Karaoke, Korean Style

Karaoke is HUGE in Korea.  I am not one to sing in front of people, since I really can't carry a tune or hit the right notes all the time.  But one day, for date night, Kevin and I found a Karaoke booth in the local arcade.  The way Koreas do Karaoke is by going in a booth about the size of a telephone booth and singing their hearts out to a screen that shows the words and the most random music videos that have nothing to do with the song, or even matches the words or song at all.  As we walked in the arcade we passed by a booth that had a single Korean military guy, still in uniform, just belting it out to the tv screen in full passion.  The next booth also had a single guy in it doing the same.  We passed two more booths and those had two people singing together.  So, with all shame left at the first soldier in the first booth, we paid our 2 won and enjoyed singing horribly and loudly for the next hour.  It was a hoot!  

I decided to show Talia a true Korea past time and took her to the arcade and the Karaoke booth.  Bri came with us and we sang our hearts out on full blast.  We had so much fun that we vowed we we go back one more time before Talia had to go back home.  So the night before Talia had to leave, we run to the arcade and enjoy our last Karaoke night together.  We even had a disco ball in our booth that would light up and spin.  We had so much fun picking old 80s songs and just sounding absolutely horrible.  It was the best time ever and the best way to end Talia's trip with a bang.

We figured out that at the end of the song, the computer gives you a grade on how well it thought you sounded.  I'm not sure in it graded you on correct words, rhythm, loudness or just plain energy, but when we found out that it scored us, our volume level increased about 200 %.  We sounded so awful!  It was the best.  I wish I would have had the guts to try Karaoke sooner while living in Korea, I would have gone every week.  For our second to last song, we totally scored a 100%, we were so excited.  Sadly we ended the night and our singing trio with only an 81%.