This has been a month that's tested our mettle -- both professionally and personally. So when our Law School Friend (hereinafter referred to as "LSF") asked if we wanted to partake in a night of K-Town revelry, we knew the perfect antidote to mettle-testing was at our fingertips. That's right: a night of mutha-effing karaoke!
After chowing down on some Korean BBQ, it was off to find, in the parlance of K-Town, a Noraebang.
First up was Bliss.
This place immediately caught our attention because it was a cafe, bar, and music studio. We appreciate that K-Town refers to its karaoke joints as "music studios" because it does lend the whole affair with some much needed legitimacy. No, no, we're not going to imbibe enough liquid courage such that we get up and butcher some classic Billy Joel tunes. Of course not, silly. We're going into a music studio. To record some hit songs. It'll be much like USA For Africa. We're doing it for the kids, natch.
It turns out that Bliss was desperately trying to be fancy pants.
It had all sorts of glamorous signs.
And required patrons to walk above a Japanese restaurant.
And it wasn't just any stairway above a Japanese restaurant. It was a blue-lit tunnel which, there's no other explanation really, must have been inspired by the entrance to Space Mountain.
While we put our name into the karaoke room waiting list, LSF tried to get all serious by pumping herself up by flexing some Karaoke Face.
LSF couldn't hold such a serious pose for very long, unfortunately. Do we have a Karaoke Novice on our hands?
We quickly grew disillusioned by the monstrous karaoke line at Bliss, so we decided to hit the streets and see what else we could find.
We were hopeful that Ob's Cabin could dish out some karaoke (or perhaps some other kind of) delight, but nobody else in the group was willing to stop in.
After some more wandering, we came across Key Center and we figured, with ten store fronts, our odds were pretty good and that one of them would have to offer karaoke.
First up was Gaam.
What do you get when you take a Friday, then add some Upscale Asian Cuisine, and throw in Yakidori (whatever that is) and Sake and then subtract from the equation any presence of karaoke? You get this.
A restaurant with a lone white person taking a picture from the outside looking in. A very strange inversion of the usual Asian Tourists Taking Pictures scenario to be sure, and a bitter lesson to all places in K-Town that don't have karaoke (this part of the blog entry was a joke, for the culturally sophisticated/sensitive among you).
After all this hoofing around looking for some karaoke, we made the group take a breather and grab...
Some donuts. Eat 'em if you got 'em boys.
After the much needed D Break, we stumbled into our second karaoke attempt, a little jam called Young Dong Music Studio.
Unfortunately, like Bliss, Young Dong was just not meant to be. Not sure if it was because the place didn't serve alcohol (of course we do karaoke because we're inspired by the spirit of the music, but come on, we're only human here; we need like one or two other spirits before we're completely convinced we can do this. And anyway, it's a music studio so you have to be completely convinced that you can do it, because there are thousands of other people out there who would literally kill for your spot in the music studio in hopes of becoming America's next singing idol.)
Not sure if it was because 3605 1/2 would not serve us the alcohol that Long Young Dong wouldn't let us sneak in.
Not sure if it was because these two gentlemen -- yes, the two in the background with the Thinly Trimmed Mustaches -- were not having whatever joke we were serving (it should be noted that LSF, too, appears to want nothing to do with the joke).
Not sure if it was because when we asked this girl if we could take her picture she promptly turned around and said something that sounded like "GoawayI'mcallingthecopsnow!"
Whatever it was, our time at Young Dong Music Studio did not last long.
But just when we thought everything was lost, boo-effing-ya: Chapman Karaoke.
Errr, Chapman Karaoke with Accompanying Sundry Store to the Left.
We walked right in, got our own room, made sure we were properly hydrated, and got our karaoke on.
The group wasted no time getting into the karaoke rhythm, displaying the somewhat hard-to-pull-off Standing Karaoke Stance merely one song in.
Can I get a witness...
...there's your witness
It's real. Your faith.
Then it was the ladies' turn.
Can you take it a little higher for us?
A little more?
Final high note leads to The Karaoke Crash.
Duet time.
They're either defending the honor of their families. Or belting out some Jon Bon Jovi. We're guessing a little JBJ.
Peas in a karaoke pod.
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