Yongji Lake and a Crazy Game of Poker

           Note: Play the song below while reading the post. It is one of the best poker songs from one of the best jam bands of recent times.

My last few weeks in Korea are upon me and now that my girlfriend has left I am scrambling to write about all the events not yet documented both in her presence and prior to her arrival. Before arriving in Changwon everyone at the hotel knew Courtney was coming, especially the concierges who I often small talk with while waiting for a taxi. About a month ago there were some new staff members at the Pullman Hotel and one was Goeun, a young Korean lady who was very shy when it came to speaking English. Every few days I’d catch her with her cheat sheet note pad with common English phrases to assist with hotel guests.

            When Courtney arrived Goeun presented her with a post card rather than verbal communication because she was too nervous to talk. The post card was very nice and I quickly tossed it into the hotel room before Courtney could see what was on the other side of it, Yongji Lake. Yongji Lake is a lake in the center of town with a lot of picnic areas and a walking trail around. Every night in the summer there are two water shows that are synced with lasers and music, each lasting 30 minutes. After a nice dinner of BBQ duck and cabbage I surprised Courtney by walking to the lake and watching the light show. Unfortunately I forgot my camera so my only visual of the event is the other side of the postcard. It was much like the Bellagio show in Vegas.


Yongji Lake in the daytime



Yongji Lake



One the right side it says in Korean: From: Goeun, To: Courtney

            During one of my first weeks in Korea I ended up at one of the two major Western bars, the International Pub or IP for short. There was a group of guys playing poker and in the coming weeks I found out from Lee, the cook at Obrien’s (the other major Western bar), that they play cards three nights every week. The poker schedule stared at me every time I opened my wallet for the past eight weeks and I couldn't leave town without playing atleast once. As my time winds down in Korea and I have a big stack of Won still left to spend, last night I strolled down to the IP for a 10:00 p.m. game of Texas Hold’em. For those of you who have known me for a while, I majored in Texas Hold‘em my first year of college but quickly got sick of the game. Before last night it was easily two years since playing.

The poker schedule on a sticky note stuck to the hotel business card.

The buy-in was W 20,000 and there were eight of us, all in the same age range. Going around the table there was a German CNC engineer, an English teacher from Orange County, an Australian who was pissed I still haven’t tried surfing in LA, two Koreans, another American English teacher who married a Korean woman and now lives nearby, and a nuclear engineer from England. I was more excited to be out with people my own age playing a game I loved rather than trying to win. To be honest, I wanted to lose so that I had less won to exchange. Murphy’s Law came into effect and I ended up winning first place 2.5 hours later. W 80,000 later after closing my bar tab and heading back to the hotel I realized this only means I need to play poker a few more nights to let the English teachers win back their money.