korea log!
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Sorry I’m a little late on the week in review. I hope you haven’t all been sitting at your computers waiting for an update.
It hasn’t been a particularly exciting week, but a rather the normal run of the mill fun that my life consists of these days.
Monday was a normal Monday. Stayed home in the morning after sleeping in ridiculously late, worked in the day. It was the last week of the winter term, and so work was structured a little bit differently. I had to do a lot more improvising then I usually do, but everything worked out just fine. Nothing especially excting to announce about Monday work.
After work on Monday, however, was a pretty fun. Kelly and I went to meet some friends of his at COEX. We met Jin (I think that was his name) and some girl whose name I totally don’t remember (Kelly, help me out on this one). Jin is in the Korean Army, and so it was pretty cool to talk about the whole North Korean threat from the South Korean military’s point of view. The girl is a debate teacher, like Kelly, and we briefly talked and helped her organize her arguments for a lesson she has to teach. All of this was over dinner at COEX, and a couple of pitchers of beer. The girl left us, it was about midnight, and so Jin, Kelly and I went to K-Texas, a bar down the street from my house. I guess it was supposed to be Texas themed, but it wasn’t really. Sure, there was a longhorn rack on the wall, but most of the décor was just anything the people could get their hands on. We had a couple of beers, although overpriced, my Corona was a delightful respite from the nasty Korean beer. We talked and joked, and went home around 2am.
Tuesday was very much the same as usual. Kelly and I grabbed a quick dinner after work, and I went home.
Wednesday was different. I was given a “half day off”. I’m still a little confused about why, but I think it is because we had training planned for Saturday. It’s hectic right now because of the beginning of a new term, and I know it won’t be a typical thing, so although inconvenient, it wasn’t a big deal. Kelly and I met around 1:00 to go to Yongsan in search of the cables I needed to hook my Gamecube up to my TV, along with what I needed to hook my computer up to my TV. I foolishly left my Gamecube cables in America, and so we went in search of replacements. I found some, and although I probably paid more than I should have for the power cable, he did take it out of a new Gamecube’s packaging, so that was nice of him. Our search continued for a DVI Mini to DVI adaptor, so I could hook my laptop to my TV. This was more work than intended, since all the cord stores in Yongsan, which have every cord imaginable, had never heard of a DVI Mini. Well shit. Finally, Kelly and I found an Apple Store, and there I was able to buy the proper adaptor. I had my adaptor, I was good to go.
I then went to work for 4 hours, where I graded papers and did my class reading. Afterwards, I went to Itaewon to meet up with Kelly for some drinks. We met at a crowded but cool place called “bOne”. I met a couple of his friends, and from there we went to Spy. Spy seems to be increasingly our common hang out. I met my favorite bartender, Ryan, there, and had some drinks. One of Kelly’s friends got a round of shots for everyone, a secret recipe between him and the bartender. Definitely jager in it, but not sure what else. Oh, and it was flaming. Pretty fun and delicious shot, though.
I started talking to a girl there who I swore was Russian. She looked Russian, she had a Russian accent, but she swore she was from Brazil. Right. But she says she doesn’t speak Russian. We’ll see about that.
«Когда я тебя вижу, я думаю что ты русская.» (When I look at you, I think that you're Russian)
«Really?»
HA! Caught you. She denied and denied. I was at this point annoyed with her lies, so I went over to her friend, also Eastern European, but she went with Czech as her lie. Much more believeable. After a while, I wasn't terribly interested in either of them. Even though they were models, they weren't that interesting, and their boytoys were hanging around a bit too much.
Drunk, we went to get some food. We went to a Korean barbeque place, and ate delicious food. Afterwards, we headed to another bar. This one was totally dead, and I'm still not entirely sure why we were there in the first place, but we were. We had a couple more drinks, ordered some light food, Kelly passed out, we threw crap into his gaping mouth, and I noticed one of the guys playing pool had a USSR shirt, only it said CCCP, the Russian name for the Soviet Union. I went up to him. He was pretty cool, just he and his friend, a Korean dude, playing pool. He was from St. Petersburg. I had no idea this city was crawling with as many Russians as it seems to be. They worked for a modeling agency, and they wanted my contact info in case I wanted to do any modeling for their company. I gave it to them.
Around 5am, Kelly had woken up, and he was ready to leave. Our drunk asses went on homeward in a cab, and after getting home, we parted ways for bed. I got home around 5:30am, talked to Summer online for a bit, then went to bed.
Thursday I woke up feeling fine, grabbed lunch at Burger King, and went to work. Well, Burger King did not set well on the stomach, and I felt kind of shitty for the rest of the day. I did my usual teaching. I love teaching the writing and speaking classes much more than the reading and listening ones. The kids get to be more creative, and it makes the class go by faster, and the gets are more actively involved. After work Thursday I went home, played my gamecube, and went to bed.
Friday was work as usual. Classes were great, especially since the kid in my one-kid-class, or OKC as we call in around the kids so we can complain how much we hate teaching them, never showed up. I graded papers and eventually went home. I didn't end up going out or anything, just watched some House and went to bed.
Saturday I slept in, then went to Yongsan to get more cords. The ones I ahd didn't connect, and I needed a DVI to HDMI cable. I got one cheap, and took it home. Jinhee, my supervisor, asked if I could work on Sunday instead, so I had a lazy Saturday. I decided to do some exploring in a part of town I haven't been to yet. I went very far north, starting at City Hall (see the video on my page) then moving farther north. I noticed an increasing number of police in riot gear. I probably passed 30 busses, where police were suiting up in their riot gear, carrying their sword-sized batons. I just acted naïve, because I just wanted to go north and get pictures of the mountains. I walked past them, and eventually got away from the main grouping of police, but still there were many scattered about. I texted Kelly, asking if I should be concerned. He said probably not, it's probably just a demonstration about to take place, but in case it's anti-American, to stay away from it. I heeded his advice, hopped on the subway, and headed home. I got home and chilled for the evening, watching episodes of House on my big TV. It was pretty exciting.
Sunday was a normal Sunday, except the fact that I had to work. I grabbed lunch, then went in at 2. I did grading and prep stuff for the Spring term. We had a little bit of training to help us get organized for the week. I did my 4 hour half day, went home, and chilled out.
Monday was a fine day. I only taught one class, with 4 good girls, one ok boy, and one pain in the ass boy. The class went well, and after we taught Graham (UK Guy), Kelly, and I went to grab dinner at the Mexican place. Delicious. Well, it's good for Korea. I miss Morelia's and San Miguel. After dinner we went back and worked for a bit more, and at 10 we left. We grabbed some drinks at Sienna, a place that used to be famous, but has lost its popularity. Drinks were pretty cheap, 7000 won for cocktails, and the long islands were nice and strong. I got nice and tore up, and we headed home. I slept really well.
Today I woke up feeling great. I'm tellin' ya, alcohol makes me feel better the next day, now that my body is used to it again! I was feeling especially lazy, and didn't want to do any laundry. This new term we have to dress up, at least for the first week or so, so I took all my clothes to a dry cleaner for them to deal with. Kind of expensive, but whatever. Worth it. It's raining out, and I'm glad to use my new umbrella.
Alright, time for work. That concludes this edition of week in review!