Noraebangs and Tambourines

Last weekend a friend who is stationed in Japan right now came to Seoul for the weekend with some others.  We met up, had dinner at Korean BBQ, got some drinks, went to a jazz club (was okay), and then ended our night with a bang at a noraebang.  For those of you who aren’t enlightened, a noraebang (노래방) translates to singing-room, but basically is a karaoke place with private rooms that are open all hours of the night.  It’s not just going to a regular karaoke room that has an extra microphone.  These noraebangs feature several plasma flat screen tvs, different sized rooms depending on your party, great sound systems, food/drinks (at some you’re allowed to bring in stuff), sofas, tables, and most importantly… light-up tambourines!  I never knew that I would love on a tambourine so much, but get some soju in me and I won’t lay off it all night!  Case in point-

 We had several Koreans with us who sang Korean songs, but the Japanese and English song selection wasn’t bad at all.  In fact, there were a lot of newer songs to choose from.  Some of the shadier looking noraebangs, or ones out in more rural areas unfortunately don’t have all the new hits.  Anyway, you can rent out rooms by the hour and is a pretty inexpensive way to spend an evening with friends.  There are some nicer noraebangs that are decorated in themes too.  Nice plush couches and more have a hotel like feel in the rooms.

I hear there are noraebang busses that travel throughout Korea.  That would be a pretty fun way to get to some of the distant cities.  Wonder if the driver ever partakes in the fun.

Just an FYI, there are other types of ‘bangs’ (pronounce the “a” like “ah”) besides the noraebang.   There are PC bangs for playing computer games or surfing the web and also DVD bangs were people go to watch movies (sometimes some scandalous happenings go on there).  Several of each of these can be found in virtually every neighborhood here in Korea.  However the noraebang is by far my favorite.