The Soju Warriors Take Mt. Tongosan over…

So it’s been awhile but here I am again. There it was, a beautiful day on September 12…the beginning of a three day weekend for the Korean version of Thanksgiving known as Chuseok. I had made plans a few days earlier to meet up with Cope down in Daegu but certainly not early enough to make pre-arranged travel arrangements. On holidays or extended weekends it’s about as easy to travel as it is to cure cancer that has spread throughout every organ in one’s body…impossible. All the Koreans go by the philosophy of booking multiple trips months in advance (fucking everyone else) and then canceling all but the one that they’ve actually decided tend to. It’s pretty ridiculous actually, I could book 20 different hotels in Busan and a day before I get to the hotel I could cancel 19 and have no penalty or I could book 20 plane tickets and cancel all but one at the last minute w/ no financial loss. Anyway, you get my point, there were no KTX (bullet train), slow train, or bus tickets out of Seoul available to Daegu; this meant I had only one option…stowaway on that mother fucker. I knew it was possible because I’ve rode the KTX numerous times around Korea and I knew that they basically don’t check your tickets and you don’t need them to go through a turnstile and whatnot; they tend to go by the honor system here in Korea, something that would be grossly taken advantage of if it were in place in the States. Once Ashley and I actually boarded the train I was fairly sure we were gold and sure enough I was right, no questions, no hassles, nothing. Since I’d taken the KTX to Daegu one time before I knew it took two hours to get there so after about two hours I started listening for our station; when I didn’t here it after 2hrs and 30mins I knew I’d fucked up somewhere. It turns our that in our sly effort to cop a free ride on the KTX we neglected to make sure it was actually the KTX, basically it was karma biting us in the ass…needless to say we hopped on the slow train which meant we had to stand for four hours (sweet). In any event, it was a free ride that saved us about 40 bones so it was actually worth it when we arrived in Daegu around midnight. As soon as we arrived the drinks began to flow and before I knew it, having ate barely anything all day, I was half in the bag. The night went as follows: drink beer, eat galbi, drink beer, drink beer, drinkkkkkkkkkkkk, go to this kick ass bar called Bus Bar that actually has a rad school bus connected which you can actually sit in. The food at Bus Bar was awesome and of course the drinks continued to flow….until 7 am to be exact; at this point we decided we may as well go home because Nate was passing out at the table (not a shocking feat for him). For some reason I didn’t want to stop partying but everyone wanted to bounce so I obliged then Nate proceeded to say to me, “I guarantee you can’t finish half that bottle of Soju before we get home.” When a friend says you can’t do something you know you want to prove them wrong so in my blacked out state, not only did I down half the bottle but I figured I’d elevate myself to rock star status by cashing the whole thing. I looked sooooo cool doing it that morning and felt soooooo drunk at 3 pm when I woke up on Saturday, needless to say DO NOT DRINK A BOTTLE SOJU at 7am and expect to wake up sober. I was pretty much worthless all day on Saturday and the day amounted to us getting food for our trip then going home and watching the new episodes of entourage…I was in bed by 9pm! It was probably a blessing in disguise because we had to be up at 7am to catch our bus from Daegu to Mt. Tongosan. On Sunday six of us hopped on the bus and rode 4 hours to the mountain…the ride there was amazing. The last half of the trip we were either on the Pacific coastline or winding through the gorgeous mountain views…I was rocking with my iPod and I must say Death Cab for Cutie and Tokyo Police Club were perfect for the occasion. We finally arrived at our destination and got our cabins…they were so dope, they had everything you need to cook, sleep, and drink. Once we got situated we decided we wanted to hike Mt. Tongosan (1,300 meters, I think). It was not a mammoth beast by any means but I was definitely struggling at some points to make it to the peak. After 2.5 hours of climbing we finally made it to the top; it was a pretty good feeling and now I’m semi-considering climbing Mt. Fuji when I head to Japan. Finally we got back to our phat crib, made a delicious feast (actually Ji did), then kicked it around a campfire for a bit. You know the usual Michigan shit…fire, Euchre, beer, food, and SOJU?!?!?! It seemed so nice to get out of the city for a weekend and see something besides cement and buildings everywhere, I also really missed drinking around a campfire. After hours and hours of boozing shit started getting a bit weird, first Nate decided to show our newly acquired east coast friends the Michigan “sport” of tree bending, then he proceeded to get half naked and try to get in the river upon which he slipped, smoked his face on a rock then decided it was such a good idea to walk on slippery rocks while being blacked out, shortly after this Tom decided he was going to run up the mountain as fast as he could for as long as he could (he was back in 2 minutes), and lastly some random ass trees got uprooted then sacrificed in the fire. The last three people up were Ashley, Nate, and I; of course all Michigan State Alumni…I guess we party harder than everyone else. I mention that so that the next fiasco holds some reasonableness (not really, but I tried); after we threw an entire pine tree in the fire it went up in ablaze then at 4 am we proceeded to sing the MSU fight song as loud as possible (apparently we thought we were tailgating on the banks of the Red Ceder). After celebrating our Alumni status at the bottom of Mt. Tongosan we decided we had better sleep. Around 11 am on Monday everyone woke up to see the destruction Hurricane Katrina, or at least it appeared, did to our campsite. When we were all packed up and ready to bounce we made the shocking discovery that during the drunken mele the previous night someone had either: a) lost the key, b)launched it in the woods, or c) burned that mother fucker. Regardless, we had no key so we gave the campground 10 bucks and everything was even steven. At this point we were waiting for the bus to come pick us up and we had been waiting an hour and a half when this dude in a minivan pulls up…then Ji asked him for a ride and he actually said yes. Basically the dude was cool as shit, he picked up 5 whities and one Korean chick and gave us a ride 40 minutes into town for free; probably first and last successful hitch-hiking experience in Korea. When we finally arrived at the bus station I was extremely wore out/hung over/pissy and just wanted to be home. The bus ride home wasn’t nearly as pleasant as the ride to Mt. Tongosan; we sat in a dam bus winding around the mountains for like 3 hours in cramped seating. I’m pretty sure we may have been on the Oregon Trail because the roads were nothing to gloat about and we must have been in a horse drawn buggy because it took from 3:30-9:30 just to arrive in Seoul. Eventually we made it back to Seoul and had to hop on the subway only to ride 40 more minutes. The final leg of the journey offered some comedic relief when a 55 year old soju warrior was so drunk that he fell out of his seat and slammed his head on the ground. I’ll be honest I didn’t know whether the dude was having a heart attack or just fell, so at first i played it cool then when I realized he was just a drunk, jackass I exploded with laughter. And that’s a mother fuckin’ Chuseok weekend baby! I’m going to try copin’ some pics so peep those if you feel inclined. Oh and here is my newest obsession, Tokyo Police Club…give it a go. Tokyo Police Club – Sixties Remake