Why what a lovely bar you have!!

Well I'm a little behind this week on the post, so here goes.
This week was a long and eventful week. For starters, Jameson and I started going to the gym. So we worked out for the first time in quite a while and spent most of the work in the bitter sweet agony that accompanies the first workouts. But, as it turns out our gym is really nice and they love having foreigners come through.
And now the good stuff........
So if anybody asks "Hey Mark have you ever been to a hooker bar?", I can now say as a matter of fact yes I have. Let me set the scene for you. On Thursday we all decided to meet up in Itaewon (the foreigner district) so that I could find somebody to work on my dreads. So Brian and I went there right after work to scope it out and Jameson and Blake were meting us there later. One wrong turn after another found Brian and I lost in the ghetto. We were well off the main streets and in the dredges of a hillside neighbourhood of sketchy jailesque houses. We would have been more afraid except the fact that we are in Korea and it is a relatively safe place even in the darkest of alleys. So we cut through the neighourhood on our way back towards the main city lights and found ourselves but a half dozen blocks away from where we started. By now, however, Blake and Jameson had made it to Itaewon and were waiting for us at the subway station. So Brian and I booked it back and met up with them so that the four of us could go in the opposite direction to find a hair salon. We finally found one and got a business card so I can make an appointment sometime soon.
Feeling good about ourselves, we decided to have a couple beers. So we went to a bar that Blake has been to in the past. It was nice, cheap and had a really dark jazzy atmosphere. After a couple beers we wanted to try a new place so we hit the streets. This is where it gets good........So we saw a bar that Blake thought he had heard of before and we went in. I went straight to the bathroom to pee, leaving them to check it out. When I came back from the bathroom I saw the 3 of them standing by the bar looking very scared. Then I looked at the only other people in the bar and realized they were women of the "hooker variety". So I walked over and asked what was up, they replied "its a hooker bar lets have one beer to not be rude and get out of here". So we got a beers each and then the girls started approaching us. We told them we weren't interested in what we thought they were peddling and went about drinking our beers. Then we realized that it wasn't a "hooker bar" but a "juicy bar". The difference being that the girls aren't hookers but instead they are girls paid by the bar to pretend to like you........if they want to. So you can buy them drinks for inflated prices, and they may or may not talk to you, but it doesn't mean that you will be going home with them. this made us feel a little better and we stayed for a bit and ended up talking to them a little. In the end we figured it wasn't as bad as we had thought it was and that thought they may be hookers, they may also just be girls trying to make a dollar.
With that behind us we moved on to Saturday. It was a nice day so we decided to go for a hike up Bukhansan (Bukhan Mountain -->san = mountain), to see the long wall that encircles the top of it like a fortress. The hike took just over 5 hours and we were the only foreigners, and people under the age of 35 there. It seems as though only the older people climb mountains, especially in the winter. So we hiked up with Koreans all around us saw some great gates and old soldier posts, and had a great view of the country outside of the concrete city. The trip down was a different story. Instead of taking the path well traveled, we decided to take the narrow path off to the side. Why walk with the slow Koreans when we can bypass them we thought. Terrible choice. It turned out to be the path you take if you have a death wish. It was incredibly narrow and slippery, and almost vertical at times so as you slid down you had to grab at trees to keep yourself form going over the edge. Exhilarating let me tell you. But, in the end we made it back to the popular path and back to the bottom. we were all a little tired and such so we went home to catch naps before meting up for dinner and a few beers Saturday night.
So it was a good week, lots of randomness to keep it lively, and educational.
I hope you are all doing well back home or wherever you may be reading this from.
Until next time.