(no subject)
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
The past week was a lot of fun. Had quite a bit of exciting experiences, including some very fun adventures.
The last I left you I was headed off to work. Tuesday I only taught one class, a small class of three fun students. All three kids were very actively involved in class and very fun. That definitely makes classes go by better. I only work one class on Tuesday. After work Chris, Kelly, and I went and grabbed dinner and some drinks, then headed home. Nothing too exciting.
Wednesday is always an exciting day, since it is our day off! We decided to meet at Samseung station in order to get some ice cream from Cold Stone. Yeah, it was freezing outside, but whatever! Afterwards, we hopped on the subway and took it to City Hall station. From there, we began our tour of the Deoksugung Palace. It was really cool, and we are definitely going to go back when the winter has passed and everything is coming back to life. I’ll bet it is absolutely beautiful. It was really cool to see anyway. As we were leaving, we happened to catch the changing of the guards ceremony, which was freaking AWESOME (see youtube vids and Facebook vids/albums). We were massively impressed.
We went back to Daechi, ate, and went home to rest for a few minutes. We only had about 45 minutes before Kelly and I had to leave for pool. Kelly is on a pool team in Itaewon, and they compete every Wednesday. When we got there, I met the rest of the team, and was put on the list. Since I was new, I was only playing one game. When it was my turn to go, I was put up against an older man from the other team. They seemed to be quite the international group. My guy, I think, was Canadian, in his 40s. We went, and he was absolutely kicking my ass. I was never good at pool, and it has been a long time since I’ve played, so I was getting creamed. He was down to like 2 balls and I still had 6. Well, I got a really lucky turn, and landed all of mine but two. As he was going after the 8 ball, I still had two balls on the table. I sank one, and missed my next one. He sank the 8, beating me, but not as handedly as I had feared. I had a really good time.
For the rest of the evening, we hung out at Spy, getting shitty and playing pool. Some people get better at pool as they drink, I can’t even hit the ball. It was pretty sad. This one guy was trying to teach me some things, but my motor skills were just way too broken to do anything useful.
I spent most of the evening with this very nice Ukrainian girl named Dasha. She was hot and nice, a great combination. We talked for the longest time. I also spent a little bit of time with the bartender, my best friend Ryan, who came later. He’s awesome, and the nicest freakin’ guy. Around 3, I headed home.
Thursday I got up, grabbed lunch, and went to work. I taught my two classes, both of them good. The first one is more fun, but the kids are younger, so that’s expected. I don’t remember if we did anything after work on Thursday…..probably grabbed dinner, then drinks at Sienna, if anything.
Friday is my boring day at work. I don’t teach, and I do curriculum building all day. It’s pretty much miserable. Boring as hell, but gotta earn that pay check somehow. Not much to tell about it, just boring stuff.
After work on Friday, we decided to go have some fun. Graham had other plans, so Kelly, Chris, and I headed off to find some dinner. We wanted to splurge, and so we found a great little galbi place, where we cook our own food. They brought out tons of side dishes (see pictures) and we ate them up. We had a bottle of bamboo wine, and some soju, then headed to Sienna, where we had more drinks until they closed. We walked home, grabbed some bricks, and called it a night.
Saturday I had to be at work at noon, so that was my morning. Another day of no teaching, doing boring planning work.
We had planned for Chris and Kelly to come over on Saturday night, but they both bitched out, and so I spent Saturday night at home. It was fine, because we had to get up early on Sunday to go…..
MOUNTAIN CLIMBING!
Sunday morning we met at 9am at Joes Sandwich and Coffee for breakfast, then headed out to Bulgwang station. When we got there, we joined all the older people who were sporting their hiking gear. It’s apparently an old people sport, but screw that, I’m not from the land of the mountains, so I was super excited. Chris bought some hiking boots, I got a small backpack, and we went up the mountain. It was a lot harder than I was expecting. Not sure exactly what I had thought it would be like, but it was much steeper than the Appalachians. We went up and up, and the view was just gorgeous. Everything we saw was fantastic. The city to the south, and all of the mountains in every other direction. We saw other towns cradled between the mountains.
Up and up we went, until we came to a part which looked frighteningly exciting. It was just slick rock, where you had to find tiny grooves to climb up. Not like rock gym climbing, but like walking up a really steep rock. Well, we quickly learned that my shoes did not have the grip for me to go up this way, so I had to find another route. Kelly and Chris’ shoes could do it, so we got separated. I found another path up, and kept going up. I got to the peak and called Kelly (amazing cell phone reception on the top of a mountain!), and they were a little behind me. I met them at the top. We sat down and ate some of the kimbap (basically Korean sushi rolls) that we had packed. Took several pictures, made a few phone calls from the top of the mountain, and then headed down. Climbing down was a work out in itself. We finally reached the bottom, grabbed a late lunch, then headed home. Completely exhausted, we all went to our houses and slept for a while.
I got up later, grabbed dinner, then went to the other side of town to meet a girl and buy her DVD player. I got home and realized I was missing the video cable. SHIT. It was way to far to go back, and I needed to go to Yongsan Electronics market anyway, so I just let it go.
Monday morning I went to Yongsan, and bought everything I have been wanting: larger memory card for my digital camera, cables, a mouse for my computer. I came back, got ready for work, and headed off.
Monday we got our first performance reviews. Jinhee said that I was doing “great, no negative comments at all” and to “Just keep going just like you are”. That made me very happy.
I taught my Monday class, grabbed dinner with Graham and Kelly, then went back for more work. At 10, Kelly Chris and I headed over to COEX to watch “The Watchers”. It was pretty good. I wasn’t crazy about it, but the whole graphic novel genre isn’t usually my thing anyway. Regardless, it was a fun movie.
We went home from there and went to bed.
So it’s noon on Tuesday, now, and I figure I should be getting out of bed soon.