How I met my husband Part 1: How I came to find Korean men attractive

I must warn you this will be a long story, It will take several posts, kind of like that show "How I Met Your Mother", except eventually I will get to the part where I meet him. This is not really a travel story, well it sort of is.... but it seems to be the question for the moment so I'll tell you about it. I will tell you the extended version that is, because all the juicy stuff is on my way to finding him. For those of you who don't know me, my husband is Korean and I met him there in Korea. I taught English there for 3 years.


I'll begin with my attraction for Korean men. I like to say I caught yellow fever and it just wouldn't go away. When I first moved to Korea I did not find Asian men attractive at all! I thought they were all skinny and short and I had heard other rumors about certain body parts and I didn't want to go there.


Well for the record, I was sort of shocked when I actually got there because a lot of Koreans are really tall. I have a theory about this, (this may actually be fact and not just my theory). Before the Korean war and after they were really poor and they didn't get the proper nutrition, but this country is literally one of the most progressive countries ever. They have come so far so quickly. So once they had proper nutrition like milk and meat, they became normal sized and some of them really tall.


Other great things that I found in Korea was the bullet train, which is a super fast subway that will get you from the top of Korea to the bottom is 3 hours. Obama and/or Arnold Schwarzenegger actually visited Korea to talk about putting one of those in California. I think they should put one in all the states!


Another thing is Internet in Korea is the fastest in the world. Their public transportation is the most efficient and the cheapest in the world. Literally you can go from one side of Seoul to the other for like a dollar. I almost fell over when I went to London and costed like 7-14 pounds to do that. Also shopping is so awesome and cheap.


 Koreans take whatever is on the runway, make an almost exact replica and sell it on the streets for really cheap. It's awesome. The only bad thing is the material is really cheap, but it's not going to be in style long anyway, so who cares, right? And the shoes are amazing and cheap too, but  literally one time I bought a pair of shoes (loved them) and I was half way home and one of them just fell completely apart, so I had to hop/walk barefoot on the disgusting sidewalks of Seoul til I got home. From then on I kept an extra pair of shoes in my  fake Louis Vuitton purse.


There are millions of amazing things about Korea and I won't spend this whole post telling you about them. I'll leave something for my later posts. But I'll mention one more thing and that is Korean food! People ask me about Korean food a lot. Korean cuisine is largely based upon rice, vegetables, and meats. Traditional Korean meals are noted for the number of side dishes (banchan) that accompany steam-cooked short-grain rice. Kimchi is served often, sometimes at every meal. Commonly used ingredients include sesame, doenjang (fermented bean paste), soy sauce, salt, garlic, ginger, pepper  flakes and gochujang (fermented red chili paste). One of the favorites for foreigners is Korean barbecue (galbi). The meat is deliciously marinated and grilled then pair with any or all side dishes  inside a lettuce wrap. Delicious!


So basically it's really healthy and they think kimchi is amazing. Some have claimed it can cure cancer. It has been proven to burn calories. They eat it with everything and it's really smelly. Before I had been in Korea for six months, I couldn't stand it and it made me sick to smell it. I gained so much weight because I wouldn't touch Korean food. I would eat at McDonald's or go out for pizza, and even though the pizza was a little weird, because it had sweet potato in the crust. I would rather have that. I can't really contribute all of my weight gain to my diet and big part of it was also the amount of alcohol I consumed. 


The first week I was in Korea I was drunk four nights out of seven. I thought, "Wow, I'm off to a great start." There is a drink they make in Korea called Soju. It takes like a cross between vodka and rubbing alcohol. It is customarily consumed neat, but there is no way I can consume it without mixing it with coke or juice or something.  It is deadly, (and by deadly, I mean it will get you in major trouble. Although I'm sure if you drink enough you could die of alcohol poisoning) and it will give the worst hangover of your life. 


Another thing about drinking in Korea is they have a whole other culture about drinking. In America, it is not okay to fraternize. A manager or supervisor is not supposed to go drinking with their employees. In Korea, it is mandatory. If you supervisor says, "Let's go drinking." You must go. If not I'm not sure if they would fire you, because I have always gone, but I'm sure it's really frowned upon. I'm not sure which way is better, but I tend to go with American culture on this one. I think there are boundaries when it comes to co-workers. For example, when I was teaching adults, I had a student who told me he got drunk with his boss and inappropriately told his boss everything he was doing wrong with his life, so he was afraid to go to work the next day. Thank goodness, it never did, but that is exactly the situation I would get myself into if I drank with my superiors too much. But the first Korean boyfriend I had and I will get to him soonish, would actually break dates with me to go drinking with his supervisor, because he "had to". 


Okay, back to Korean men. Before I started to even notice Korean men, I decided to try some Western men when I first got to Korea. I first was really into this guy named Niles. I liked him mostly because he was a musician and I was just looking for some fun. One night, we all went out to town nearby to where we lived in Korea called Ilsan. We were all drinking and talking and after everyone was really drunk I started making out with Niles. We made out the whole night, but we were so drunk that I pretty much had to carry him home. So I was just going to put him in his bed and go back to my apartment, when he pulled me onto his bed and was like no, don't go. I didn't really want to have sex with him, but I was so drunk that I just was like, "whatever." Well the alcohol was my friend that night because he couldn't get it up. Also, from where I was standing through blurry vision, he didn't look very pleasing even if he was excited, if you know what I mean. 


Niles wound up being a real jerk to me afterwards. He wouldn't talk to me or even look at me after his "embarrassing incident." Then I found out really quickly that he and a couple of other guys were like the "Village Bicycles" who tried to get with every new girl who came to the village. I even got really drunk one night and confronted him. He said we could be friends and he just felt awkward. After about six months or so later, Niles apologized to me and said he was sorry for EVERYTHING. I was hurt at the time, but in hind sight, I am so happy nothing ever happened between us. 


Then I dated this British guy for a little bit. I met him out in Hongdae, which is a part of Seoul where the most dance clubs are located. I was actually trying to make Niles jealous at the time, because he had moved on to the next new girl and I was going to show him. Anyway I had some drinks with this British guy named Henry Swords or something really British. We went out a couple of times, but discovered we weren't really compatible. 


Technically, I had a couple of experiences with Korean men before I was officially only attracted to them. One night, Maisie, Clio, Micah, and I were going out for sushi. That is all we were going to do. We were going out for sushi. I was the only one who had to work in the morning, so the rest of them were not worried at all about getting back anytime soon. We decided to go to this German bar in Ilsan. This bar had beer bongs and we were all having a good time and drinking. There was a Philippino band there playing. There were also all kinds of Korean businessmen there. One in particular was not so bad looking. He was actually pretty good looking and very tall and had on a suit. That never hurts. He was eyeing me. So being the wonderfully outgoing people my friends were they decided that we were going to go over and have drinks with these businessmen and dance with them. I quickly discovered the hot one didn't speak any English at all. At that time, I spoke no Korean. We did dance some and to my embarrassment, Micah tried to teach him the words "Motor boat" and how to do that. I think I did smack him hard for that. 


Then we all decided to go to a Karaoke bar. In Korea, these are called Noraebangs. We were all singing. I made out with the Korean guy, but he had no idea how to kiss. Then he got up and sang a song that was only in Korean, but he inserted my name into it. I have no idea what else he was saying but every so often he would say, "Jeshika, blah, blah, blah." He begged me to go with him, but I practically had to pry myself away from him. He gave me his business card and that was the last time I saw him. Clio said I should have given him a chance and I was like yeah and what would we talk about? I just wasn't that into him. 


So I was single for a while and then I went to the Philippines. That's a whole other story. I had a ridiculous time there and I have no idea what happened, but after that, it was like someone flipped a switch in my brain. I suddenly found Korean men attractive and I started to find Korean food delicious. I craved it. 


The beginning of the end was one night. It was my friend Analyse's birthday. We all went out to this Mexi/American restaurant called "On The Border".Anyway, it’s terribly expensive and not nearly as good as any Mexican restaurant you would eat at in America, but I suppose, us foreigners felt a sense of comfort from eating there.

We decided to try out a bar called “Ho Bar X.” Ho Bar is a chain of bars in Hongdae. There are literally ten of them there. We liked it because the drinks were pretty cheap. On our way to Hongdae that night, Clio had informed us that she had been learning some Korean phrases from the Korean teachers she worked with. It was Clio, me, Analyse, and Maisie in the cab. So Clio taught us the Korean pick up line. It is “Shiganesoyo.” That means: Do you have time for me? So Clio set up a dare and the dare was that each of us had to find a Korean guy to try this out on.

As we made our way into Ho Bar, Analyse found a table of British boys and were chumming them up. I was drunk by this time and feeling really randy. I looked over and at the bar, I saw a very attractive Korean bartender. I was shocked. I hadn’t seen a Korean that I thought, “man he is so hot,”  until this guy. He was wearing a superman shirt and he had big muscles. I went over to him and said, can you make me a drink? He was like okay. Then I said, “shiganesoyo.” He said, “yeah!” So I flirted with him a bit, but then I went back to my British boys.

We decided to go to another bar, but as I was leaving, the bartender caught me by the arm and said, “Where are you going, you’re so cute.” So I gave him my number and said okay we can go out sometime then. I soon grew tired of the British boys and wanted to go home. I thought a lot about the bartender. We texted a few times but , he worked six days a week and he only wanted to sleep on Sundays.


P.S. The bartender is not my husband...stay tuned for next week's post to find out what happened with him. :)