Carne Station

Friday night after work we made the trek to Hongdae to eat at Carne Station, a restaraunt we'd read about that sounded magical: all you can eat BBQ and all you can drink for 23,000. Who could ask for anything more? Book me a room, why would you ever leave? We left Suwon after work with Chris, Shaun and his brother Jake, and *fresh off the boat* new teacher Hannah and got on a bus that we thought would take us directly to Hongdae. We got stuck in traffic for the longest time and then we got kicked off in Sadang, where the bus route actually finished. It was about this time that we got a text from Dayna saying that she and the rest of our Suyu friends had already arrived in Hongdae, which was still pretty far away. So we got on the subway, and we still made it there before Jeannie, Michelle and Cavin who had driven through the traffic from Suwon. In all we had four Canadians, two Americans, four Brits and 3 Koreans. We were like a mini UN.


The restaraunt was fantastic. Best place ever! There was a whole wall of meat: beef, pork and seafood that you selected and then brought back to your table and BBQ-d to your liking. There were also lots of soups, fruit, salad and of course- kimchi and rice! Given the price of beef in Korea, I'm surprised this place can stay open with the chunks of cow we were frying up at our tables...


Like I said it was also all-you-could-drink. Which turned out to be a lot but would have been a lot more if the place hadn't abruptly started closing around 10:30. Don't worry, we picked up the pace when we noticed the place emptying out. Look- you could pour your own beer! There were coolers of soju for the taking, bottles of wine and the most impressive thing- the wall of free hard liquor. Oh, a place like this wouldn't be able to stay in business for one week at home!



Soju shots all around!


Here's Michelle measuring how many heads Jake has in proportion to his body. 8 is ideal, and a higher number is even better. Koreans find "small face" very attractive, so if you are a pea head I would highly recommend teaching in Korea. One time at work, Jamie (one of the korean teachers) wouldn't stand next to Mel during the morning assembly because her head would look too big in comparison. Just so you know, Jake also has a small face. I'm pretty sure I do not.


Of course we smuggled out some of the soju and stashed them in the girls' bags so we could take them into the Norebang (kareoke room). Drinking is not allowed in the rooms, but it's pretty much expected that people will bring their own drinks in with them. Unfortunately some beers that weren't hidden so well were taken at the door, but returned to us when we left. Once again we hit up the luxury norebang because of the free ice cream. Oooh la la.


Melodie adds some sass to the festivities.

Jeannie and I always sing a very special song together. You might remember our rendition of "What's Up" from a few months ago. What was on tap for Friday night? Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On". The best part was when we did the Titanic pose.

Our friends from the UK sing some Oasis or the Beatles or something lol. We had a really fun night, ate a lot of food, and butchered all the right songs. We got a cab back to Suwon, hung out on the roof, chased Mike's ghosts out of Hannah's apartment and finally got some sleep. Well to finish, I'm going to leave you with one of my favorite photos of the night. Let this be a warning, this is your brain on soju:

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