Always a trick in there somewhere!  They are going along, Mr. Jung takes part of his shot, Scott follows....move some more matches around, finish off the shot.  More matchboxes around, and then the stinger.

...Mr. Jung spits part of his shot back into his glass!! HA HA HA HA.  We didn't see that one coming!  He got us....Scott had to pay up and actually I think Dave paid off his tab on that one!!

Next Mr. Jung was going to buy us a pitcher of beer if Dave could pick up the matches just as he is doing without dropping them.  Dave tried and tried and I think he had it but no luck, didn't end up making the grade!  LOL.  However, they were all kind enough to tell Mr. Jung we were there for my birthday...yeah, thanks guys!  He brought over a special shot for my birthday......called a brain hemmorhage.  And oh boy, that's what it looked like.  Being that I deal with blood and guts every once in a while at work, I was having a bit of trouble getting through this one.

  It took a little bit but I finally did it and it didn't taste near as bad as it looked! HA HA.  Once again, didn't know I was the subject of either photos of video but Scott was kind enough to capture every facial expression!  We ended up taking a couple photos with Mr. Jung and he brought me up behind the bar to take a picture for my birthday which was cool. 

After that, we hung out at the bar awhile more, the guys played pool, another pitcher of beer, and it was already getting late.  We went back to the hotel and crashed - it had been a long day and we had to get up early to pack and get ready for the flight back home - hard to believe it had already been 4 days!! WOW...time flew by so quickly!  I had such a great time and hanging out with new friends like Dave, Andreas, and Jason - just made everything incredibly special!