Some haunts to haunt on Halloween

Halloween is this Friday, but you’re completely in the dark as to where to go or what to be. But fear not. Itaewon Wanderings has the answers.
The best area to haunt on Friday will be the alley behind and just west of the Hamilton Hotel. One bar there, the Big Electric Cat, is already tricked out for Halloween, with spider webs, jack-o’-lanterns and vampire bats. The winner of its best costume contest Friday will get a bottle of Jack Daniels. Over at BricX, the first drink is free to anyone in costume, and the scariest get-up wins a Sony Discman, with runners-up getting 30,000 won ($25) in credit at the bar. At Bar Nana, the top costume earns a bottle of tequila and the sexiest costume a gift certificate from a local lingerie shop.
Two more joints to haunt on Friday will be the UN Club and the Loft, which share a building just down from the fire station. The Loft already has decorations up, including clever camouflage ghosts. The UN Club will have the most lucrative contest in town. Win it and you’ll pocket 100,000 won.
Most of Itaewon’s more popular bars will also have parties and contests, but expect them to be a little clumsy. Limelight is trying a ‘60s Halloween party ― think mummies with tie-dye wrap. Helios will have a Yi Dynasty theme: zombies in hanbok.
Spy Club is having a fetish party ― monsters in leather. Gecko’s, meanwhile, is going with the “we don’t know yet” theme.
So what should you be for Halloween? Try on these ideas:
― Carry luggage and a boarding pass for an Air Portugal flight. Put cleat marks on your behind. You’re the coach of the national soccer team, Humberto Coelho.
― Wear a Boston Red Sox baseball cap and make profane hand gestures. You’re the pitcher Kim Byung-hyun.
― Carry a hammer and sickle in one hand and offers for a lucrative book and movie deal in the other. You’re the dissident scholar Song Du-yul. Bring a friend who sings your praises. He’s the state-supported broadcaster KBS.
― Wear a neck brace and tell people that South Korea is more like North Korea than North Korea is. You’re the human rights activist Norbert Vollertsen.
― Bring a kiddie pool, fill it with red ink and swim in it. You’re Hynix Semiconductor. Or fill it with water, step in and play dead. You’re Kim Dae-jung’s sunshine policy.
― Bring a crow and walk around eating it. You’re Grand National Party Chairman Choe Byung-yul.
― Stand outside and pretend you’re lost, that you’re a man without a party. You’re President Roh Moo-hyun.
― Stand around and be completely ignored by all the Koreans to your left. You’re North Korea’s human rights disaster.
So there you go. Now you have no excuses if your Halloween turns out to be a nightmare.

by Mike Ferrin