No matter what anybody tells you, words and ideas can change the world.
Pool Halls
Pool halls are supposed to dark, dirty, smelly affairs. Places for men to go to and swear, drink and be hidden from the outside world. I regularly enjoyed my days and nights at The Ambassador in Aberdeen; a fantastic pool hall that had all of the above (and some arcade games to pass the time as well). It really was an escape from all the things that we sometimes need to escape from, and we could watch the football there too. I have, however, been known to miss these.
In Korea this is not the case at all. Your typical pool hall will not be a pool hall at all, but a dan-gool hall. Dan-gool is a game similar to billiards and can be played with three or four balls (yellow, red and white). The odd hall will have 1 or 2 ‘pocketball’ tables for us foreigners and those wishing to embrace western culture (what there is of it) to have a game on.
The halls themselves are well lit with waiting staff coming over and giving you bowls of bar type snacks and some fizzy pop. They come over and refill these for you, you can have coffee too but beer is out of the question. They do allow us to bring this in with us, but it is only for the foreigners, and Koreans never do it. They use these places as a way to pause with the drinking for a short time.
They are still mainly used by men, you do see some girls in there but they tend just to be watching the games and playing with their phones. They have a great thing that if you are wearing some nice shirt and don’t want to get it marked with chalk, then they have an arm coverer thing to wear over it. A lot of them seem to wear gloves too, I cannot fathom why they would be doing this
Being able to make eye contact with the guys at the table next to you is quite unnerving, you shouldn’t be able to see them through the gloom and smoke. In a country where we are noticed all the time, it would be good to find a place like The Ambassador that we could go to and hide in the shadows. It seems that we must continue to stick out like sore thumbs and be watched at every turn.
I am writing this at work at the moment and a huge delivery of food has just arrived, the kindergarten teachers are trying to get me to eat it. I am not going to argue with them.
Next time – Dancing or Kung Fu
Pool halls are supposed to dark, dirty, smelly affairs. Places for men to go to and swear, drink and be hidden from the outside world. I regularly enjoyed my days and nights at The Ambassador in Aberdeen; a fantastic pool hall that had all of the above (and some arcade games to pass the time as well). It really was an escape from all the things that we sometimes need to escape from, and we could watch the football there too. I have, however, been known to miss these.
In Korea this is not the case at all. Your typical pool hall will not be a pool hall at all, but a dan-gool hall. Dan-gool is a game similar to billiards and can be played with three or four balls (yellow, red and white). The odd hall will have 1 or 2 ‘pocketball’ tables for us foreigners and those wishing to embrace western culture (what there is of it) to have a game on.
The halls themselves are well lit with waiting staff coming over and giving you bowls of bar type snacks and some fizzy pop. They come over and refill these for you, you can have coffee too but beer is out of the question. They do allow us to bring this in with us, but it is only for the foreigners, and Koreans never do it. They use these places as a way to pause with the drinking for a short time.
They are still mainly used by men, you do see some girls in there but they tend just to be watching the games and playing with their phones. They have a great thing that if you are wearing some nice shirt and don’t want to get it marked with chalk, then they have an arm coverer thing to wear over it. A lot of them seem to wear gloves too, I cannot fathom why they would be doing this
Being able to make eye contact with the guys at the table next to you is quite unnerving, you shouldn’t be able to see them through the gloom and smoke. In a country where we are noticed all the time, it would be good to find a place like The Ambassador that we could go to and hide in the shadows. It seems that we must continue to stick out like sore thumbs and be watched at every turn.
I am writing this at work at the moment and a huge delivery of food has just arrived, the kindergarten teachers are trying to get me to eat it. I am not going to argue with them.
Next time – Dancing or Kung Fu
posted by Alanowski @ 8:29 pm
2 Comments:
Dead Poets Society
-Scott (soon to be going home, boo hoo) Buchanan.
Congratulations Bazzler!
God, uncle Alan, scary biscuits.
-Scott
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