I’ve been living in South Korea for close to two years now, and in my time here I’ve done Karaoke on a number of occasions. For anyone who has never been to a karaoke room before, it’s very different than throwing a song on your tele at home. Noraebongs, rather Korean Karaoke “Song Rooms” are a private VIP style room with a tv, couches, tambourines, microphones, and normally alcohol, suited as a perfect closing activity for any night out.  This was the type of karaoke experience we searched for one of my last nights in the Philippines as a celebration of our time together in Siargao and the new friendships we had made.

After eating dinner at a local restaurant a little off from the main tourist strip, we asked our waiter where he recommended in the area for karaoke. Even my filipino friend who grew up in Manila was convinced there would be a karaoke room venue somewhere on the island. Our waiter suggested we go to a place called Boulevard not too far away. He said this was the spot the locals did Karaoke! And so we hopped in a Tuk Tuk to check out the spot.

We pulled up to a light-up port, a seawall with a sliver of sand under a star-filled sky. Across from the water’s edge was a strip of outdoor open restaurants with stools and folded tables filled with locals. Not exactly what we were expecting. “Would you like me to wait for you?” our Tuk Tuk driver asked us, knowing that he could guarantee a return trip this way. Since we weren’t sure what this place had to do with karaoke, it’s no surprise that our immediate answer was “yes.”

It became clear very quickly what this place had to do karaoke. Instead of a room that you rent out with your friends, these restaurants were hosts to none other than a karaoke machine. Karaoke in front of locals. Again, not what we expected . . . but we were there. Why not give it a try?

I could easily write the conclusion of this blog post by saying, the Tuk Tuk driver did not end up waiting for us. In fact, it wasn’t more than 10 minutes later that we watched him eagerly drive another group away and not return. But as it turned out, we didn’t need a Tuk Tuk driver to conclude our evening, all we needed was a few jugs of beer, a wealth of popular karaoke tunes, some friendly locals, and a police station bathroom.

We spent no less than 2 hours doing karaoke with the local crowd. We sang songs in English. We sang songs in filipino. We danced. We even allowed the locals to escort us back to the tourist strip as they walked us to one of the downtown clubs after our time at the port. Something that was only going to only be a few songs turned into an entire evening, and one that I’m sure will stick with me forever.

But the most pressing this wasn’t actually the experience itself, but rather the words from one of the locals at the end of the night. He told my filipino friend, “thank you for coming out and seeing the local side of the island, it means so much, no one ever does that.” This got me thinking something that I’ve noticed a lot in my travels . . . what we see advertised of a place isn’t normally the place itself. To know a place you have to have experiences like this, where you allow yourself to slip away and be charmed by it’s people. This hidden culture that doesn’t speak to Philippines as a country, but rather speaks to this community and knowing what their livelihood feels like.