Friday night we had football practice. Earlier in the week I was told that we were all going out after practice for dinner and drinking, however as I was heading down the stairs to go to practice I was told we were heading out of town to a resort and we would be staying the night there. It was called “Football MT” or Member Training. Sort of like a induction for freshman to the team.
A whole group of us from the team piled up into the subway, we almost all didn’t make it on the subway but as the doors closed the team manager was right in front of me and we were running to get on and his feet made it in the subway but the doors closed on his backpack. I started pushing him through and the doors opened again for a second and the remaining four of us jumped on the subway.
The commute was about an hour and a half outside of Seoul. We took the subway, to a train station, then from there took a taxi to out in the middle of nowhere. Up in the hills there was this big resort, we had rented out a single room. The team had brought bags full of meat and some grills so we could bbq in the room. They also brought a big box of Soju (Korean liquor) and a bunch of beer.
On the subway the team manager had asked me “Do you drink soju?” I said “Nope. I hate it.” and he replied “Well I think you’ll have to drink a lot.”
At the room we are all sitting around eating and drinking beer with dinner. Then comes the soju. They take a big silver bowl and started pouring bottle after bottle of soju into the bowl. They said that all the freshman players (new players) would have to drink from the bowl. This unfortunately put me in that category.
If you’ve never had soju before, basically it’s a clear alcohol that is about 22%. It tastes like a cheap vodka. If you’re still unsure, just check out this video and watch the facial expressions of the last guy to drink. That pretty much sums it up.
Drinking Soju from Josh Dill on Vimeo.
(I know there’s video out there of me drinking from the bowl. If I ever get it I will be sure to post it.)
A lot of things happened that night. We got kicked out of a lot of different areas in the resort. Girls wanted nothing to do with us. I think we had several complaints. Everyone except maybe a couple people got drunk, but everyone was just having so much fun. The very last picture that I took was when I laid down to go to sleep, there was a big pile of guys laying on the floor, I laid down took a photo and fell a sleep. I later checked the photo and it was taken at 7:39am. I didn’t wake up until a little after noon.
You can just barely see my hair in the bottom of the photo, then you can count at least five other guys in that little area.
The commute back was the worst… some people still felt pretty drunk, some people were incredibly hungover. I was somewhere in between that. We had to wait for the bus, to take us to the train station, so that we can take the train to the subway station, and the subway back home. Not the most ideal commute for being in our condition.
Waiting for the bus.
We all had a lot of fun. We bonded and had a great experience. That one night alone was enough for my entire weekend.
