I ate, I misplaced my credit card, I traded in books

That is a rather good summary of my weekend.

Thursday night was one for the ladies' as always. I went home earlier than usual, which turned out to be a theme this past weekend. It was a good night, though I have accepted that I seldom enjoy Helios. My problem is that it is crowded and people pinch my ass. Both of these things annoy me. Now, with a few drinks, I'd be a bit more mellow, but not only is the damn free drinks line about 20 years long, they also make the weakest drinks EVER. Thus, Helios tends to just annoy me. The Loft is lovely though. I am not sure how the crowdedness there never bothers me, though it could be the lack of ass pinching. I mean really, boys, what ARE you thinking?

Friday night I met Debbie and Joel for dinner at Geckos, we wandered by B1 (the old J Bar for any ex-Korean expats reading) which is lovely and pretty and cool, and then over to Queen to dance and gaze at beautiful but unavailable men. The Gay Boyfriends were all there, obviously, Tatiana met a new girl, and I got a chance to hang out with Annie a bit before she left early. Debbie and I went briefly to dance at King's Club too.

Saturday I met some people, the Ladies Who Lunch, for lunch at Thai Orchid. It was fun and unexpectedly Susan was there. Saturday night was dinner at Helios, which is much more pleasant than anything else at Helios. But, Helios once more annoyed me, as I swear to god, I have never been somewhere so small where it was so damn easy to lose people. Spending all my time looking for people is annoying. We popped our heads into Spy, but it was dead, and headed to 66. Which is when I realised that I no longer had my credit card.

Basically, my Korean bank card is a dud on weekends. I don't know why and frankly my attempts to have it fixed have met with no result, so I figured, fuck it, I'll just take out a wad of cash every Friday and away we go. Which worked just fine until we went to say goodbye to Sean and Amber and getting money out completely left my mind. Thus, I had only 70,000 won and US$70 to get me through the weekend. Enough, but just tight enough to leave one worrying about being short a cab fare at some point along the way. So, Saturday, I had a genius idea to use my credit card for dinner and one round of drinks and that would make the finaces hum along for the weekend. I normally never carry the damn card with me. The one damn time I do, the waiter fails to give it back to me, and I fail to notice. Damn. This story turned out fine, though, as I got it back the next day.

However, it all put me in a rather annoyed mood. After wandering around Helios looking for people and losing the card, I wasn't feeling the party. Debbie and Joel went off to M2 for some expensive house music (ewwww, house! ewwww, $25 entry fee!) and I stayed at 66. I was having fun chatting with the crew, but in the move to TinPans 2, I was once again annoyed and decided to just go home and go to bed. After reading 100 or so pages of "The Wind-up Bird Chronicle", which continues to be fabulous.

Sunday I headed to Itaewon again, as I needed to pick up my credit card and I traded in some books at What the Book. I meant to get the cash for them, but couldn't resist the pull of books. "Where is human nature so weak as in the bookstore?" asked Henry Ward Beecher, and he certainly had me pegged. I managed to cram in the tiniest bit of Christmas shopping and then I met Val and her crew for dinner at La Tavola's (yummiest Italian food in Seoul) and then went to Geckos to see Sheila and the gang (funniest folks in Seoul). I confused the waitress by asking for hot chocolate and peppermint schnapps. "Peach schnapps?" she asked with a confused look. Um, no. That would likely be disgusting. We were there long enough to hear them playing Closing Time, and then the weekend sadly came to an end.

Finally, I have my break back. And my plane ticket to Thailand is all confirmed and price established. Bring on the beach, because with Mr. Joo as my boss, it's already been a long fucking week.