That's What It's All About!

I finally, FINALLY made it to noraebang last weekend! Noraebang is a quintessential Korea experience, and great fun, but usually done when drunk in Hongdae, and since I don't often find myself drunk in Hongdae, it has eluded me lo these many months. Now that I know what all the fuss is about, I hope to get a few more noraebang nights in before fleeing the country.

What is noraebang? Karaoke (we use the Japanese term). "Norae" means "song", and "bang" (say it with an "ah", not like "big bang") means "room". Bangs are popular in Korea...you have PC Bang, DVD Bang (really just a place to make out when you live with your parents), and any number of other types. And that's the beauty of Korean karaoke (I could probably get deported for sticking with the Japanese moniker)--rather than waiting hours to sing in front of strangers in a bar, you pay for an hour in your own room, with just your friends at witnesses. No waiting, minimal humiliation, and nothing to hold you back from taking advantage of every opportunity Koreans can dream up. Where else are you going to wear a fox suit and bang on a light-up tambourine?

Not kidding about that. Korea and camp go together like peas and carrots, and like so much else here, noraebangs are a sort of psychedelic rococo. The fixtures at this place were county-fair-does-Versailles, and the floors were plexiglass with...displays, I guess you would call them, underneath. There was a desert section, birds and blooms, bugs... As Obi put it, you felt like Godzilla walking over it all. The 'bang' itself had one giant mirrored wall, framed by an LED arch with strobe lights. A large flat-screen tv showed dreamlike (as in that ad with Abe Lincoln and a beaver playing chess in the attic) Korean videos for each song. If the fox suit was too hot (it was), there were also wigs and goofy props to abet the silliness.

Besides the free (well, included) ice cream and caramel corn, the guy offered us the foreign song book. Not sure where he thought we were from--that one had 4 different languages in it, all of them Southeast Asian. The English songs were in the teeming binder along with the Korean ones, and offered hundreds of choices. Time ran out for John Denver or Cyndi Lauper, and my friends were unacquainted with Starship (too bad!), but we did belt out some Journey, butchered U2, did a laudable rendition of Twist & Shout, and closed the night bouncing to Chumbawamba. Decided against doing any "Pill Collins".

Thinking I was merely going to dinner, I didn't have my camera with me, but as soon as my skiving friends post pictures on Facebook, I'll steal them and share.