Sunday Night 0ut with Friends

A week ago Court had a 4 day weekend for MLK day. We were able to get a sitter..yay! Anyway we started the night out at the bowling alley on Camp Walker. We met up with Rob and his wonderful girlfriend Sue. As you can see from the above score...I am not the best bowler. But I did have a good time and that is all that matters.

After bowling we walked off post to catch a "kimchi" cab...that is one of the regular cabs. You can catch a cab on post. There is one cab company that is contracted with the military. They are the only cab company that is allowed on post. You can always call for a cab but they tack on an additional fee...I think it is 10,000 won? You can go to the PX and sometimes get lucky and there are cabs waiting. Or you can go off post and just catch a regular cab. And for some reason people call these "kimchi cabs".

The benefit of being with Sue is that she is from Daegu. Also she is fluent in both English and Korean. She was able to tell the driver exactly where we wanted to go. And I wanted to go downtown! I have been here since September and I have heard about downtown but never been. So off we went.

I could not believe all the traffic for a Sunday night! And downtown....wow I loved it! Imagine a mall with store after store after store. All in a row. And now imagine all those stores are outside instead of one building. And imagine that mall goes on for blocks and blocks and block. It was heavenly! I spied a gift shop with Hello Kitty stuff so Sue and I dragged the guys in there.

Rob and Court thought there was a little too much pink for their tastes and were not too keen on getting their picture taken.

Ohhhh the Hello Kitty store... *drool* It took me back to my childhood. There was a Hello Kitty Store in the Long Beach Mall in Long Beach, Ca. I remember that was THE PLACE to go. Ohhhhh the memories.....This place had a ton of everything. And I wanted it all. I had picked out a cute basket that would have looked nice on my table for Valentine's Day. But Court said I should not buy it. He said...what if I saw something later I wanted to have more? So I reluctantly put it back. :(

Here are some restaurants....There was also an Outback Steak House. But the line was miles and miles long. We came across a Dunkin Donuts and I about died!!! Ohhhh heaven. We went in and I said I WANT REAL DONUTS! But Court made us leave...without donuts... *cry*

I am not sure if you can tell what the name of this place is or not from the picture. It is called Uncle Tom's Cabin. Hmmmm does anyone find that an odd name for a coffee place? Do you think they could get away with that in the U.S. ?

Above...some interesting plants that had the guys laughing.

So after not getting to buy anything in Downtown (and I am STILL pouting about that!) we caught another cab and went to the Ariana. Court has been there many times. This was my first. It is a club in a hotel. They brew their own beer as well. Court said it is supposed to be a German-style place?? There were many long tables and all they serve is beer (for alcohol). They have some sort of special..all you can eat and drink for 14,000 won. So I was going to get that since there is a buffet. I think the easiest way to try new stuff is off of a buffet. You can get a little bit of everything. Well as it turns out if one person orders the buffet..everyone has to get it. It is an all or none deal. So I did not get the buffet. :(

I tried to order some sort of dumpling similar to the Yaki Mandu I have had before but they were out of that. I ended up with these strange Nachos. They were very good. Just not the nachos I was expecting. They were not spicy at all and had bits of fruit in them. ALso pieces of meat and a tomato sauce as well.

Court got the Buffalo wings and said they were sweet. I had some of his salad. In the bowl..he said it was fruit?? It tasted more like a sweet onion. I am not sure what it was?


Sue got this bowl of stuff. It came with a burner to keep it warm. I am not sure what it is called. She told me but I have forgotten. I tried some of the noodle looking things. Those were good..but oh my it was soooooooo spicy! My mouth and lips burned the rest of the night. There were also clam shells or something like that in there and big shrimp.. (yuck).

Rob ordered a fruit plate. One thing I really like about the way Korean's eat is it is all social. Everyone shares and eats out of the same bowls. So everyone tried everyone else's food. Steve and Ju-he joined us later on. I forgot to take pictures of their food....lol.

Above is Rob and Sue. I cannot say enough good things about Sue. She is just such a nice lady and I cannot wait until we all can get together again!

The beer came in these glass bottle things. I am not sure how many we went through. I am actually surprised that I drank as much as I did. I am not a huge beer drinker..but this was pretty good stuff.

This is not the best picture but it was really dark in the club. Above is Rob checking out the live band.

And here is the band playing. It was nice to have live music. But.....the band sucked. They sang the song Hollaback Girl by Gwen Steffani and in the song they have to spell the word "bananas". Wellll...the mis-spelled that everytime which left us just a rolling.

All in all it was a really nice time out. I had a wonderful time and I was so glad we got to go. The guys have a 1 am curfew so we always have to get back in time to let our baby sitter go home. McNeil (the babysitter) is Army also and she has to be able to leave our place and get home by 1 am. So that usually makes for a short night. I am looking forward to another night out soon!