Clubbing: Monkey Beach

Screen capture off a video clip I managed to get during one of my nights at Monkey Beach (VLOG COMING SOON)

I left Korea liking Monkey Beach (MB) more than any other club I’ve been to in Korea. That’s right; a foreigner-favourite bar (not club) located in Apgujeong Rodeo won my heart. The infamous NB2 dissatisfied me with its bad Wednesday music during my last visit there, and NB Gangnam disappointed me even more on a Sunday night with little to no clubbers.

Even if MB isn’t actually a club, but a bar in which the ‘dance floor’ is kind of ruined by large-space-taking tables, it sure felt like one. Because the music is great (they played S Club 7 during one night damnit!) and people dance. What is also so amazing about this place is that it has lockers, free entrance, and a no smoking policy.

The Crowd

I know some foreigners may feel a bit put off on the idea of clubbing in Korea in places with a large amount of other foreigners present – like myself during my first semester in Korea. But you know what; they’re in fact a lot more fun than Korean-dominated clubs like NB2 – often crowded with Koreans who don’t dance but just sway a little to the beat. People at MB actually dance and go all out! During my last visit there I came across many confident Korean dancers there, particularly one guy who gave off Taeyang vibes and pretty much spent the entire night doing nothing but body rolls.

Even if Monkey Beach is loved by many foreigners – especially Brazilians, there are still a lot of Koreans who visit there. I would say around 60% of the visitors are Koreans – though I believe a good 10-20% are Korean Americans. Most of these Koreans are –I assume– open minded. They like mingling with foreigners, meeting and chatting with them. Although some’s English aren’t terribly great, they do make an effort to try converse with you at least. Same with the dancing, not all are great dancers, but at least they try.

There are events on certain nights where you can get up on stage, dance for a bit, and if you get more than 20(?) votes you win a bottle of whisky.

The Drinks

People mostly buy the cocktail buckets here. Yeah, they’re 15,000₩ a bucket. Expensive compared to your average glass. But you get a lot with the bucket. I would say a bucket has about 1L worth of alcohol thrown in there. If you really want to make the most out of that 15,000₩, go for the special double shot bucket of the day.

My first time at Monkey Beach: I had almost 2 double shot gin and tonic buckets, a shot of tequila, and was gone by the end of the night. Surprisingly had no hangovers the morning after.

The tequila shot was bought at Monkey Beach 2 – just a short walk up from the first MB. Although the outside advertises that the shots are 1,000₩, once you pay at the bar they say it’s wrong and it’s 3,000₩ instead.  Bummer.

P.S. if it’s your birthday, you can get a free bottle of whisky at MB! Just present your ID at the counter.

Monkey Beach 2

This is the smaller version of the first MB. More chill and bar-like, with games tables near the entrance. People tend to chat here more than dance.

They don’t sell buckets here but a 750ml cocktail glass I believe.

A Story: the Korean Male Mentality at Clubs

During my last visit at MB, 2 Korean guys came up to my friend to ask her to teach them how to dance.  One of them assumed I was Korean and tried chatting to me in Korean, even when I told him I wasn’t he still tried chatting to me in English. It was cute.

At one point they asked us “how do we get girls to dance with us?”, because apparently they were taught/told to just randomly grind on a random girl in clubs. They didn’t quite understand us when we truthfully told them that that was the wrong way to approach girls completely. We advised them to just dance with girls normally, not surprise molest them on the dance floor. They answered, “but we can’t dance and we’re not good looking.” Bullocks. No real girl will give a crap whether you’re bad at dancing or are far from eye candy standards. What matters is confidence. If you approach a girl right and appear confident – not douche-y confident, that will impress the girl and earn you the right to dance and chat with her without her judging you. Despite telling them that, they were still a bit hesitant to believe, and so, not long after, they bid us farewell and we wished them good luck on their future attempts to find a girlfriend on the dance floor.

The unfortunate thing is that these 2 guys didn’t realise that they had successfully managed to approach 2 girls that night in somewhat a normal manner. They could have got their numbers/Kakao Talk IDs, but due very recent events that the 2 girls had experienced, they unluckily never managed to. It’s a shame really; the guy that chatted to me was kinda cute.

Overall, I would highly recommend clubbers vising Seoul to give this place a go.

EDIT: I've uploaded the Monkey Beach clip in this vlog video (2:51 mark)