Return of an acquaintance who I associated with a funny hangover experience

You might be wondering about this strange title.

I have told a funny story about this acquaintance of mine to most of my friends last summer and most of my NY friends teased / accused me of having a lesbian experience. Oh, those New Yorkers with dirty minds — Anyhow, I never wrote about it in my blog… well, due to little bit of embarrassment I suppose.

I usually start with, “oh, I woke up at the girl’s dormitory after drinking a lot in Seoul” then most of my friends’ reactions are “what?” Nothing happened. Really.

The real story goes like this. My first 4 months in Seoul (that was when I had stronger stomach,) I used to go to this one particular bar and drank and hung out with the regulars. They are mostly filmmakers including professors and grad students, photographers, writers, designers, artists, musician… yeah, artsy but very down to earth. As I saw the same faces several times, I often joined with this group of filmmakers (I think.) There was one other girl in this group other than me whenever I joined them after drinking with my friends. She is a grad student from China who is studying Films. Her Korean was pretty good so we used to talk a bit.

One evening, it was my friend’s birthday. I ended up that bar as third round. When we were about to be done for the night, this group came in and seemed to be happy to find me there & asked me to join them. So, I’ve joined after two of my friends left. The professor guy wanted to call our mutual friend and he actually showed up within 30 min. wow. so we continued to drink… I should have stopped there but, when you are drunk, I guess you lose track of how much you drink… I think I drank few more glasses of wine. The problem is that from that point, I remember but, with some blind spot. We went out to eat around 3 am or so. I remember talking about things with them and eating late night food but, the strangest thing is that I don’t remember what I ate! I remember who I ate with but, didn’t remember what I ate! I saw my friend left drunk trying to grab a taxi & I was kind of thinking how the hell am I going to take a taxi alone this drunk and won’t it be dangerous… Like she read my mind, she said that she knows exactly where I could stay that night. She took me who hardly walk straight to her dorm. I do remember this part clearly so don’t imagine things! Her roommate was away so I could use her roommate’s bed. She gave me some baggy tees to change and we said good-night.

Next morning, I woke up with pounding headache… you know the usual why-did-I-do-this-to-me kind of hangover. I immediately cleaned up quickly and tried to leave leave as soon as possible after saying ‘Thank You” & - I was embarrassed. She said, “wait!” “I would like to give you a token of gift for your visit to my dormitory room.” (This is where my friends find it questionable.) She gave me some hand phone accessory from China. I think I left pretty quickly right after saying “Thanks a lot” again. Oh, how horrifyingly long that subway ride was under my condition. All I wanted to do was to go home & sleep, not 50 min subway ride!

After I felt better, I really appreciated her hospitality and thought she is a really cool person. But, I didn’t have her contact info & I had to fly out to the US next day for over 2 months so, I lost a track of her. Last fall & winter, I did bumped into other guys in her group but never saw her at that bar. I also didn’t go out drinking much since last fall due to my stomach problems. Then it just remained as a funny experience I had and a story none of my friends seem to forget.

Yesterday, I got an email from her. She found my email address from the school site. (I don’t even know where that site is, honestly) She wanted to see me before she goes back to China but, she didn’t have my contact. She wrote that she remembers that I kept saying that I would love to visit China one day when I was drinking with her and her group of people. She is teaching Film in a university in Dalian and asked me to contact her if I ever want to visit China and I should visit Dalian! What a pleasant surprise! I wrote her back in Korean, wishing her the best and I did try to contact her through one of the people in her group to say “Thank you” - which was true.

Hmmmm…..I guess I will be visiting China some day.  Life is funny.