This Week's Forecast: Wacky and Korean Heating: Part Deux
Apparently the universe has decided to make this week as weird as possible which is saying a lot since transplanting one's life to a foreign country inherently carries a bunch of weirdness with it.
So on top of the already listed shenanigans Tuesday night the milf came and joined us in Hongdae! This was a great success when we were in Gr8 just relaxing and smoking hookahs, but the night took a turn for the bizarre when we decided to go to Tinpan Alley, which is a club that has nailed the sleazy American club scene. This is not inherently a terrible idea, but where the plan goes terribly awry is when the milf gets trashed: like often needs help standing trashed. This is at a bar many rather non-discerning types came specifically to hook up with ladies, so I spend the rest of the night basically babysitting a Korean woman who is practically old enough to be my mother. Which, as I said before, isn't bad because I have been that drunk friend way too many times to hold it against someone else, but is still weird as hell when said drunk friend is that much older thaThn you.
Wednesday I went to Everland with Becca and Meryl. More people were supposed to come, but they suck D8<
Everland is pretty inherently goofy because it is characteristically Korean, which means it is trying so hard to be awesome that it gives off that terrible vibe of "Look at how awesome I am. . . hehe, right? LOVE ME!" and because of Engrish. To make things even better, we discovered that I have the worst god damn super power on the planet: I attract barely pubescent teenage girls like moths to a flame. The entire day anytime we saw a group of 10-15 year old Korean girls, they would make a bee-line straight for me and ignore my friends and try and talk to me and then break into embarrassed giggles after saying "Hello, my name is ___" *sigh*
The other awesome realization of Wednesday was the discovery of DVD-bang's(rooms). These are stores with little private rooms where you can rent and watch a movie, which sounds sort of normal until you enter the room and discover: a bed. Yup, no couch, just a bed. Then you go back and re-check their movie selection and notice it is 1/3 porn. The DVD-bang is how young Koreans cope with living at home: they come here and have sex. What a fantastic industry! It is also how Korea perpetuates the myth that Korean girls don't have pre-marital sex. To make this revelation even cooler, I went to a DVD-bang on Wednesday to waste time between Everland and dinner with two girls, and everyone in the store just stared at us shocked. And to top it off as we left we saw a Korean couple carrying a bag of sex toys come in, and even they commented on our threesome =D
Yesterday and today have been happy fun class scheduling snafu. So I basically have no idea when I am supposed to have my classes or if I even have class. Like today where I show up, and then get informed that there is no class at all. So I sat around watching Dr. Who until they let me go. And then I had to come back at 2:30 to listen to the other teachers working at camp plan stuff out in Korean. Now I am home and looking forward to a 4-day weekend before winter camp.
PS: I am listening to a japanese rock band and liking it. . . *shudder* this is a bad sign!
[Edit: I completely forgot my rant about Korean heating, so here it is!]
As anyone who has been to Eastern Asia knows, they don't believe in central heating here. So heating is never really as comfortable as I'm used to, but the situation here is compounded by two facts. 1) Korean heaters have two temperatures: ineffectual and flesh searing. 2) The huge room heaters in each room are only turned on between 9 and 11:30 in the morning because my principal is a ridiculous penny pincher. So what happens? Every teacher jacks the heat to high to turn their room into a sauna by 11:30 so that, hopefully, the room will not be an ice box by the time we can leave at 4:50. So the principal A) doesn't save any money and B) because my room is on the top floor and all the heating units are on the same system, I don't get any heat in my room. So I stay and teach in a freaking refrigerator all day.
Anywho, yeah, I dislike the heating situation at my school. As it is often colder inside the school than it is outside! WTF?!?!
So on top of the already listed shenanigans Tuesday night the milf came and joined us in Hongdae! This was a great success when we were in Gr8 just relaxing and smoking hookahs, but the night took a turn for the bizarre when we decided to go to Tinpan Alley, which is a club that has nailed the sleazy American club scene. This is not inherently a terrible idea, but where the plan goes terribly awry is when the milf gets trashed: like often needs help standing trashed. This is at a bar many rather non-discerning types came specifically to hook up with ladies, so I spend the rest of the night basically babysitting a Korean woman who is practically old enough to be my mother. Which, as I said before, isn't bad because I have been that drunk friend way too many times to hold it against someone else, but is still weird as hell when said drunk friend is that much older thaThn you.
Wednesday I went to Everland with Becca and Meryl. More people were supposed to come, but they suck D8<
Everland is pretty inherently goofy because it is characteristically Korean, which means it is trying so hard to be awesome that it gives off that terrible vibe of "Look at how awesome I am. . . hehe, right? LOVE ME!" and because of Engrish. To make things even better, we discovered that I have the worst god damn super power on the planet: I attract barely pubescent teenage girls like moths to a flame. The entire day anytime we saw a group of 10-15 year old Korean girls, they would make a bee-line straight for me and ignore my friends and try and talk to me and then break into embarrassed giggles after saying "Hello, my name is ___" *sigh*
The other awesome realization of Wednesday was the discovery of DVD-bang's(rooms). These are stores with little private rooms where you can rent and watch a movie, which sounds sort of normal until you enter the room and discover: a bed. Yup, no couch, just a bed. Then you go back and re-check their movie selection and notice it is 1/3 porn. The DVD-bang is how young Koreans cope with living at home: they come here and have sex. What a fantastic industry! It is also how Korea perpetuates the myth that Korean girls don't have pre-marital sex. To make this revelation even cooler, I went to a DVD-bang on Wednesday to waste time between Everland and dinner with two girls, and everyone in the store just stared at us shocked. And to top it off as we left we saw a Korean couple carrying a bag of sex toys come in, and even they commented on our threesome =D
Yesterday and today have been happy fun class scheduling snafu. So I basically have no idea when I am supposed to have my classes or if I even have class. Like today where I show up, and then get informed that there is no class at all. So I sat around watching Dr. Who until they let me go. And then I had to come back at 2:30 to listen to the other teachers working at camp plan stuff out in Korean. Now I am home and looking forward to a 4-day weekend before winter camp.
PS: I am listening to a japanese rock band and liking it. . . *shudder* this is a bad sign!
[Edit: I completely forgot my rant about Korean heating, so here it is!]
As anyone who has been to Eastern Asia knows, they don't believe in central heating here. So heating is never really as comfortable as I'm used to, but the situation here is compounded by two facts. 1) Korean heaters have two temperatures: ineffectual and flesh searing. 2) The huge room heaters in each room are only turned on between 9 and 11:30 in the morning because my principal is a ridiculous penny pincher. So what happens? Every teacher jacks the heat to high to turn their room into a sauna by 11:30 so that, hopefully, the room will not be an ice box by the time we can leave at 4:50. So the principal A) doesn't save any money and B) because my room is on the top floor and all the heating units are on the same system, I don't get any heat in my room. So I stay and teach in a freaking refrigerator all day.
Anywho, yeah, I dislike the heating situation at my school. As it is often colder inside the school than it is outside! WTF?!?!