Our birthdays 2010!

Re-posted from September 6, 2010

 my birthday is july 28th and jens's birthday is august 28th...

so this year jens and i decided to have a combined korean- style b-day bash! our friends met us at our house and then we drove WAAAAAY out to some part of dallas where there is a korean restaurant right next to a korean noraebang (karaoke room)! jens and i were super excited to show our friends how we partied in korea! we got a private room in the korean restaurant which was cool but it was different than in korea. first of all it was a table and chairs and you didn't have to sit on the floor, second there were no call buttons on the table so we had to keep getting up and pushing a button on the wall about 10 feet away to get someone to come to our room and let us order something and third they weren't as quick to come to our table as in korea. but overall it was fun!

we ordered dueji galbi for everyone (except the vegetarians who got bibimbap- rice and veg. bowl. galbi is marinated pork you bbq on a grill on your table. in korea dueji galbi always had a sweet brown marinade on it that we love but for some reason at this place in dallas it had a spicy red pepper paste marinade like what would usually be on dak galbi (chicken) in korea....strange but still pretty delicious! one of the waitresses cooked it for us and she was hilarious! lol she just joked with us the whole time and it was really fun. we spoke some korean to her and i think she thought that was funny lol

some other differences were they didn't give us quite as many side dishes as i would have liked. there was a decent amount but i only like about 3 of them. and they didn't serve ANY korean beers! now korean beer IS gross but we just wanted that authentic experience lol we had to settle for the better japanese beer.

the most shocking difference was the price- all my friends who have taught in korea are about to get their minds blown...guess how much a bottle of soju was? (soju is the traditional korean liquor)...$10! TEN FREAKING DOLLARS! in korea it's less than $1! lol the galbi was about $16 a person which is twice as much as most galbi places in korea. needless to say we felt bad for bringing our friends there when it turned out to be so expensive! most everyone were good sports though and didn't complain :o) they all liked the food and had a good time!

after dinner we went next door to the noraebang!!! again it was similar to in korea but slightly different in various ways. first of all it was huge. you go in and there's a very large open room with some tall tables and bar stools and a bar at the back with all kinds of beer and liquor. it's almost like a club. they have a huge tv screen on the wall and you can pay $3 a song to sing karaoke on this stage to your friends as well as strangers. but we went there for the private rooms! we had had to make a reservation ahead of time because this place gets busy on the weekends! so we told them we were there, got drinks and waited a little while for our room to open.

(in korea most noraebangs have a very tiny room when you go in with a counter where you pay and 99% of the time we haven't had to reserve or wait for a room. we did once in a seoul at this really popular place but that was the only time. usually you walk in, tell them how many people, pay and go straight to a private room.)

so- back to the american noraebang- our private room was awesome! it was almost the same as in korea but it had much bigger, nicer and comfier leather chairs to sit in, one ENGLISH remote control lol, and a button by the door to call a waiter if you wanna order drinks or food. the song books were exactly the same as in korea though! they had korean, japanese and english songs in there and they pretty much didn't have many more english songs than they do in korea. that was kinda weird cuz i thought on their website there were more. i think they encourage you to look at the song lists online and make a list of the songs and numbers you want before you go. but we of course did not do that lol everyone found plenty of songs they liked though! it was so fun noraebanging with our texas friends for the first time!!! (ben and viv were there and they've been to korea but the rest hadn't.) i was really glad that most everyone wasn't afraid to sing. it was also really fun for me because my cousin catherine was there and she and i hadn't gotten to hang out in forever!!! (she was visiting from virginia).

i had set up a tab at the bar and jens just kept calling the guy in to order drinks. well when we left i had quite a shock! i went to the bar to pay and the guy goes...did YOU have 10 shiners??? i was like no! that must have been my husband! and he was like- ok cuz i thought- she should be falling on the floor right now! lol i don't think i'll do a tab there again because jens went a little overboard! i think he must have given some of those beers to other people cuz there's no way he would have been standing after 10 lol

overall, it was a great birthday night! i was so happy so many of our friends could come out and have a korean-style party with us! it definitely made me miss certain things about korea! like the cheap galbi and being able to drink whatever and not worry about driving home because there were taxis. siiighhh...

in conclusion i don't think i'd go to that korean restaurant again but i'd definitely go to that noraebang. the prices were comparable to korea and it was super fun!

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like i said jens and i had decided to have a COMBINED b-day party. this was HIS idea. he didn't want his OWN b-day party but when sat., august 28th rolled around suddenly he did! lol it was mainly because we happened to not have any plans on a sat. night so he was like- hey, why don't i have a b-day party? surprisingly (and luckily) a lot of our friends didn't have plans that night either! so we cleaned the house and gathered up some snacks and everyone came over around 7 i think. at the last minute we told everyone to wear some kind of WACKY clothing lol most people didn't dress wacky enough so i let them borrow some of my wacky accessories. i didn't realize til that night that most people don't have a stash of wacky accessories lol ya know like sombrero hats, giant glasses and boas. we snacked, talked, took pics, played "beerminton", danced the night away and listened to joel philosophize intensely while drunk lol it was a good night! i'm glad jens had a b-day party after all :o)

so we're both one year older and it feels pretty weird. i'm 27 and he's 28...that's almost 30! we don't feel almost 30...but i guess that's a good thing! FOREVER YOUNG!