Shang-whore

originally posted on 4/23/07

God I fucking love Itaewon, as I'm sure you know already. My latest reason? Look no further than my last time there. (and by last time there, I mean when I wrote this in a notebook 2 weeks ago, as I've been back to Itaewon since then and now have even better stories for a future blog. Stay with me though, this one is no slouch either.)

I was with my dad, on his last night in Seoul, and he was shopping for souvenirs, so I went to a bar. 3 Alley Pub, for the secondary reason that it's a good bar to go to at 8 p.m. or so, and much more importantly, my primary reason was actually number 2. That's right, in that department, 3 Alley is to Itaewon what Wild Wings is to downtown Lawrence.

3 Alley has a solid beer selection for Korea, and also an older crowd much of the time - the middle aged set. I watched the Superbowl there because of that. I figured if I'm watching the Bears, I'd rather do it amongst a bunch of crusty retired army guys in my dad's demo who cared about the game rather than a bunch of 20-something English teachers (which I realize I am) at some other bar.

Anyway, so I order a Guinness, and the middle-aged dude next to me at the bar strikes up a conversation. He's from LA, he's lived here for years, is in some sort of legitimate non-English teaching business, has a Korean wife, the whole 9. As often happens when talking to westerners (or anyone, really) we start talking travel, exchanging stories of Paris, Rome, Hong Kong, and other places we had both been. He asks me about Shanghai. I've not been to Shanghai, but I say I hope to go, which I do. Keep in mind, I'd been talking to this guy for maybe 7 minutes at this point, if that.

He (unsolicitedly) advises me that it's bad to cruise for whores in parts of a city known for it's hookers, but he made that mistake in Shanghai. So, he picked up this hooker in Shanghai's most notorious red light district (which, by the way, must be fucking awesome, whores aside. I mean, the shady, lawless part of Shanghai? Fuckin' A!) and took her back to his hotel, did the deed, and passed out with the hooker still there in the room. He was awoken at 4 a.m. or so with her "flopping around like a fish out of water," - direct quote there - and didn't know what to do.

This was the least intriguing part of his story, the mushy middle between the set- up and the punchline, so unfortunately I forget the specifics of what he did about this situation. If I were a better or less lazy writer, I would have made something up to fill the gap, but frankly I just want to move the plot along. I guess he took her to the hospital or something, I don't know.

Anyway, the next night, he returned to the bar where he met her originally to speak with the barkeep/pimp, apparently to register a formal complaint. After listening to Middle-Aged LA Guy's story, the bartender/pimp said, "wait, you didn't take her to get heroin before you took her home? What were you thinking, man?"

At this point, my Guinness was done and it was time to meet my dad elsewhere. In parting though, I gotta say, you hear some crazy shit at say, the Replay or the Holiday, but I've never had some middle aged guy I've known for less than 10 minutes tell a story about a Shanghai whore with a brutal case of the heroin DTs. Which, again, is why Itaewon rules.