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It was another ridiculous week in this magical wonderland we call Korea. All in all, not terribly eventful, but a good week nonetheless.
We were still feeling the emotional sting of our unpleasant night with our bartender’s girlfriend, and so we spent the week avoiding the bar. We did not want to get poor Seung Je in trouble with his crazy girlfriend just for us being there, and so we took the week off. Chris and Kelly didn’t mind too much, but my raging alcohlism sure did.
Monday I passed up the gym. I just was not feeling it that day. I headed off to work and enjoyed my Monday class. Monday is not my favorite day of teaching. The kids are younger, and not interested in me at all, and so it is just crowd control and teaching, not a lot of fun. I had a new kid in there, a boy, who insisted his English name be “Joyce”. We tried to explain that it was not a good boy name, but he wanted it that way. A little weird…
After work Kelly, Chris and I grabbed dinner, then came back to my house to watch “The Protector.” Kelly had never seen it, and Chris and I love that movie. Afterwards they went hoem and I went to bed.
One of my favorite days in Korea was definitely Tuesday, since that night I got to do something epic. I started the day with a trip to the gym, enjoyed a nice workout, then headed over to work. Tuesdays have become my favorite day of teaching, since first I get my very fun writing class, and then I get my class with Noah, who is one of my favorite students. So work was a good day.
We left work and headed over to Itaewon, where we went to Rocky Mountain restaurant and bar, and ate wings. They were DELICIOUS. Absolutely delicious. We may go back tonight and eat some more, since they are about 19 cents each (250 won) on Tuesdays. Afterwards, we convinced our new friends there to join us at Spy. We went to the Red room, where I hung out with one of the owners, Bomi. We talked for a while, and I told her I wanted to learn how to bartend. She then took me behind the bar, and taught me how to make a long island, correctly. I’ve never been able to make one before. Every time, they’ve always turned out disgusting. But this time, it was delicious. I made three of them for my friends, and we all enjoyed their deliciousness. The bar was very quiet, and we hung out with one of the bartenders and his girlfriend for a while, who is not psycho. It was a very chill night, and Kelly and I took the taxi back at 6am. Good thing we don’t work on Wednesday!
I took it easy on Wednesday, waking up at noon, grabbing lunch at COEX with Chris and Kelly, then went back home and took it easy. I ended up taking a nap, and around 8pm I headed back to Spy for our pool game. We played against a super serious team, who just did not mix well with our “just have fun” attitude. I almost won my game, getting down to the 8 ball, with the other guy with two balls left. Unfortunately, I was left having to bounce the cue off the bumper to get around his ball to the 8, I missed, he got ball in hand, and beat me. It sucked, because I was so excited to win a game. I stayed for a little while longer, but was not having a lot of fun, and so I left and went home.
Thursday I went to the gym, then headed to work. I always like my Thursday classes. The kids are a lot of fun, even if they are not always the best behaved. It’s a fun group of students to teach, and I always have a good day there. After work we grabbed dinner, then went home and I watched House.
Friday was moderately uneventful. I went to the gym, and went to work. My one Friday class, which I hate because the one girl is painfully shy, was cancelled. I did other things all day. After work, we went to get dinner at our usual barbeque place, and it was delicious. Afterwards, we had to skip our usual tradition of going to Siena. Stupid bartender’s crazy girlfriend ruined it for us. Instead, we decided to take it easy on the drinking. Chris had a rough day, and needed to take it easy. We did run into a bunch of foreigners near my house, and we hung out with them for a few minutes in the street. After exchanging numbers, we bought some soju and snakes, then went back to my house, where we watched Kill Bill vol. 1. It was a peaceful night, and I found out two bottles of soju easily does me in. They left, and I went to bed.
Saturday I rested in the morning, went to work, and had an exceptionally boring day at work. Working on Saturday is never my favorite thing, since the day is mostly doing curriculum work. I teach two short vocabulary workshops. The first one is always painful, since its one kid whose English is not very advanced. The other class is a lot more fun, though.
After work Kelly and I had not decided what to do yet. We went to the Mexican place for dinner, and called Chris, telling her we would decide what to do. I personally wanted to hang out with the people we had met the night before, but they sounded like they were going to have a quiet night, so we ended up going to Itaewon. We went to the bar on top of Hooker Hill called Old Stompers. Hooker Hill is lined with “bars” with scantily clad women. Since prostitution is technically illegal here, they cover it up with these bars, where the girl entices you in, and for a fee you can do whatever you want to her. One of the hookers grabbed my arm while I was going up the hill, and I pryed her off. Sorry, cupcake, I’m here for the drinks.
Old Stompers was awesome. All you can drink for 20k Won, and we had a blast. It was very much like the Beer Garden at BUllwinkles, only it was inside. Live band, everything was wood, nice times. We met Chris’ friends there, who we had wings with on Tuesday night. They were all very cool. One girl got there just before midnight, and at midnight we all did a tequila shot to commemorate her finishing her 40 of no alcohol for lent. I was impressed, couldn’t do that!
Afterwards, we went to Spy for a while, don’t remember much, talked to a cool Russian girl for a while, who was not a cocky model, but a teacher. I really want to see her again. Sadly, no phone number. Hopefully she’ll come back to Spy.
Sunday I woke up around noon feeling like death. I noticed that I had made a phone call at 4:13am, so I went to bed some time after that. Not feeling well, I lay in bed for a while deciding if I should throw up or not. I passed back out, and woke up at 4:30. Impressed by my sleeping abilities, I called my friends, and we agreed to meet at my house at 5:30 to go get food. I did not get out of bed until 5:15, a new record for me. When they got there, we went to COEX and I ate Sbarro, wanting something starchy and heavy. Afterwards, we went back to my house and watched Old Boy. It’s a Korean movie, and it is absolutely disturbing. This one guy gets locked into a room for 15 years, and finally gets out, searching for who locked him up and why they did it. Very violent and graphic, but if disturbing movies is your thing, you’ll probably like it.
They left, I watched some episodes of House, then went to bed.
Monday. It makes me laugh. Went to the gym, then work. Work was work. Nothing eventful. For our dinner break we went and grabbed Chinese, which was delicious. I don’t know why American Chinese has not embraced the black bean sauce. It is so amazing. We ate and went abckt to work.
At 10 I left and went to meet up with Michelle. She and her friend went to eat tak-galbi, which is kind of like chicken stir-fry. I don’t personally like it, but whatever. Her friend was really cool, but ahd to take the Subway home, and so she left. Michelle and I decided to see if I was allowed back at Siena. I was extremely nervous going in there. I went in, and Soon welcomed me. I went to the bathroom, and when I came back, Seung Je was standing at the door. He welcomed me, which made me happy. I went upstairs, where he shortly thereafter joined us, making some nice LITs. We drank them very slow and reasonably. Michelle is a trip. Absolutely hilarious. We joked around for a long time, and when she came back from the bathroom, she told me these Korean people wanted to hang out with us. They came over twice to get us, and so we joined them. All of them were about 40-45, drunk, and there with their husbands and wives. All except one. I was thoroughly confused about what was going on, since a lot of discussion was in Korean, and Michelle knows a lot more Korean than I do.
We hung out for a while, managing to get them to pay our bill, and buy us another round. We left from there, I gave Seung Je a big hug, and we went to Noraybong. This is like Karaoke, but in small private rooms. It was a lot of fun, and the guy we were with agreed to pay for everything. We stayed there for a long time, and around 4 Michelle and I ran out. I think that I was under the impression that we owed this guy something, but we ran out and got away from the guy. It was a lot of fun. We hid at this house, and a dog started barking at us. I told Michelle that “We must hide from dog and man”, and so we hid there for a while. Eventually, we left, went to her house, had an AMAZING margarita. She used to be a bartender, and it was so delicious. Afterwards, I went home, getting there around 5.
It was a very fun night, with only mild drinking. Definitely not a night of getting trashed, but it was ridiculous amounts of fun, and I was especially glad to know that I’m allowed back at Siena.
So that was this week, not super eventful, but a lot of fun. Next weekend I am going on a hiking trip, which I am super excited about, since it will be my first time getting out of Seoul. Time for some nice country sightseeing!