Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Keepongoing]

You know the Cheers type bar where everybody knows everybody. Well on this holiday I have been hanging around Seoul and frequented a few bars. I dropped in Seoul Pub several times and noticed the same people there each time. In fact, they are almost always sitting in the same seats.
I think they are family to each other???? Anyway, it reminded me of Cheers.


Now, here is my real question:

Is it healthy to hang around the bar every day? I know that is a dumb question, but it is something practiced.


I don't condemn them, in fact, I quite like sitting around there and yapping with everyone. I can see how dropping in on the friendly neighborhood bar could become a lifestyle. Something you do after work most days. But I do wonder about the pros and cons.

When I am teaching I do not go out until Friday night, so I would not get into that lifestyle, but these guys are able to manage their jobs and their regular evenings in the bar.

Pros: Builds relationships
Gives you someone to talk to about isssues at work
Helps you network. A lot of these guys help each other out

Cons: May not be healthy to drink every day?
Maybe neglecting other areas of your life


So what is your thinking on the friendly neighorhood bar? Do you, or would you ever want to get to the point in life where you dropped by the bar for 2-5 hours everyday?

[itaewonguy]

been there done that! and I was in my early 20's and I would look around the bar and see old guys sitting there day after day nursing there beers!
talking the same ole crap, then making an ass of themselves and stumbling out the door! of course not all were like that!
but sitting in a bar everynight is kinda sad if you ask me!
thats one reason why I got sick of 3 alleys and seoul pub years ago
because I would drop in once a week sometimes twice and always the same people there. drop back in 1 year later or 2 years same thing like they never left the stool!
I have better things to do than sit in a bar a drink beer!
to me going to bars in a event! going out! having a few beers! etc..
special night etc.. people who do it from sunday to saturday need help!
lets go for a quiet one! yeah right!
can anyone say alcoholics!!??
either that or they dont want to be home!

but I use to do it! but never everyday! just I was in my party days!
but my mission was not to drink! it was to pick up snatch!!
take a look at youre friendly bar next time.. look at the locals sitting on the stools at 3 alleys and seoulpub! all sporting a beer gut! and look old and sad! gunter and his pirates of merry men hahaah
seoul pub even sadder!

Itaewon is full of drunks!

and kroeans are no different! just they drink faster and harder!
and get home in a couple hours! speed drinkers!
most of the waygooks you see in the won are all cheap charlies hitting happy hour and then nursing their beers !

[simone]

It's fine.

I can't recall the last time I had a beer in an Itaewon bar, probably in early July, but back when I was new to Korea, I was in the bar 5/7 nights. My apartment was tiny and near Itaewon, so the bar was like an extension of my living room.

If anyone recalls the original Reggae Pub- Before Ms. Oh from Unique Travel pulled a fast one and forced the boys out of business....circa 1997-1998.

Met my husband there... and about 90% of my close friends, either met them there, or was introduced by someone I met there, or met them at the house of someone whom I met there....

Haven't been to the "new" Reggae Pub yet. You can never really go home, eh?

-- So yeah, go to the pub. Chat up the drunks. Then some time try to get a few of them to go for Kalbi with you. Voila! Friends, step one.

Then in a year or so, when you move into nicer apartments, start having house parties.

The funny thing is, even through we were all barflys back then, we hardly drink much at all now. Everyone's old and married now... some have kids. Life moves on.

Thanks, Reggae Pub.

Simone
No regular bar stool anymore, but I'm okay.

[Keepongoing]

[simone]

In a nutshell, four Canadian guys opened a bar. It was good. Ran for a couple of years before their Korean partner forced them out. Same old sob story. I think one of them is now running an inn with his Korean wife. Don't know what the rest are up to.

The rest is all hearsay:

From what I recall hearing, the four guys each put up something like 10 mil key money, and Miss Oh "supposedly" matched that. Then the rent got raised or something like that, and Ms. Oh bought them out for their original sum... Oh, I don't know the full details, but in the end, it came out that this slag got 50% ownership in this business just by signing some papers, and actually had never put down a cent of her own money. Brokerage sure is profitable...

Sad thing is these guys all left in the middle of the IMF, kind of disheartnened and broken. No other young guys took a risk like opening a place like that until RMT. (Hmmnn... four Canadian guys start a bar... sounds familiar.)

But this is all long long ago Itaewon history. Me old.

Simone


She also owns Panchos. I don't know if she's involved at the new Reggae Pub.

[Tiger Beer]

Any bar in Itaewon can become your neighborhood bar. They all have a slightly different clientele.. you just gotta check out as many as you can.. and you'll find yourself gravitating towards certain ones more than others.

[itaewonguy]