Some really odd happenstances...
I know I promised a blog about another topic but I've been swamped this week with open classes, so I'm just going to dabble a bit about weird (or not so weird) things that have happened this week.
Friday: "When is he coming?"
"When is he coming?" "When is he coming?" seems to be the new phrase that all my co-teachers like to ask me now. "He," of course, is Alan. They are very excited to meet him. At first, Alan and I decided that their asking was just a formality, like "how is your family?", but soon I came to the conclusion that three days of straight asking about him was not just "formality" but sure-fire curiosity. My co-teachers made sure that I knew where the best places for dates are and how to spell Alan's name in Korean. It's really adorable. They are super into couples in this country and I guess they feel really cool "helping out" a foreigner couple. I'm not sure, but I'm not going to fight it. Haha! My students are all really intrigued too. They keep asking "Boyfriend?" and "Name?", "Tall? (they mean height but they are elementary school students so I cut them slack)."
Looks like you already have a fan club, Alan!
Saturday: E-World
Jeremy celebrated his birthday today and we all went to E-World. I got to experience a theme park Korean-style and boy, let me tell you, it didn't disappoint. I love theme parks, I'm just not into the rides so much since they all make me feel queasy. It was just me, Casey, and Jeremy and even thought it was a small group, we still had a blast! While they went on all the big rides, I took pictures and ate snacks, haha! :) I'd say that's a fair trade. Then, as the park lit up for the night, we went on the best ride ever. The Tambourine. Honestly, no one really knew what the theme of this ride was. The log ride was nautical, decked out with sailor workers in cute ascots and striped navy/white shirts. The boomerang was Aussie-esque. But the Tambourine evaded us, for when we walked up, western cowboy themed items decorated the ride, but then the worker was wearing a viking hat. I soon saw that they had viking horns everywhere and when we got on the ride, the attendant was wearing a cowboy hat. Okay, confused. You got me, Korea. Western means "EVERYTHING WESTERN" ever. Not just "western." Anywho, we got on this awesome ride, which would shake like a tambourine and was controlled by the attendant kind of like how the mechanical bulls in bars work. So we were at her mercy, and boy, was she a dick. HAHA! We had a bunch of high school girls on our turn and they were hanging on for dear life (I was too!). Thing about this ride, you are not strapped in, you hold yourself by your arms to the poles/bars that wrap around the ride above the back of the seats. Then picture yourself getting spun and jostled and lurched and stopped. It was tough to stay "seated" and many failed, flying across the ride into the seats on the other side, and more times than not, into other people. Because of this, we were on the ride for 4 K-pop songs, not 2 like everyone else. I'm sure we were very entertaining though!! When the ride finished, many people stood up to line up at the door for when it would unlatch, but SURPRISE, the attendant wanted to get one last little chuckle out of the very tip-able girls. So she shook the ride one last time, sending everyone to their bums. It was grand.
E-World, you rock.
After returning from E-World to downtown, I experienced the craze of bag-drinks and played some darts in a club where a couple of EPIK teachers and friends were DJing. Awesome!
I also had a wonderful moment when we were told there would be a wait at the restaurant we wanted to eat at. The lady, seeing that I understood most of what she was saying, turned to me and gave me solo directions. It was great! And I understood!! AND I ANSWERED IN KOREAN. :D *pat on the back*
Sunday: Hung out with Andrew, a fellow cosplayer and anime nerd! It was great, we watched some episodes of Heroes of Cosplay, made fun of parts, complimented others, and generally had good discussion about anything and everything. It was pretty cool. His dog hates me though. She must know I'm a cat person, haha!
Monday: Day of Music!
So on my walk to the grocery store, there is a shop that looks like a traditional medicine shop (which is something that Daegu is famous for, along with textiles, things having to do with Buddha, and APPLES!). In that shop, a lady is usually sitting among her huge bags of miscellaneous herbs and wheats and what else. But is is no ordinary lady; she plays the harmonica. So every time I walk to Homeplus, I am greeted by my students hanging around the neighborhood doing all sorts of activities from badminton at midnight to sitting eating ice cream on the school steps, ahjumas pulling their grocery carts behind them taking up the whole sidewalk (I have no choice but to flee to one side and hope they don't bowl me over. Ahjumas ain't got no time for white girls gettin' in their way!), and harmonica music. This traditional sound will forever hang in my mind and will be one of the two things I think about when I hear harmonica tunes, the other being Matt from Digimon.
Tuesday: BARK BARK BARK
And there went my quiet hours of sleep, said everyone in the neighborhood.
That dog, I swear. If I ever find it, it's going down. The past two weeks it has decided to be creating a ruckus, normally during the day. But Monday night/Tuesday morning, that little yapper decided to take the plunge and bark up a storm at 4am. After about 5 minutes of irregular, sharp barking, the neighbors decided to take matters into their own hands. As I mentioned in my last blog about my neighborhood, our houses are tight-packed and you pretty much hear everything. One neighbor threw open his window and shouted something irately in Korean at that barking monstrosity that was probably no bigger than the average rice cooker. But dog took no heed and moments later, another window slammed open, this time to an older woman, who shouted what seemed like a more intensive version what the man had shouted. Whether or not it was another neighbor or the owner of the dog standing up for her pooch, who knows. All I know is that the dog barked for a good 15-20 minutes, and then was followed within the hour but sudden construction and large vehicle noises. Oh happy sleep, I dreamed a dreamed where I once knew you...
Tuesday I also found out that my co-teacher is good friends with another EPIK co-teacher who works in a middle school. She told me that her friend has an American NET who is a guy. She told me about how in the office that he shares with ALL of the teachers in the teachers in the school, he is the only one that talks a lot and is, to Korean standards which are VERY double-standard, loud. I was pretty sure I may have known who she was talking about. Cute thing about my co-teachers, they have been to America and know that it is HUGE but they still think that I know everyone in Daegu who is an American like we were friends back in the states. Ha...haha. Well, to feed this stereotype, I found out that the co-teacher was indeed one of my friends from orientation! Oh the irony. My co-teacher also told me that his co-teacher was trying to set him up with me because, hey why not, their both American! (mindset, uff da) But my co-teacher, bless her, quickly shot down her friend's matchmaking ideas with the fact that I already have a boyfriend. Good job, Alan! You definitely already have a fan base here at my school. :)
Koreans and their matchmaking. I will never understand...
Anywho, that is all the strange/fun things that I can remember right now that have happened to me in the last few days. My students and co-teachers are really starting to warm up to me and I like where I'm at. Hopefully all my crazy open classes tomorrow will let me still feel that way at the end of the week.
Till next time.
Stay cool, cats! ^^