I've been staying in Seoul for a couple of weeks when a friend mentioned the term 'booking club' in a discussion about the local night club scene. I never heard of that before and it turned out that there are a number of clubs in Seoul with a quite unique system that allows men & women getting hooked up.
I was told that the clubs have a relatively high number of tables, some even separate rooms and that usually groups of guys go there to meet woman. Unlike typical night clubs, the dance floor is pretty small. The guys are buying all the drinks and also platters with side dishes such as fruit and other snacks. The waiters, there are many of them, are not only brining the food and drinks to the table, they also bring the girls. Yes, that's right – they bring the girls.
Many of the women hang out in some waiting area close to the restrooms where they can take care of their make up or they stay on the dance floor. As soon as they are anywhere else, one of the waiters will grab them and bring them to a table or into a room and sit them next to a guy. Some of the girls are reluctant and protest, some are just following. However, they are usually OK with that as they knew what to expect before going there, although sometimes a girl was not told about it before and that means she is in for a small surprise.
I was also told that the better clubs with that system are often packed with girls because of a number of scouts that go to the restaurants and coffee shops in the area and talk girls into going to the club later that night. Having some fun and getting free drinks all night is doing the trick for many. As the clubs are frequently visited by richer guys and sometimes celebrities, this seems to work quite well.
So, once the girl sits next to a guy, they usually check each other out and introduce themselves to each other and the girl typically within seconds decides to stay or leaves (just to be brought to another table).
It gets tricky by guys giving tips to the waiters requesting special girls and sometimes even girls tip the waiters to be brought to a specific table.
After I heard that story, I could not really believe it. I mean, I have seen many really interesting things in Korea and I believed my friend told me the truth, but at the same time it was a bit hard to understand it without seeing it.
Around a week later on a weekday, I had just finished dinner with a business partner, my friend called me and asked if I want to join him and a couple of other guys in 'the' club. I first did not know what exactly he was referring to – honestly, I simply did not make the connection to the story I heard before at that moment. Anyway, I had no plans for the rest of the evening, so I agreed and minutes later I was sitting in a taxi going to the most fanciest booking club in Seoul – Club I in the basement of the Riviera Hotel.
I meet my friend in front of the building and we walked in together. Just the scenery was great, beautiful woman everywhere and even by only passing by I could already see the action going on, waiters dragging and pushing girls reluctantly to some table, a nice small dance floor full with gorgeous hot women, dancing to the latest electronic dance music.
It turned out that we had a separate room and when we reached it, there were two other guys in there, each of them with a nice girl sitting next to them. We joined the group and started drinking.
Only minutes later, a waiter came in and brought in a girl and sat her next to me. We smiled at each other and probably did not want to be with a foreigner and immediately stood up and walked out. Well, it did not matter, less than three minutes later the next young woman sat next to me.
In less than one hour, I talked to 6 different girls, saw another 3 that sat next to me but got out instantly. I meet a flight attendant, a professional dancer, two students, a Korean American only there for a 3 day holiday and really cute English teacher. I did not drink very much until then and had quite some fun, also some of the other guys meet interesting girls and no matter how it continued it would be a memorable evening in any case.
After I was without a girl next to me for a few minutes, the waiter brought in a new woman. I immediately liked her when I saw her because she did not look too overdressed. Many Korean girls are using too much make up which is nice, but I personally prefer the natural look. It turned out that she speaks English quite well and she was 29, one year older than me. She was dressed in a loose blouse with bra under it and tight jeans. Her body was average I guess, she was not too skinny, her breasts were not huge but still noticeable.
We both liked each other instantly. She told me that she had just went to a job interview for her dream job at a very important travel agency but was turned down. She was really down and quite sad about it but decided to join her group of friends to go to the club to get her mind of it. Actually, it turned out they were scouted from a coffee shop nearby.
She also told me a lot about her experience when she lived in Japan for some years and how different the countries are. We talked about the different views on relationship and even sexual life in the countries and I was surprised how open she talked about it, many Koreans are very conservative about such topics. With my experience about Korean and Japanese culture, I was an active participant and we both enjoyed the whole scene a lot.
