blah blah karaoke (블라블라 노래방)

Down on Hobart Blvd, you've gotta walk right past the main strip and duck down into the basement stairs at B100. It's loud before you even touch the door handle. You hear off-key ballads bleeding through the walls while you wait for someone to buzz you inside. There's no fancy sign out front trying to trick you, just a glowing neon banner and a heavy metal door that lets in the cool night air from the parking lot.

Once you're inside, the hallway smells like wet carpet and cheap soju. The rooms are tight, packed with sticky vinyl couches and remote controls with half the buttons worn completely off. You'll spend twenty minutes trying to figure out the touch screen system because it's running an old software update from Korea, but once the beat drops, nobody cares. The speakers clip if you turn the gain up too high, but you're not here for pristine studio sound anyway.

Someone's always screaming the chorus to an old rock track down the hall at 2 AM. You're losing your voice, your shoes are sticking to the floor near the ice machine, and the cashier is handing you another receipt you won't remember finding in your pocket tomorrow.