Itaewon is Seoul's most famous watering hole and early yesterday morning it was the meeting point for many fans of teams playing first-round games in South Korea, who were looking for a drink and a little action.
Also called "Little America" because it grew around the entrance of the US base at nearby Yongsan, Itaewon is a shopping district with a difference.
PHOTO: JULES QUARTLY, TAIPEI TIMES
In the day there are malls and underground shopping emporiums selling the usual array of goods, but in the evening people come out to play.
Innumerable hole-in-the-wall bars and clubs ply their trade and hundreds of US, Irish, Senegalese and others mixed it up on the drag they call "Hookers' Hill."
As music spilled out of pubs and onto the street, women in skimpy outfits beckoned us in.
"You come here darling, I show you a good time," said Sophia, one of the better-known faces on the Hill, according to a visiting academic who was familiar with the scene.
This "gentleman," who did not want to be named, said that contrary to appearances, the women were not selling sex.
"It's not quite what it seems," he said.
"There are many different levels of girls, but most of them are just attracting men in to drink. Many men come here for sex, but that's not what they get."
Three drinks and some time with a 27-year-old girl called Crystal ran 30,000 won (NT$836), which the visiting academic assured was a very reasonable price.
Crystal said the area had developed to cater primarily to the needs of US soldiers, but it was now popular with all nationalities.
She said many of the girls working the bars were like her and had either been married or had been in a relationship with a foreigner, mostly US servicemen.
"I knew about this area from the newspaper and I came here to get a job because I can speak Eng-lish," she said.
Crystal said she had been working the Hill for three years and enjoyed the work most of the time.
She said it paid around 500,000 won (NT$14,000) a month, although it was possible to earn much more.
"If I like someone and they like me, I take them home," she said.
"People come here for different reasons," she said. "Some people need to talk to somebody because they are far away from home. Some guys need sex, but you can't have sex with just anyone here."
Other sources said Russian girls worked as high-end prostitutes in the area and there was a local drug-dealing network that was run principally by Nigerians.
Every night around 12pm there are patrols of military police to pick up stray or misbehaving servicemen who would otherwise miss curfew, the visiting academic said.
"First they send out the MPs, then the SPs [Shore Police] and then the CPs [Courtesy Police]. It's quite a system," he said.
Crystal said trouble was rare and if it got out of hand the MPs or South Korean police would sort it out. She said most of the bars were owned by women who had saved up some money and borrowed the rest from the bank.
"A long time ago these places were run by gangsters, but that doesn't happen any more," she said.
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