Let's sing!

Ever since I first thought about visiting South Korea, there is one thing that I've wanted to do above all others.

I can happily say that I have finally done it. Karaoke, or its Korean name 노래방 (no-rae-bang), which seems to roll off of the tongue easier. 

I'm not sure why it took so long. Karaoke rooms are about as prolific as coffeeshops here, and if you glance up at the sea of glowing signs for the typical multi-story business buildings, you're bound to find a few.

Below is a street just out side of our old apartment. I took this shot a while back, because it had rained and I thought it was pretty. But looking back, I saw that the karaoke place my friend and I went to is pictured here. Look at the building on the right. The bottom store, which is super bright and says "Square" is a mobile phone carrier. Above that is the karaoke room, the name is actually "Queen's Avenue song practice place". Above that is a dentist. You can see there are many things in these buildings. In the building on the left, that's a Hyundai car dealership on the ground floor, and a Chicago pizza pub just above it.

When we first walked in, for me the feeling was reminiscent of a spa. Everything was bright, clean and there is a counter and receptionist where you pay. You take your shoes off in the reception area, step up onto the raised floor and are led to your private singing room.

Two people for one hour of karaoke cost 20,000 won, around 17 dollars. But later I found out, it is customary to receive free minutes. We ended up singing for 2.5 hours without having to pay anything more.

So here was our room just as we began to settle down. The microphones are in the corner between the window and TV on a charging stand.

Here are the essential tools. 

Remote - Each song is assigned a number which you punch in using this remote. It also allows you to search the database for specific songs and artists. There are several other handy features like pitch and speed adjustment. Like when we sang a particularly low song by a male artist, we would hit the # button a few times and it would raise the song's pitch into our higher, girly range. There is some distortion to the quality, but this is karaoke after all.

Song Books - Songs are listed in alphabetical order by song title. The largest section is of course for Korean songs, then there is a sizable English section and finally recent updates listed by month. The January 2016 page, at the very back of the book, had the latest Korean Pop songs and a handful of international hits by people like Adele, Sam Smith and Justin Bieber.

Tamborines - You know what to do.

Microphones - Oops. Forgot to include those. They're important too.

 Like I said, the songs are listed in alphabetical order. Which quickly convinced me that I need to learn the order of the Korean alphabet, something I have been putting off, having deemed it unimportant. Now I have finally found a compelling reason to learn alphabetical order.

The English section has a huge variety of hits - everything from classics like the Eagles and Queen to contemporaries like Rita Ora. I was quite impressed to see the names of so many artists from every decade and almost every genre. Have a look.

And once you start singing, the lights dim, the music thumps and a colorful lights start flashing and swirling in time with the song.

We had such a fun time. In the pauses between songs, you can hear the crooning and yelling of people in nearby rooms which is a funny yet sobering realization. They can hear us too? Since we went in the afternoon, we heard teenagers, but later at night the crowd would age a bit. 

We sang a variety of English and Korean songs. Often we would pick out familiar songs in the language more foreign to us, only to discover that the other one did not know it. My friend picked out some songs by Stevie Wonder and the Beegees and had to sing solo. While I chose some Korean pop songs and ended up hitting the high notes and rapping by myself. Thankfully the remote also has a skip button.

No one interrupts you when you are in the room. It is your safe place to sing as loudly and awfully and awesomely as you wish. The small digital box beneath the TV displays the amount of minutes left. Occasionally the amount increased, as free minutes were added, but it finally ticked down to zero, the dance lights faded and the room brightened.

I didn't take any action photos of us singing. We were were too busy having fun, and I barely remembered to take these few pictures. Should I risk the embarrassment and get a few shots of us next time? Maybe drag Isaac along?

I wish they had karaoke rooms like this back home. I know there are comparable places in big cities, but it seems hard to find a comparable place for such a cheap price, and with the same safe, clean feeling.

Before I go, let's talk about snow. We had a few more snow days, enough that I have now gotten into the habit of running to the window each morning to check for flakes. There was no serious accumulation, but one snow was special because the snowflakes were large enough to easily be seen with the naked eye. I spent over an hour on our balcony trying to take pictures, hunched over my cell phone after making the disappointing discovery that the batteries of all of our dedicated cameras were dead.

One word for snowflake in Korean is 눈꽃, which is literally snow flower. I think it is such a pretty name, conveying the magical, impossible beauty and intricacy of these little frosted flakes. Or maybe I'm just a typical Southerner, never losing my excitement for the white stuff.