Seoul at Night Part 2

NOTE: I cannot check my spelling because most of the screen is in Korean...please fourgive me. I am also layzy. :)

Young Joe, our small time gangster puppy dealer, has some mad driving skills. He is aggressive, at time tyrannical, and very secure with all his driving decisions. The man makes no mistakes while behind the wheel. To me, his driving is beyond crazy. He cuts people off, runs, what looks like to be red lights, goes straight when there is a green arrow, pushes pedestrians out of the way, takes corners at great speed and parks wherever he likes. It's madness.

But in Korea - he is a fantastic driver.

We toured half of Seoul that night, thanks to his speed. And I have to say, it was the first time I came to realize that this is not my Mother's Seoul.

Young Joe showed me a tiny part of the underbelly of Seoul. He took us to Itaewon, near the U.S. Military Base. There we toured..."toured" the transgendered bars, the Eagles bar where White Guys hang, the XoXO (can't remember exactly) bar where the Black Guys hang... various gay bars and really tiny, dirty, FABULOUS places to eat! We stopped at one.

Young Joe parked his car at the entrance of an alley, blocking at least 5 other cars in. We got out...I looked at Shayne - he shrugged and we both have this expression we where now...I call it, "When in Rome..."

When in Rome, eat what small time gangster eat. Military Jigae (soup). Ingredients: Spam, hot dogs, kimchi, ramen, other noodles, green onions, tofu, some beef if you got it, and lots of hot peppers. It was awesome! Military Jigae was born during the Korean War. Because food was so scarce they put whatever they had into this stew. Since soldiers were pretty nice to Koreans, they gave them lots of spam and hot dogs. Wha la...improvised stew!

We sat in this tiny place, on the warm floor (God I got to get these floors!) watched the Korean Oscars and shared this giant boiling pot of Military Jigae. Had a couple of beers, some oranges and headed out. Ready for this? I went underground!

We want to buy Shayne's Mom a nice purse. You know, something Gucci or Channel-ish. Young Joe has connections. So we headed around the market district and walked around until he said something like - "Hey. Nice night." Translation: "Where are the knock offs?" The guy motioned for us to follow him...down, down, down this narrow alley, down many steps into a tiny back room. This room led into another bigger room with the smell of leather. Fine leather...Gucci, Channel...Fendi, PRADA LEATHER KNOCK OFFS! We sat on an old couch - me, Shayne, Jun ...oh and I forgot to mention, Jun's 11 year old cousin. Yeah. We are terrible people. Her name is "Jenny." I think she wanted us to use this name to save us embarrassment from saying her real name, Zgu Young.

Anyway, we sit and Young Joe talks. Smokes. Talks...bags are set out before us and My God...I want them all! They are amazing and perfect...these bags my friend, are grade A knock offs. VERY illegal because you cannot tell if they are fake. I'm serious. These were the real things except fake. And might I add expensive. Grade A knock off run between $200 to $300. Keep in mind how much a real Gucci bag costs, $400-1,000 or more. Good deal, but we are on a budget. Young Joe tried to talk them down but it was a no go. That much for a bag is too much of our budget for now. Maybe at the end of the trip, if we have some left, we will visit the alley guys again.