Soju and Samgyupsal

Oh. My. God. Tonight was so much goddam fun. If there are a lot of misspellings in this post, please for figeve me because I'm still pretty drunk.

I went out with Kris and her English tutor, Eugene. Eugene is a thirty-something slightly heavy man. He's full-blooded Korean, raised in Canada. We waited together for Kris to get out of her meeting, and made small talk. At first it was pretty light stuff - about my family, the weather, how I liked Korea... But right before we went to meet Kris we happened to touch on politics and I mentioned something about supporting gay rights. He laughed and said, "Well, we'll talk about that more over soju." Uh-oh. I'd never actually met someone who didn't support gay rights except my slightly-crazy Grandma Esther, so I hadn't thought anything of mentioning it.

This is Eugene. And sure enough, once we had had a little soju and I was slurring my words, we tore into each other not just about gay marriage, but gay adoption, the Korean occupation by Japan, and women's right. Man, if I had known I was going to get quizzed on world politics while drunk I would have studied!

But really, it was fun. He was very polite about everything (in fact, I think I was more argumentative than him). He's clearly very smart and well-versed in politics, but he's very Christian and conservative so we had plenty to fight about. I had a lot of soju, so I can't be sure how well I held my ground. Neither of us changed the other's mind, but I felt like I won at least the gay adoption discussion. When his argument petered out to, "It comes down to the fundamentals, and only a man and a woman can create a child," I felt pretty confident. However, on most other topics he convinced me that I only thought the way I did because of naivete. I'll go ahead and hold onto my idealism, thanks, even though he made some good points.

A few shots of soju in, Kris and I were giggling and falling all over each other. I told her that soju wasn't very hardcore compared to the crappy vodka I was used to. She made me this drink to show me that she knew her stuff:

It's a glass of beer with a shot glass of soju inside a shot glass of cola. It actually tastes amazing. She was pretty impressed when I drank the whole thing. "That's nothing!" I said, "You ever heard of a Jager-bomb or an Irish car-bomb?" I described the American variations on shots-in-a-beer.

"You think you're so cool with your American college?" she said, "In college I mixed soju and beer and drank it out of a shoe!" She won.

This is Kris, by the way. It occurs to me that I haven't put a picture of her up here yet. She's just wonderful. At first, it kind of bothered me that her son was calling me "Emo (aunt)" instead of "Nuna (big sister)." Was I old enough to be an aunt instead of a sister now? But I'm fine with it now, because Kris really does feel more like a sister to me than just one of my Mom's friends. Laughing on each other's shoulder while drunk will do that to a relationship.

I can't believe I got this far without talking about the food! We had sam-gyup-sal, which is barbecued pork. It was amazing. I think I had it five years ago, the last time I was in Korea, but not since. Kris says it's a very typical meal to have out with friends. Afterward we had kimchi-chigae (kimchi stew) and then some pork rinds. I called it "skin" the whole time because it kind of freaked me out. Kris told me not to call it that, or I wouldn't want to eat it. I tried a little bit, and I guess it didn't taste bad, but Kris was right - I couldn't get over the fact that it was skin! Bleh.

Eugene did a magic trick for us. He had me hold out both of my hands closed and palm-down. Then he had me open my right hand and he smeared a little cigarette ash on the palm. Then he asked me and Kris both to say that we believed! We believed really hard! We believed in magic! Then he had me open my left hand, and the smear was on the other palm! Well, it didn't look exactly like cigarette ash, and the other smear was still on my right hand. But I had just gotten back from the bathroom where I had washed my hands, and he hadn't touched my left hand since, so I don't know how that smear got there! All I could do was protest, "If I were sober I'd be able to figure out how you did it!"

After the meal we staggered outside where I apologized to Eugene for arguing with him so much. He laughed and said that it was fine, that he liked talking to someone who was so passionate about her beliefs. He invited me to his birthday party next week, so I'm hoping he knows some cute young guys who will be there.

Kris and I walked home giggling and went to bed. She said she was impressed with how I held my alcohol (since she hadn't seen me drink yet and assumed I was a tee-totaler). I assured her that I was plenty drunk, but I just didn't turn red so she couldn't tell.

What a fun night. This is just the kind of thing I wanted to do. Eugene says he'll introduce me to some people and hook me up with some groups where I can make friends. I'm so happy! Okay, time to go to sleep. I'll read this in the morning and see how coherent it is.