"The police have been called, they are on their way. Seriously, you should get out of here before they show up! They don't appreciate people acting like you are acting in Korea." I said to the blonde haired saffer I had just met in the bar. "Dancing is not allowed here and I have notified the authorities." She didn't seem that scared. Maybe it was because we shared the same circle of friends somehow. Graham, Justin and myself had found ourselves yet again at "The Goldfish." A fine establishment where you could go for a few pitchers and Jaeger bombs. In almost a repeat of two weeks ago we had gone from "Geckos Terrace" to "The Wolfhound" to "The Goldfish" in Itaewon. I had needed to buy shoes for about a month or two now, and with the weather turning nice all of a sudden, I felt that this was the weekend to do it. I went to Itaewon at about noon on Saturday and had to walk around the market there looking for bigger sizes. My shoe size is 13 American, so I had to go in, get a staffer and say "What do you have in size 13?" then weigh my options. I found one that I liked, but the guy said "97K won." "Can you give me a discount?" "I already did man, 30 percent off." Knowing the art of the deal I said, "That's too much, I need to think about it, hold these shoes for about thirty minutes and if I don't find anything better I will come back." "Why even go? You won't find anything better." I wish he hadn't been so right. I found nothing. I was back within twenty and paying the price he asked. "Hey man! Back so soon?" he said, rubbing it in a bit. I did get a nice pair of size thirteen Nikes. The only problem is that they were ghost white, so of course I almost immediately scuffed them.
After the shoe purchase I made my way to Gecko's terrace where I waited for Justin. He had wanted to try the food there, and I hadn't had western food in... I don't even know. We sat around drinking some Red Rock beer and eventually met up with Graham, who had just the previous night been in Cheongju, but is famous for going to sleep in one town and waking up in another. While I was sitting at the bar alone, this foreigner (American I'm assuming, mostly because he was an asshat) came up to the bar. "Hey! Yogyo! Can I get some darts from you?" "Yes. Ten thousand." "I don't have any cash, just my card." "I'm sorry, it's a rule." "Dude, I'm not gonna steal your darts. Just charge my tab." "I'm sorry, cash. It's rule." "Yeah, just mark it on my tab." "Nono. Sorry." "This is ridiculous. Let me speak to your boss." (Girl comes over) "Yeah, can I get the darts, and just pay for them on my tab." "I'm sorry, the rule is cash for darts." "Yo. I'm not gonna steal your fucking darts. I'm gonna stay right here and use them. This is ridiculous. What do you want something for them? Here let me give you this. (I didn't see what it was because I didn't want to make eye contact with that ass.) This is very important to me and I wont leave without it." "Let me ask." "Yeah, go ask your boss." (Guy comes over) "Hey, look. You have my Visa. That's all I have. I don't have cash. I'm going to spend lots of money here. Just let me borrow the darts. I'll buy them. You can charge me for the darts on my card. I'm not gonna leave without the Visa. Bring me over a slip of paper and I'll sign something saying that you can charge me for the darts." It was stupid. Eventually they let him have them as an exception and he goes to play, loudly saying how ridiculous it was that he had to pay for the darts. Justin and Graham show up and we order some food. The food was good. I had not had chicken fingers in forever, and they were quite delicious. The darts guy from earlier comes over and starts talking to us about basketball and how awesome he is. Says something about how I look sad (it was because I shut down conversationally around people that I want to tell to go F themselves) and about how it is so hard to understand Graham with his Scottish accent. This dude has some conversations with other people (which make them get up and leave the bar altogether) and comes back to us before asking for darts again and getting turned down due to a "shift change" that was about to happen. Luckily this makes him so upset that he leaves. We had already settled up to leave because he was there, so we head to the Wolfhound.
The Wolfhound was pretty uneventful and after that we headed to the Goldfish. That's where we met up with a whole mess of saffers. They were really nice, and one of them lived out in the boonies just like me. I had them teach me how to say sweet things in Afrikaans to you know who. Surprisingly that didn't go over very well. Not really sure why, but I'm not exactly sweating it. It was someones birthday, and we bantered and partied for a couple of hours. I like that bar because they play a lot of the same music I listened to back home. It's almost like a top 40 hip hop station. I was able to sing and rap along with most of the stuff being played. Later on in the night they usually get that girl to sing open mic style, but this time she had a guitarist. I remember him playing a version of "Hotel California" and even an acoustic version of "Stairway to heaven." He even rocked my world with "Oye como va." It was a good night and I was in a good social mood. Eventually Chico showed up and we hung out a bit more. Chico was telling me about his friend who had really good grades in school, but through talking to Graham and other foreigners how much better Chicos English had gotten than his friends. Justin and myself left after a bit, because we were given the promise of noraebang in Bundang.
When we finally got out there, it was pretty late. I don't really remember what time, but it must have been closer to 1 or 2. Perhaps even later, because we basically took a taxi across the entire city of Seoul. We went to the bar Dublin's that our friend Aureum owns. We had maybe two beers. Most of the time we were there I was talking to Aureums father, Monticello. What a nice guy! She speaks pretty much perfect English, and taught herself. He speaks English very very well, and I think he was saying he taught himself also. We had a conversation about Korean dialects and he taught me a little bit of Korean, but by that point I wasn't going to be learning a whole lot. He told me all about how Aureums sister wanted to pursue ballet, and how Aureum fought for her to be able to pursue her dream. It sounded like he has a real soft spot for both of his daughters. I liked that guy. We stayed until closing time at five and helped her move all the people out of the bar.
It is here that the story starts to get interesting. We went for a little late night snack at a Kimbap place on the other side of the station from her bar. I need to get some money and a bottle of water, so I walked across the street. I see a random Korean depart from his group and move towards me and shout something back to them. I am half defensive at this point, because it is about six in the morning, and I am walking alone. "Hello. I am June Gunn and I am going to America in a couple of months. Can I practice speaking English with you?" Crazy. I feel like I am going to be mugged and it turns out it's just a kid who wants to speak English. After exchanging numbers we part ways and I am sitting outside the kimbap place drinking my water. I go inside, and as I do I pass this Korean college kid. I sit down at the table, and right as I do, that same college kid kicks the window on the side of the store. He pout a hole in it about the size of a baseball. It turns out while I was outside he had come in to get kimbap and had thought my friends were laughing at him. He went up to them and was like "You got a problem?" then was escorted out by his friend. As he walked by I guess he saw us laughing and just got mad and kicked the window. There was glass all over the place. The poor lady who owned the store called 112 and the police came out to see what happened. They went in the direction of the guy but soon returned as he was probably long gone.
As we are sitting there talking to the police, explaining what happened, this random drunk college kid in a white hat comes across and sits down next to me. He mentions something about girls and about facebook and tries to talk to me, but he can't really hold much of a conversation. When we are done talking to the police, we get up to leave, and he gets up also. At first it is kind of funny, like "hey look at the drunk guy" kind of funny. We go towards the noraebang and he keeps trying to hold on to peoples arms. Every time he does we have to push his hand away and then he goes to someone else. It is apparent by the time we get to the noraebang that he is not going to leave us alone, so we don't go into the noraebang, we change directions. He changes directions also and follows us. We tell him in no uncertain terms that he needs to stay there, and he doesn't listen. The girls, who are fluent in Korean, tell him that he needs to leave us alone and he doesn't. We head towards the taxis, saying that we are going to call it a night, and he heads towards the taxis also. We get one, and a couple of people get in, and he tries to get in also. We argue with him and eventually I get out my phone and start shooting video. The point of this was two fold. First, if the cops did come, which they might the way this was going, they would need video evidence that we never touched him and that he wouldn't leave us alone. Second, people who know they are being video-taped seem to act like jack asses a lot less. Once he realized I was filming him, he tried to snatch my phone, tried to cover his face, tried to take pictures of us, but what he stopped doing was focusing on the girls, and he stopped trying to be all arm in arm with people. I have a good ten minutes of him in an argument with us (none of which I can even understand) until some guys around our age showed up and talked to him. They basically kept him there while we walked away. The cops had already been called by that point, so when they showed up we met them. One of them spoke perfect English and mentioned that he had spent time in America. Upon talking to the drunk guy it was revealed that his story was "They hit me" and ours was "This creep won't stop following us." The other group of guys vouched for us and the cops took his phone so that they could delete the pictures. There was a very surreal moment when the older of the two cops had his phone, where he tried to take it back, and the cop had to run away from him while the drunk guy chased after him. He was putting hands all over the cop and I just couldn't help but think "If this were America, he would have been pepper sprayed, tazed, slammed on the ground and handcuffed." This guy wasn't even arrested. He was pretty much just given a ride home by the officers and we all got in our respective cabs and left. It was quite a shitty end to an evening that was supposed to involve my favorite of Korean activities. That guy really deserved to have his ass kicked, but I don't need to get deported, and don't really enjoy fighting in the first place. The only time I did come close to swinging was when he literally grabbed my arm, pinching with his fingers as I tried to pull away. There were some really nice Korean girls there to help the guys keep a level head though, and we managed to get away.
The only other thing that really happened this weekend was a little party at Laurens place. We got some people together in Daeso and drank some wine and some soju and got some pizza. We played a game or two of charades and just had an all around good time. The new couple from Busan, made up of a South African and a Texan (sound familiar?) came out and we just generally had a lot of laughs. It is really funny trying to see someone act out "French Kiss" or "Toy Story." The weather seems to be getting more pleasant, and pretty soon I won't be wearing a sweater at all. To end the post, I will leave you with a philosophical question by a K-pop group called "Fat Cat." Is being pretty everything?
Monday, April 2, 2012
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
St. Patrick's Day
So this weekend I went to Seoul for St. Patrick's Day. I have to say it was probably the most fun I have ever had on this holiday. I have marched in Dallas parades, drank myself stupid at my home or with friends and been in New Orleans for what looks like an all Irish Mardi Gras. I have to say though that this was the most fun. It is the first time where I didn't claim to be Irish, which I am a large part by heritage, but simply sat back and watched real Irish people make Korea their home away from home.
The day started out like most others, with me waking up on a weekend at home. I decided early on that I couldn't miss this opportunity to celebrate in Seoul, and the decision was made even easier by the fact that all of my friends would be there. I took the twelve o'clock bus out of Gamgok and was on my way. I arrived in Seoul after a short nap and had to get on the subway line 2 (the green line) so I could head to Sindorim station, the transfer station between lines 2 and 1. I got there and had no clue which way to go, so I went out the first exit I saw. Nothing. Back inside I found some people in green heading towards another exit, so I gave chase. I was right behind a Korean business man when I got to the top of the steps and saw the entire throng of foreigners wearing green. He stopped dead in his tracks and I almost ran right over him. He looked around as if to say "I have been through here a hundred times, but never have I seen this many Waygookin in one place, all wearing the same color." I passed him up and saw that familiar wavy red hair that I know so well. I cocked my arm back and was going to clap down on her shoulder when I realized that I didn't recognize the people that she was talking to, and she was supposed to be a stop behind me. Right before I actually hit her shoulder, I pretended like I was stretching and walked on. Sure enough it was not Phillipa. I knew it would be difficult to find my friends who actually were there, so I did a round of the place to get the basic lay of the land, and overheard some people talking about the closest place to buy beer. I headed across the street to a GS25 that had a kimbap restaurant right next to it.
Self bragging time: When ordering Kimbap I did it so perfectly that she thought I spoke Korean :) "Jamchi kimbap han jul chuseyo. Pojang." (one line of tuna kimbap please. to go.) She spoke back a couple of sentences to me, then realized that I didn't speak enough to understand the complexities of what she was saying, but she did say something about it being "jam kon mon ki da ri seyo" (just a second please) and asking about all the people. That's where I lost her. One delicious kimbap roll, a liter of beer, and a soju juice box later I was sitting with my friends watching a Korean U2 cover band called "have no name." They were good. We met up with Phillipa and her brother, sister-in-law and sister when they came, so we had to move to a bigger area. We went up to sit on some grassy place and watch the stuff go down from up there. More people arrived, and then more after that. I was going strong at about four, with a juice box full of soju and a liter of beer. Lauren was, to her credit, keeping up with me and making sure that I wasn't drinking alone. Phillipa could not drink because she was running in a 10K the next day in Seoul. I was not jealous. We gave her a lot of flak because she was paying more to run 10 Kilometers than it cost to get a cab to drive you 15. She left by six, and we all started heading different directions. The others had gotten a hostel earlier in the night, but I knew that I could either find a place to crash, or I couldn't. It wouldn't be worth it for me to pay thirty thousand won for one night where I only got to sleep for six hours or so before I had to get out of there. So like I said many times that day, "I have a card full of won, a head full of ideas, and a schedule empty of any plans."
Me and Graham were hanging around when the crew started breaking up. Jeff and Gareth, both Englishman, were with us, and the first thing we did is get a couple of beers into us. We sat around shooting the shit, drinking a tall boy, then hailed a cab (much more difficult than I am making it sound) and headed towards Itaewon. In Itaewon we headed to an Outback steakhouse, which I thought sounded delicious. The problem was, that obviously it was suuuuuper expensive. We looked around a lot more and decided on a samgyeopsal and galbi place, where we ate some delicious barbecue. After dinner we headed out to get a place to stay. This is where we ran into a problem. All the hotels in Itaewon were booked. We walked around looking for crappy and nice ones, and could not find anything open. We decided then that we might just have to go the distance. Obviously I have been in situations before where I had involuntarily stayed up all night, so it was no big deal to me. Anyways, the night was still young, and we had a long time to go until I would start feeling tired. We started off at this place called "Geckos" which was big. It was also crowded, and noisy, and full of people trying to get to their friends and bumping you every five seconds. I snagged a table off people who were getting up to leave and we found a place to sit down. A couple of beers later and we were headed out of there.
We ended up at this place called "The Goldfish" which was apparently one of Grahams regular haunts. It being only my second time in Itaewon ever, I was easy when it came to plans. We got a table and a pitcher and started drinking some Jaeger bombs to keep ourselves awake. The Redbull in the Jaeger bombs is dangerous when you're going out for a quiet night, but when you are starting things off for a big night, it is perfect. We had some good conversation and some good entertainment in the form of an amateur singer. Poor Gareth was stuck in between me and the singer while I was wailing right along with her. I could see that he was trying to be courteous and not say "dude, shut the hell up," but once I get alcohol in me and there is a song playing that I know, I can't help but sing along. I really can't. Anyways, we have some drinks, sing some songs, then Grahams friend Chico shows up. Wonhyung Lee is his real name, but he picked Chico cause it means "boy" in Spanish. He has quite the fashion sense, and when he rolled in he was wearing a furry hat with knee high socks. We finished up that pitcher and headed over to the Irish pub which was sure to be packed.
Wolfhound is the name of the Irish pub, and as soon as we got there we got a couple of beers and shots. They were playing the Ireland England rugby game that had started at 2:00 A.M. so we couldn't find any room downstairs. Chico happened upon a guy who was passed out on the floor. Face down on the floor. Face down on the dirty, St. Patricks day floor in an Irish pub in Korea. Chico got a picture with him before we helped him up off the floor and onto a seat where he passed out all over again. First good deed. It quickly got waaaaay too smokey for Chico and we had to go outside. Out front Chico produced a massive cigar that would not have been allowed inside most likely so we lit it and smoked it. It was nice. Drinking a beer, smoking a cigar, talking about Graham and how much he sucked. Just kidding Graham. The next couple of hours were pretty uneventful, being filled with hazy heart to hearts and whatnot, but what I do remember is this. While sitting out front of the bar, a guy stumbles out and up to the store across the street. Here they have a lot of these outdoor fish tanks so you can see how fresh the crab or eel or fish is that you will be eating. This drunk guy is pissing next to one of these fish tanks that is covered in a straw mat being held down by a brick. When leaning against the fish tank he put his hand on the mat and I guess didnt like the way it felt, because he grabbed it and thew it backwards into the middle of the street. He finished his piss then stumbled off drunkenly. I walked over, put the mat back on the tank, and set the brick on top of it. "Jeff, you don't have to do that." Were Graham and Chico's response, but if I didn't, who would? Second good deed :) I think I mentioned this before, but I think I get awesome when I'm drunk. Not always obviously. What I think sets me apart from a lot of people is that I like to make other people feel good. Help them out. So when I get drunk, and see a dude who cant find his hat, I will help him find his friggin' hat. Anyways, Chico goes off to give his jacket to his girlfriend or something and about thirty seconds after he leaves we here him yell "Graham! Jeff! Help me out with this guy!" We look over and sure enough it is the same drunk pisser from earlier in the middle of the street, arms wide, yelling something at Chico like "What are you gonna do?" and walking towards him. Chico circles back around to where me and Graham are, who probably put together have the guy outweighed six to one, and it looks like Graham and Chico are ready to go. I make sure and get there first. "What's the matter man? What can I help you with? Are you ok? Whats the matter?" The dude almost instantly goes from threatening to almost crying. "Can you help me find (some African name)? She was in the Wolfhound and now I cant find her! Can you help me find her?" "Yeah, of course man. Let me just go look for her." He ended up walking away not too long after that, and from what I saw, the girl who he was talking about was long gone. She probably left earlier in the night. Probably a lot earlier. Either way, I was feeling good because nobody had to get their ass kicked that night. We go back into the Wolfhound about twenty minutes before closing time, and Gareth was passed out, granted it was about five in the morning. Graham was invited to stay at Chico's house, so they head that way, and Gareth and I head into the bar next door until the subway opened at about 5:30. We could have just taken a cab, but Gareth had locked his bag up in a locker down in the station. Geoff had somehow magically disappeared, but seeing as how he is thirty something and wasn't fall down drunk we weren't too worried about him.
Gareth and I waited around at the bar for about a half hour or more, then took off to go get his bag. After getting it out of the automated lockers, we got the first subway that came, and were pretty much two thirds of the way towards the exact opposite side of Seoul from the terminal. Luckily it was the most deserted I had ever seen the green line or the brown line, which is what Itaewon is on. We got to Dong Seoul station at about 6:20 something and got our tickets. 6:55 was the first bus to Gamgok, and 7:00 was the first bus to Cheongju where Gareth lives, so after standing around for a couple of minutes we parted ways and got on our respective buses. I remember getting on the bus, sitting down, then all of a sudden I am in Gamgok. I had a horrible case of dry mouth from sleeping on a bus with it wide open the entire time. "Gamgokeyayo!!!" The bus driver shouted. I am pretty sure it was only for me, because there was no one else on the bus and it had already been stopped for who knows how long. I gave him a big thank you and walked home, where I passed out for the next six or so hours. Phillipa ran her race with no trouble, and even got a medal for doing it! A little over an hour to run 10 Kilometers. Good work fox! Way to channel your spirit animal. :) Of course the last couple of days she has been walking around like an ajumma because her legs are stiffer than boards from all the running.
I have to admit, I really love the Seoul Subway. It is clean, it is on time, and it is very technologically advanced. The people move quickly and it is easy to pay for and to get around on. I love it. That song in the video is the song they play every time you get to a transfer station. Anyway, you got to hear from me twice in one month, so I hope you feel privileged. I will probably not get into anything spectacular anytime soon, so have a good month!
The day started out like most others, with me waking up on a weekend at home. I decided early on that I couldn't miss this opportunity to celebrate in Seoul, and the decision was made even easier by the fact that all of my friends would be there. I took the twelve o'clock bus out of Gamgok and was on my way. I arrived in Seoul after a short nap and had to get on the subway line 2 (the green line) so I could head to Sindorim station, the transfer station between lines 2 and 1. I got there and had no clue which way to go, so I went out the first exit I saw. Nothing. Back inside I found some people in green heading towards another exit, so I gave chase. I was right behind a Korean business man when I got to the top of the steps and saw the entire throng of foreigners wearing green. He stopped dead in his tracks and I almost ran right over him. He looked around as if to say "I have been through here a hundred times, but never have I seen this many Waygookin in one place, all wearing the same color." I passed him up and saw that familiar wavy red hair that I know so well. I cocked my arm back and was going to clap down on her shoulder when I realized that I didn't recognize the people that she was talking to, and she was supposed to be a stop behind me. Right before I actually hit her shoulder, I pretended like I was stretching and walked on. Sure enough it was not Phillipa. I knew it would be difficult to find my friends who actually were there, so I did a round of the place to get the basic lay of the land, and overheard some people talking about the closest place to buy beer. I headed across the street to a GS25 that had a kimbap restaurant right next to it.
Self bragging time: When ordering Kimbap I did it so perfectly that she thought I spoke Korean :) "Jamchi kimbap han jul chuseyo. Pojang." (one line of tuna kimbap please. to go.) She spoke back a couple of sentences to me, then realized that I didn't speak enough to understand the complexities of what she was saying, but she did say something about it being "jam kon mon ki da ri seyo" (just a second please) and asking about all the people. That's where I lost her. One delicious kimbap roll, a liter of beer, and a soju juice box later I was sitting with my friends watching a Korean U2 cover band called "have no name." They were good. We met up with Phillipa and her brother, sister-in-law and sister when they came, so we had to move to a bigger area. We went up to sit on some grassy place and watch the stuff go down from up there. More people arrived, and then more after that. I was going strong at about four, with a juice box full of soju and a liter of beer. Lauren was, to her credit, keeping up with me and making sure that I wasn't drinking alone. Phillipa could not drink because she was running in a 10K the next day in Seoul. I was not jealous. We gave her a lot of flak because she was paying more to run 10 Kilometers than it cost to get a cab to drive you 15. She left by six, and we all started heading different directions. The others had gotten a hostel earlier in the night, but I knew that I could either find a place to crash, or I couldn't. It wouldn't be worth it for me to pay thirty thousand won for one night where I only got to sleep for six hours or so before I had to get out of there. So like I said many times that day, "I have a card full of won, a head full of ideas, and a schedule empty of any plans."
Me and Graham were hanging around when the crew started breaking up. Jeff and Gareth, both Englishman, were with us, and the first thing we did is get a couple of beers into us. We sat around shooting the shit, drinking a tall boy, then hailed a cab (much more difficult than I am making it sound) and headed towards Itaewon. In Itaewon we headed to an Outback steakhouse, which I thought sounded delicious. The problem was, that obviously it was suuuuuper expensive. We looked around a lot more and decided on a samgyeopsal and galbi place, where we ate some delicious barbecue. After dinner we headed out to get a place to stay. This is where we ran into a problem. All the hotels in Itaewon were booked. We walked around looking for crappy and nice ones, and could not find anything open. We decided then that we might just have to go the distance. Obviously I have been in situations before where I had involuntarily stayed up all night, so it was no big deal to me. Anyways, the night was still young, and we had a long time to go until I would start feeling tired. We started off at this place called "Geckos" which was big. It was also crowded, and noisy, and full of people trying to get to their friends and bumping you every five seconds. I snagged a table off people who were getting up to leave and we found a place to sit down. A couple of beers later and we were headed out of there.
We ended up at this place called "The Goldfish" which was apparently one of Grahams regular haunts. It being only my second time in Itaewon ever, I was easy when it came to plans. We got a table and a pitcher and started drinking some Jaeger bombs to keep ourselves awake. The Redbull in the Jaeger bombs is dangerous when you're going out for a quiet night, but when you are starting things off for a big night, it is perfect. We had some good conversation and some good entertainment in the form of an amateur singer. Poor Gareth was stuck in between me and the singer while I was wailing right along with her. I could see that he was trying to be courteous and not say "dude, shut the hell up," but once I get alcohol in me and there is a song playing that I know, I can't help but sing along. I really can't. Anyways, we have some drinks, sing some songs, then Grahams friend Chico shows up. Wonhyung Lee is his real name, but he picked Chico cause it means "boy" in Spanish. He has quite the fashion sense, and when he rolled in he was wearing a furry hat with knee high socks. We finished up that pitcher and headed over to the Irish pub which was sure to be packed.
Wolfhound is the name of the Irish pub, and as soon as we got there we got a couple of beers and shots. They were playing the Ireland England rugby game that had started at 2:00 A.M. so we couldn't find any room downstairs. Chico happened upon a guy who was passed out on the floor. Face down on the floor. Face down on the dirty, St. Patricks day floor in an Irish pub in Korea. Chico got a picture with him before we helped him up off the floor and onto a seat where he passed out all over again. First good deed. It quickly got waaaaay too smokey for Chico and we had to go outside. Out front Chico produced a massive cigar that would not have been allowed inside most likely so we lit it and smoked it. It was nice. Drinking a beer, smoking a cigar, talking about Graham and how much he sucked. Just kidding Graham. The next couple of hours were pretty uneventful, being filled with hazy heart to hearts and whatnot, but what I do remember is this. While sitting out front of the bar, a guy stumbles out and up to the store across the street. Here they have a lot of these outdoor fish tanks so you can see how fresh the crab or eel or fish is that you will be eating. This drunk guy is pissing next to one of these fish tanks that is covered in a straw mat being held down by a brick. When leaning against the fish tank he put his hand on the mat and I guess didnt like the way it felt, because he grabbed it and thew it backwards into the middle of the street. He finished his piss then stumbled off drunkenly. I walked over, put the mat back on the tank, and set the brick on top of it. "Jeff, you don't have to do that." Were Graham and Chico's response, but if I didn't, who would? Second good deed :) I think I mentioned this before, but I think I get awesome when I'm drunk. Not always obviously. What I think sets me apart from a lot of people is that I like to make other people feel good. Help them out. So when I get drunk, and see a dude who cant find his hat, I will help him find his friggin' hat. Anyways, Chico goes off to give his jacket to his girlfriend or something and about thirty seconds after he leaves we here him yell "Graham! Jeff! Help me out with this guy!" We look over and sure enough it is the same drunk pisser from earlier in the middle of the street, arms wide, yelling something at Chico like "What are you gonna do?" and walking towards him. Chico circles back around to where me and Graham are, who probably put together have the guy outweighed six to one, and it looks like Graham and Chico are ready to go. I make sure and get there first. "What's the matter man? What can I help you with? Are you ok? Whats the matter?" The dude almost instantly goes from threatening to almost crying. "Can you help me find (some African name)? She was in the Wolfhound and now I cant find her! Can you help me find her?" "Yeah, of course man. Let me just go look for her." He ended up walking away not too long after that, and from what I saw, the girl who he was talking about was long gone. She probably left earlier in the night. Probably a lot earlier. Either way, I was feeling good because nobody had to get their ass kicked that night. We go back into the Wolfhound about twenty minutes before closing time, and Gareth was passed out, granted it was about five in the morning. Graham was invited to stay at Chico's house, so they head that way, and Gareth and I head into the bar next door until the subway opened at about 5:30. We could have just taken a cab, but Gareth had locked his bag up in a locker down in the station. Geoff had somehow magically disappeared, but seeing as how he is thirty something and wasn't fall down drunk we weren't too worried about him.
Gareth and I waited around at the bar for about a half hour or more, then took off to go get his bag. After getting it out of the automated lockers, we got the first subway that came, and were pretty much two thirds of the way towards the exact opposite side of Seoul from the terminal. Luckily it was the most deserted I had ever seen the green line or the brown line, which is what Itaewon is on. We got to Dong Seoul station at about 6:20 something and got our tickets. 6:55 was the first bus to Gamgok, and 7:00 was the first bus to Cheongju where Gareth lives, so after standing around for a couple of minutes we parted ways and got on our respective buses. I remember getting on the bus, sitting down, then all of a sudden I am in Gamgok. I had a horrible case of dry mouth from sleeping on a bus with it wide open the entire time. "Gamgokeyayo!!!" The bus driver shouted. I am pretty sure it was only for me, because there was no one else on the bus and it had already been stopped for who knows how long. I gave him a big thank you and walked home, where I passed out for the next six or so hours. Phillipa ran her race with no trouble, and even got a medal for doing it! A little over an hour to run 10 Kilometers. Good work fox! Way to channel your spirit animal. :) Of course the last couple of days she has been walking around like an ajumma because her legs are stiffer than boards from all the running.
I have to admit, I really love the Seoul Subway. It is clean, it is on time, and it is very technologically advanced. The people move quickly and it is easy to pay for and to get around on. I love it. That song in the video is the song they play every time you get to a transfer station. Anyway, you got to hear from me twice in one month, so I hope you feel privileged. I will probably not get into anything spectacular anytime soon, so have a good month!
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Say uncle!
I'm an uncle! My brother and sister in law had a son about fifteen hours ago named Ronin John Wester. A pretty awesome name if I do say so myself. I am very excited to come home and meet him, even if he is still too young to remember meeting me. He already has more hair than mark, and they say he didn't cry when he came out, so let's hope that means he won't be a crier in general.
Things here in Korea have changed significantly since I have last posted. All the old people have left, well, most of them. Thom, Steve, Nick, Wesley, Shaneel, Kevin, Dave, Sean, Cheryl and Adam. All of them have either left the county or the country. We have some good new people though, and I am excited about getting to know them better. Four of the spots were taken by two couples, one coming from Busan that has already been here for a couple years, and another coming in from San Francisco. The one from Busan includes a Texan who can speak Korean, and the other half is a South African. Shaneel, who lived in my building was replaced by the woman of the other couple. Cris is her name, and she seems like fun. She is dating a guy named Tim who I haven't gotten to talk to much, but seems like a stand up fellow. Lauren took over for both Cheryl and Adam, so she has her work cut out for her, but I am sure she will do fine once she gets over the initial stress period and into the swing of things. A new TaLK scholar came into the town right next to Gamgok. Daniel Kim is his name, and he is from Canada. Really nice guy who speaks Korean like a fish swims in water. Already he has come out with us and made talking to our Korean friends a breeze. Jarret is also a pretty nice guy, but it will be hard to fill Steve's shoes. On one of our weekly work night outings Phillipa and myself were walking back home when we spied a white guy who looked pretty lost. "Hey!" I shouted when I saw his hoodie that said "EPIK." We talked to him for a couple of seconds and traded information with him. I wasn't really worried about him because he is in the central town of Muguk/Geumwang, and he already had a phone. I am more worried about Cris because she cannot speak or read any Korean, and was a vegetarian before she came over. She understands that stuff over here is all cooked with meat, but still has a hard time keeping it down. I am hoping to take her and her S.O. out sometime this week and get some Kimbap, maybe some soups, and teach them how to order some things and ask for some things.
Things here in Korea have changed significantly since I have last posted. All the old people have left, well, most of them. Thom, Steve, Nick, Wesley, Shaneel, Kevin, Dave, Sean, Cheryl and Adam. All of them have either left the county or the country. We have some good new people though, and I am excited about getting to know them better. Four of the spots were taken by two couples, one coming from Busan that has already been here for a couple years, and another coming in from San Francisco. The one from Busan includes a Texan who can speak Korean, and the other half is a South African. Shaneel, who lived in my building was replaced by the woman of the other couple. Cris is her name, and she seems like fun. She is dating a guy named Tim who I haven't gotten to talk to much, but seems like a stand up fellow. Lauren took over for both Cheryl and Adam, so she has her work cut out for her, but I am sure she will do fine once she gets over the initial stress period and into the swing of things. A new TaLK scholar came into the town right next to Gamgok. Daniel Kim is his name, and he is from Canada. Really nice guy who speaks Korean like a fish swims in water. Already he has come out with us and made talking to our Korean friends a breeze. Jarret is also a pretty nice guy, but it will be hard to fill Steve's shoes. On one of our weekly work night outings Phillipa and myself were walking back home when we spied a white guy who looked pretty lost. "Hey!" I shouted when I saw his hoodie that said "EPIK." We talked to him for a couple of seconds and traded information with him. I wasn't really worried about him because he is in the central town of Muguk/Geumwang, and he already had a phone. I am more worried about Cris because she cannot speak or read any Korean, and was a vegetarian before she came over. She understands that stuff over here is all cooked with meat, but still has a hard time keeping it down. I am hoping to take her and her S.O. out sometime this week and get some Kimbap, maybe some soups, and teach them how to order some things and ask for some things.
School has started back up. It is fun so far, if not a little hectic. I am teaching two more classes this semester than last semester, but am not sure if those classes actually meet. For the most part it is going well. There are a couple of radical changes. Namely, my main co-teacher has changed. I am now working with the one who got married over break, Kim Hyun-Jung. Woo Jae-Beom has moved to the highschool to teach. That is neither a promotion nor is it a demotion, just a way to mix it up and keep things fresh. I actually teach two classes a week with Jae-Beom, and in fact have not changed any of the teachers I am teaching with. They all pretty much know what to expect out of me... Nothin'! I kid. I kid because I love. In actuality I have done more work in the past week than I did in a month of teaching last semester. I am no longer just a parrot, but am making power point lessons to tell the kids about how to say things. It is fun, I guess. Just frustrating when I spend an entire morning printing out paper dice so that I can cut them with an exacto knife just to have the teacher say in one class "Oh, we don't have time for this game that you thought was dumb but I made you prepare for" and in another class say "Oh, we don't have enough dice, you should make more!" Spoiler alert, I'm not going to. I think if anything I will take a look in a shop around here for dice. I am sure they have them. The students are completely different, with the exception of one class of kids. The good part about that is that it means the honeymoon stage will happen all over again, and that I can re-use all of my materials.
Friday was bad for me. Not a good day at all. Classes didn't go that well, and I had to do a lot of work for them. Before I go into this you have to understand that this place has a sense of what is and isn't acceptable that isn't the same as ours. Also, they are very concerned with appearance. I have to admit I cracked though. It was the stress of being in a new situation, some issues that I was dealing with that I don't want to go into right now, and what I'm going to talk about here. I have a good sense of humor. I usually take things pretty well. I am a big guy, and I know that I am overweight, but over here I seem to hear it every day. Friday just sort of made me feel really down because the day before some of the students had mentioned it when they first were introduced to me. Even though the teacher tried to stifle the comment I still heard it. I mentioned it to Phillipa looking for sympathy I guess and all I heard was "well maybe you should change that." Yeah, thanks for the advice. Later on in the evening we went out with some of our Korean friends who managed to say it a couple more times. "Your face, pretty, diet, girls everywhere." Yeah, thanks again. The next day the P.E. teacher comes over and says something to the extent of "베가고빠요" (my spelling still sucks) which translates roughly into "You're hungry!" then pokes at my stomach. Like I said before, It's not so much that it happened, it was more a bunch of things with that being the icing on the proverbial cake. It doesn't really help that I am actually very hungry every day at lunch. Still, ya know, it's not good for your self esteem to hear several times a day that you are fat. Even if you are, it's just not good to hear it so much. I was having a bad day and all I wanted was a couple of hugs. It's hard to be so far away from friends and family on days like that.
Anyway, I sucked it up and got ready for the teachers dinner. They told me that it was going to be at the place we had it at last time, right near the school, so I walked to that place. No one was there of course. So I texted a few teachers I had in my phone and they eventually directed me to this place that serves duck. If you have never had duck, it's really good. 얼리갈미 (Ori Galbi) is what they call it. I have been to this restaurant three or four times with Graham, and every time it is too much food, and really, really delicious. I was quite embarrassed that I did not know the name of it. I showed up and they started pouring me Soju like it was nobodies business. I think within the two and change hours we were there they must have poured me the equivalent of two or three twelve ounce bottles. Eight shots per bottle. Twenty percent alcohol. Now that I think about it that's like doing twelve shots of vodka over the course of two and a half hours :/ Guess that explains why I was so drunk. They are trying to teach me Korean, but I am very bad at it. I am learning on my own too, working out of a workbook and trying to speak it as much as possible. Phillipa is helping me also, teaching me phrases, and about verbs that are past present and future. We were actually practicing in a chicken place the other week and a Korean dude turned around and gave me the thumbs up :) So the Korean teacher here who has limited English is teaching me about "주도" or drinking culture and etiquette. I learned all kinds of cool things "Hyun Neem! Hana soju cheon deseyo." (I think that is how it goes) means "Older brother! One soju glass I will give you." We had fun though, and I got to eat with the two ladies who know barely any English that are, I think, administrators. Well one is an administrator, I think the other is a full teacher. Pretty sure she teaches Korean also. Anyways, she was really sweet to me on Friday, and every time they would make me take a shot she would say "Jeppurey. Kinchalnayo?" (are you ok?) I don't think she realizes that this sort of drinking is childs play to me ;) After the dinner, and then the subsequent special table, we went for o-beks (500cc's, think full beer stein) at the local bar. After a few of those I had to depart to meet up with my friends, because we were having a "meet the new teachers dinner" in Geumwang/Muguk. By the end of the night I was totally drunk. Like stumbling drunk. Like autopilot drunk. I made it home fine, and I don't think I insulted anyone, but I guess we will find out. When I got home I actually ended up drunkenly venting to Phillipa, and know for a fact that I was crying at one point, but she said sweet things to me that helped calm me down, and I was fine the next day. I had a hard time that day, I'm just glad it didn't ruin my night.
Friday was bad for me. Not a good day at all. Classes didn't go that well, and I had to do a lot of work for them. Before I go into this you have to understand that this place has a sense of what is and isn't acceptable that isn't the same as ours. Also, they are very concerned with appearance. I have to admit I cracked though. It was the stress of being in a new situation, some issues that I was dealing with that I don't want to go into right now, and what I'm going to talk about here. I have a good sense of humor. I usually take things pretty well. I am a big guy, and I know that I am overweight, but over here I seem to hear it every day. Friday just sort of made me feel really down because the day before some of the students had mentioned it when they first were introduced to me. Even though the teacher tried to stifle the comment I still heard it. I mentioned it to Phillipa looking for sympathy I guess and all I heard was "well maybe you should change that." Yeah, thanks for the advice. Later on in the evening we went out with some of our Korean friends who managed to say it a couple more times. "Your face, pretty, diet, girls everywhere." Yeah, thanks again. The next day the P.E. teacher comes over and says something to the extent of "베가고빠요" (my spelling still sucks) which translates roughly into "You're hungry!" then pokes at my stomach. Like I said before, It's not so much that it happened, it was more a bunch of things with that being the icing on the proverbial cake. It doesn't really help that I am actually very hungry every day at lunch. Still, ya know, it's not good for your self esteem to hear several times a day that you are fat. Even if you are, it's just not good to hear it so much. I was having a bad day and all I wanted was a couple of hugs. It's hard to be so far away from friends and family on days like that.
Anyway, I sucked it up and got ready for the teachers dinner. They told me that it was going to be at the place we had it at last time, right near the school, so I walked to that place. No one was there of course. So I texted a few teachers I had in my phone and they eventually directed me to this place that serves duck. If you have never had duck, it's really good. 얼리갈미 (Ori Galbi) is what they call it. I have been to this restaurant three or four times with Graham, and every time it is too much food, and really, really delicious. I was quite embarrassed that I did not know the name of it. I showed up and they started pouring me Soju like it was nobodies business. I think within the two and change hours we were there they must have poured me the equivalent of two or three twelve ounce bottles. Eight shots per bottle. Twenty percent alcohol. Now that I think about it that's like doing twelve shots of vodka over the course of two and a half hours :/ Guess that explains why I was so drunk. They are trying to teach me Korean, but I am very bad at it. I am learning on my own too, working out of a workbook and trying to speak it as much as possible. Phillipa is helping me also, teaching me phrases, and about verbs that are past present and future. We were actually practicing in a chicken place the other week and a Korean dude turned around and gave me the thumbs up :) So the Korean teacher here who has limited English is teaching me about "주도" or drinking culture and etiquette. I learned all kinds of cool things "Hyun Neem! Hana soju cheon deseyo." (I think that is how it goes) means "Older brother! One soju glass I will give you." We had fun though, and I got to eat with the two ladies who know barely any English that are, I think, administrators. Well one is an administrator, I think the other is a full teacher. Pretty sure she teaches Korean also. Anyways, she was really sweet to me on Friday, and every time they would make me take a shot she would say "Jeppurey. Kinchalnayo?" (are you ok?) I don't think she realizes that this sort of drinking is childs play to me ;) After the dinner, and then the subsequent special table, we went for o-beks (500cc's, think full beer stein) at the local bar. After a few of those I had to depart to meet up with my friends, because we were having a "meet the new teachers dinner" in Geumwang/Muguk. By the end of the night I was totally drunk. Like stumbling drunk. Like autopilot drunk. I made it home fine, and I don't think I insulted anyone, but I guess we will find out. When I got home I actually ended up drunkenly venting to Phillipa, and know for a fact that I was crying at one point, but she said sweet things to me that helped calm me down, and I was fine the next day. I had a hard time that day, I'm just glad it didn't ruin my night.
The next night I went out for chicken with Phillipa and her sister Rowena, and that is where I got the thumbs up from the Korean guy. That kind of made my night. Just to know that people appreciate us trying to learn their language, and it's not all people saying "Learn Korean or leave!" like so many people do in America. It was a relatively uneventful night, with Phillipa losing her bet to me about whether she could quit smoking or not, and lots of drinking, but not nearly as much as the previous night. The chicken at Saba Saba is sooooooo good. They have a Jack Daniels and a Hot Chili flavor that we always get, and have recently discovered a Curry flavored one that is delicious. The next night was Lauren Huffs birthday. She is new in town and we all wanted to make her feel welcome. She speaks with the most adorable southern drawl because she is from North Carolina, and is sweet as pie. We all went to Jincheon to get a bite at an Italian place, and I have to say, it was good. It took me maybe an hour or so to get there by bus, maybe just under that, but the country side was beautiful. We got some delicious spaghetti carbonara in a little bread bowl and I drank Budweiser with it ;) There was some good pizza there as well. The bus ride home took about forty five minutes, required us to wait at the stop for about an hour, and was completely packed with people. The bus pulled up and unloaded an entire bus full of people, so when I got on I expected to have my choice of seats. Instead there were only about two or three left, so all us foreigners got one, and the nice girl who let us get on in front of her had to stand. It was a good night, and I'm glad Lauren is so social that I have been able to see her on three separate occasions since she got here.
I know it's been awhile since I updated, but honestly I am just not getting into that much trouble anymore. Perhaps I will travel soon, and when I do, I will tell you all about it. The good news is that being away for a month means that Big Bang came out with new hit songs! Here is one for you now. :)
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Ich bin ein Bearliner
Winter break is over. I am back at school as we speak and things are starting to pick back up. It is cold here, very cold with snow everywhere, but let's talk about the break a bit.
Break started off with a date. Phillipa was going to South Africa for her whole break, so I knew the last time I would get to see her would be the night of my last day of desk warming. We had a surprisingly romantic evening eating Italian food and drinking at a hof. We said our goodbyes for the month and parted ways. Since she has been gone we have not been able to talk on the phone or chat for more than a couple minutes, so any correspondence we have had has been through emails. Call me a sap if you want, but I am counting the days till she gets back here. It is kinda boring and quiet around here without her, and boring and quiet aren't my favorite things. The good news is that in South Africa it is summer, so she is having a nice winter vacation filled with beach trips and barbecues. Ok, enough pining, let's get down to it.
I had decided that I was going to Berlin for the break. One of my former students named Rebecca Buhner was over there for college and we had talked about visiting each other. Me and Buhner had been friends for a few years after she graduated. She was the kind of kid who was just so laid back that you don't think anything could ever make them upset. That seemed to mesh well with my personality, and we had hung out a few times back in Dallas. Mostly our interests revolved around "The Walking Dead" which we were both huge fans of. When my Thailand plans fell through I knew that I just had to make the trip to Berlin. I left on Thursday morning at about ten o'clock, so I went up to Seoul to stay with Justin the night before. We went out and did some drinking so that I would be nice and tired for the plane ride and possibly get some sleep on it. Next thing I know I look at my phone and its three something in the morning. We go back and get a few hours sleep before I wake up at about seven and get the shuttle bus to the airport. While in line to get my ticket I am standing behind this short blonde haired girl (not something you see everyday in Korea) who I don't think twice about. I get up to the counter and they ask if I am going to check any bags. All I had was my backpack, because all I was taking was about six changes of clothes and some toiletries. "Nope" I say then realize that they wont let you take more than 300 ml of liquids on board the flight. "Oh, wait, I have some soju with me. What am I supposed to do with it?" "How much?" the nice young Korean woman behind the counter asked me. "This much." I say as I open my bag and pull out the two liter bottle of soju. Her eyes go wide and her mouth agape she says "Owa!" "I can't take this on board can I?" "No sir." "What should I do with it?" I ask her as my mind turns over the possibilities. Should I find some random Korean guy and say "Service!" as I hand him a giant bottle of soju? Should I just leave it on the ground outside or actually throw it in a trashcan? Ooooh, I have a thought: "Do you want it?" I say to the Korean woman behind the counter. "Me? Nononono." She says with a face that is now blushing greatly. "What should I do with it?" "We can check your bag." "Ok, yeah I guess we should just do that" I say, not too excited about having to check all of my clothes and my phone charger. I send Buhner a text message saying "I am bringing you so much soju that I had to check my bag" and then I hop into the security line right behind the blonde girl. The line is three or four snaking rows long and is full of people with carry ons. In America this would have taken forty five minutes, but at Incheon it only took about five. I didn't have to take off my shoes or anything. I get to my gate a couple hours early and realize that there is no way in hell I am going to be able to sleep in one of those tiny waiting at the gate chairs that they have, so I resign myself to looking longingly out the window and browsing the internet on my phone. I write a sweet message to Phillipa and take some survey about the airport that gives me a free pen. Soon enough I am waiting in line to get on board the plane, and guess who is in line behind me? The nice blonde girl again. I get on the plane and find that I am in an emergency exit seat, so I have as much leg room as you could possibly wish for. I check the in flight movies, then try to get some sleep. No dice. A combination of me having some sort of sickness going on in my sinuses and not being able to get comfortable keeps me awake. I manage to watch a couple of good movies, including "real steal" which was pretty good and "crazy, stupid, love" which was a laugh riot, and had the older Korean gentleman looking onto my screen to see what was so funny.
I had decided that I was going to Berlin for the break. One of my former students named Rebecca Buhner was over there for college and we had talked about visiting each other. Me and Buhner had been friends for a few years after she graduated. She was the kind of kid who was just so laid back that you don't think anything could ever make them upset. That seemed to mesh well with my personality, and we had hung out a few times back in Dallas. Mostly our interests revolved around "The Walking Dead" which we were both huge fans of. When my Thailand plans fell through I knew that I just had to make the trip to Berlin. I left on Thursday morning at about ten o'clock, so I went up to Seoul to stay with Justin the night before. We went out and did some drinking so that I would be nice and tired for the plane ride and possibly get some sleep on it. Next thing I know I look at my phone and its three something in the morning. We go back and get a few hours sleep before I wake up at about seven and get the shuttle bus to the airport. While in line to get my ticket I am standing behind this short blonde haired girl (not something you see everyday in Korea) who I don't think twice about. I get up to the counter and they ask if I am going to check any bags. All I had was my backpack, because all I was taking was about six changes of clothes and some toiletries. "Nope" I say then realize that they wont let you take more than 300 ml of liquids on board the flight. "Oh, wait, I have some soju with me. What am I supposed to do with it?" "How much?" the nice young Korean woman behind the counter asked me. "This much." I say as I open my bag and pull out the two liter bottle of soju. Her eyes go wide and her mouth agape she says "Owa!" "I can't take this on board can I?" "No sir." "What should I do with it?" I ask her as my mind turns over the possibilities. Should I find some random Korean guy and say "Service!" as I hand him a giant bottle of soju? Should I just leave it on the ground outside or actually throw it in a trashcan? Ooooh, I have a thought: "Do you want it?" I say to the Korean woman behind the counter. "Me? Nononono." She says with a face that is now blushing greatly. "What should I do with it?" "We can check your bag." "Ok, yeah I guess we should just do that" I say, not too excited about having to check all of my clothes and my phone charger. I send Buhner a text message saying "I am bringing you so much soju that I had to check my bag" and then I hop into the security line right behind the blonde girl. The line is three or four snaking rows long and is full of people with carry ons. In America this would have taken forty five minutes, but at Incheon it only took about five. I didn't have to take off my shoes or anything. I get to my gate a couple hours early and realize that there is no way in hell I am going to be able to sleep in one of those tiny waiting at the gate chairs that they have, so I resign myself to looking longingly out the window and browsing the internet on my phone. I write a sweet message to Phillipa and take some survey about the airport that gives me a free pen. Soon enough I am waiting in line to get on board the plane, and guess who is in line behind me? The nice blonde girl again. I get on the plane and find that I am in an emergency exit seat, so I have as much leg room as you could possibly wish for. I check the in flight movies, then try to get some sleep. No dice. A combination of me having some sort of sickness going on in my sinuses and not being able to get comfortable keeps me awake. I manage to watch a couple of good movies, including "real steal" which was pretty good and "crazy, stupid, love" which was a laugh riot, and had the older Korean gentleman looking onto my screen to see what was so funny.
Soon enough we reach our destination... Finland. I have a three hour lay over and decide to kill it by hanging out at the bar/grill that they have. I don't have any Euros yet, so I buy a couple of beers with my debit card. The beer, Karjala, tastes delicious compared to the light beers I have been drinking for the past half year. The restaurant is themed around Boston sports, so everywhere I look there is Celtics memorabilia. Who would have thought that the one bar in a Finnish airport would be Boston themed. I use the bathroom and while I am in there I am browsing on my smart phone. I come out of the bathroom and think "Man, I should get a picture of this snow!" and realize that I don't have my phone. I go back to the bathroom and all the stall doors are shut. "Oh, crap, someone is in that stall that I left my phone in." And that's when I hear it. The beeping noise that my phone makes to let you know the volume is being turned up. My phone has this problem that the volume goes up automatically. It is very annoying actually, and I really need to get it fixed but am not sure how to go about doing that. The volume going up usually happens when either the phone is changing temperature (like when you pull it out of a warm pocket and use it during winter) or when you hold it tightly on one of the sides. I politely knock on the door and say "Excuse me, my phone is in that stall, can you slide it out to me?" No answer. "Excuse me. That is my phone making the beeping." No answer. I wait at the stall door for a good couple of minutes, with people coming and going, and not one sound emanates from this stall, as if someone is trying to play possum till I walk away. Well I know better than that, and will not let whoever this is out of this stall without first receiving my phone. Just then a security guy walks into the rest room. "Oh, excellent" I say "Someone is in this stall I had left my phone in there. Here that beeping? That is my phone. Someone is using it!" "One second, I will be right back." I position myself for the would be thief to bolt out at this point before security gets back, but they return rather quickly. A giant nordic man walks up to the stall "Excusemezisissecurity." He says and knocks on the door. No answer. In what is probably one of the most embarrassing scenarios I can imagine, he then pulls the door instead of pushing it, and it opens, revealing an empty stall and my phone sitting on top of the paper dispenser. I grab the phone, apologize profusely, bow deeply from the waist (force of habit) and scurry away quickly. God I felt like an idiot.
Getting entrance into Europe was kind of funny itself. There was another giant Nordic man with a dirty blonde flat top of a haircut and a tattooed arm sitting at the counter. "Vat iz ur purpose in Europe?" "Vacation." "Vere ah you staying?" "With my friend in Berlin." "Ah you going to any uzza countries?" "No." "How many times have you been to Buhlin before?" "None." "Ahh, first time in Germany, eh? Plenty of new experiences and all that. Enjoy your stay here in Europe and eat our delicious food and see our beautiful sights." I then made my way to the gate where I would be leaving from, and guess who was standing right in front of it? Yep, the short blonde haired girl who I had seen a couple of times back in Korea. This time she recognized the coincidence of us taking flights across the globe to get to Berlin. She gave me a big warm smile, and I shot it right back. She put her stuff away, came over to me, and in a kind of soft, high pitched voice said "something something Deutsche?" I made this face :-/ then said "English... sorry." "Hi! Are you headed to Berlin?" "Yes ma'am." "Do you live there?" "No ma'am, just visiting a friend. Why were you in Korea?" "I was working at a school that teaches German." "Oh, there's a market for that?" "Yes, apparently the two countries are very close when it comes to engineering." "Makes sense." We proceeded to shoot the shit about what it was like for her. She had lived there for three months, having to sublet a place, and make it all on her own. She was very jealous of my apartment size, my salary, my Korean language skills and my fire-tressed significant other. She recommended a few places for me to hang out in Seoul, and a few places for me to see in Berlin, but I forgot the names. She helped me once I landed by explaining how to call the number that I had for Buhner and explaining how I should take a bus if I was going to do that. The flight over itself was kind of rough. It was only an hour and a half, but like I said before I had a sickness in my sinuses, so my mouth and throat were totally dried out, while my nose was totally plugged up. At one point a stewardess came around asking if we wanted anything to drink and I couldn't even form the word "water." I had to swallow a couple times and even then it came out as a hoarse whisper. The guy next to me looked at me like I was a leper, but didn't say anything, probably because he had an entire roll of butcher paper that he was trying to do some sort of architectural planning from, and he knew it must have been a pain in the ass to sit next to a dude trying to open a whole roll of butcher paper every thirty seconds. There were two very loud Finnish women sitting in front of me ordering and drinking champagne and laughing very loudly, so sleep was not to be had on that flight either.
I was able to get my backpack ok from the luggage conveyor and exchange my money. I went over with about a million Korean Won. I didn't want to use any of my credit cards and knew that I had plenty of money still in both of my accounts if anything happened. There was a funny moment when the guy at the money exchange window saw a million Won and was like "Woah! Are you sure you want this much exchanged?" "Yep." "Okay, I guess. That comes out to... 660 Euros... oh." He saw all the zeros on the end of my bills and thought they were worth way more than what they were. 660 Euros was nothing to sneeze at though. Quite a hefty sum of cash, but I was also going to be paying for my hostel which I was staying at for the second half of the week, and probably taking Buhner out for an appreciation meal and whatnot, so yeah, I think I had about the right amount of money. Turns out I could have done with about 100 Euros less, but I would rather have 100 Euros too much than 100 Euros too few, ya know what I mean? When I came back I made sure that I had a full set of Euros. I have a 50, 20, 10 and 5 Euro bill, along with a 2 and 1 Euro coin. Then I have the 50, 20, and 10 cent (I think there is a ten cent) coins, so yeah, that is all money that I won't be getting back, but I really wanted to have one of each. It was actually Buhner that gave me the idea, and I think it was a good one. I will do the same with Won before I leave here. Anyways, I hopped on a bus for the "Ring stop" and got off at "Jungfernheide" stop to meet Byoons. By this point it was about 8 something at night and I had been going all day. My day had already lasted for 27 hours and had another five to go. We bought some beers and went back to her place. I was ambitious thinking I could drink three, I made it through one, barely, then straight up crashed. It wasn't even ten o'clock and I was passed out hardcore. I didn't even get a chance to take my pants or socks off. Buhner said that we had a couple of short conversations when she came in to check on me to make sure I was comfortable, but I don't remember a thing.
So began my week in Berlin. I loved it. It was a great city. I had always wanted to visit Germany, and my only regret is that I didn't have more time to get around the country some. Buhner had an awesome roommate named Florian, who was German and spoke perfect English. It makes me so jealous, because as Americans we are only raised with one language. It isn't until at earliest high school that we are exposed to other languages in a classroom setting. I found that most Germans spoke perfect English, with only a couple of people who didn't understand. One of the first things I ate was a Doner Kebab, which was basically shaved meat in a toasted pita that had been filled with onions, feta, yogurt sauce, and maybe some cabbage or lettuce if you wanted it. I don't think I have to tell you how delicious it was, but I will anyway. It was so delicious I ended up getting two or three of them throughout the week I was there, at different places. It was nice to have food that wasn't based around soup or rice. Buhner had to go to school a couple of times throughout the week, so I entertained myself quite a bit, but the first couple of days she took me to a lot of sights. She took me to see the TV tower that had been erected in Berlin back before the wall had come down. We also got to see the Television and Film museum, which was very informative. It covered the history of film in Germany all the way up to the present day. They had many informative pieces that were playing various significant televised events on loops. They seemed to be strangely fascinated with JFK. Apparently he had made quite an impact with his speeches, and he was featured throughout the museum. There was also a theater in which they showed significant scenes from German television shows. All in all I think I would have gotten more out of it if I was more familiar with German television or the German language, but Everything you could read was also in English, and it was a fascinating museum. The aesthetics of the museum alone were over the top beautiful, and then you add the various pieces. It was by far the prettiest museum I have ever been through, and it only took about an hour or so. I highly recommend it if you are ever in Berlin. I was able to see the Reichstag, the Brandenburg Gate, the Siegessaule, the Olympic Stadium, and like I said before, the Television Tower. Most of those things are right near the Tiergarten. Pictures forthcoming.
I spent a lot of time on my feet, and walked and stood a lot, so for a couple days during the week when I was there, me and Buhner just sort of hung out. It was good to be in the company of an English speaking person whom I have known for more than half a year, and even better to be drinking delicious German beer while I was doing it. After a couple of nights sleeping on her couch, I moved to a hostel that she had suggested. I don't blame her for wanting me out of her hair, as it can be stressful to have another person couch surfing with you for a couple days, much less the week that I was there for. She had also had to put up a couple of other people before me who had apparently pushed the boundaries of being a guest. The whole time I was there she kept saying "It is awesome that you only have a small backpack that doesn't take up my whole floor!" which was nice of her to say. The hostel was ok. The problem was that it only had wi-fi on the bottom and top floors. I had to either sit in the lobby, or in the bar to use the internet. Funny thing about that, my smart phone that I use in Korea has a wi-fi connection, so I was able to text people through Kakao talk and use facebook to communicate and upload pictures. So between the lobby and the bar, guess which wi-fi I used... yeah, you got it. The bar was on the top floor and had a great view of the city. I have already uploaded all my Germany photos to facebook, so if you are connected to me on there you have seen them. They put me in a room with five other people. Two of them were from Brazil, but I am not sure where the others were from. I didn't speak more than five words to them the entire time there. The only time I was even in the room was to sleep. They gave me a nice locker to put my backpack in, and clean sheets to sleep on. What more could you ask for? I hit up some sights on my own and had a good time before I left Berlin at the end of the week.
One thing I liked about Berlin. Public transportation. I am a big fan of public transportation. Dallas only had the DART rail, and that was difficult to use at best. New Orleans had a great street car system, but that didn't work so well in the rain. Korea has awesome buses and subways, but the subways are sooooo huge. Seoul subway map vs. Berlin subway map. It may look like the Seoul subway is less cluttered, but I assure you it is not. The central line in Seoul has 43 stops, while the central line in Berlin only has 27. Seoul and all of the areas within the "Seoul National Capital Area" or areas that fall under the economic and cultural influence of Seoul (this doesn't even include all the places the subway reaches) were said in 2007 to be 24.5 million people, while only 10.2 million of those reside in the heart of the city itself. To contrast that, as of 2011 Berlin had 3.49 million people with 4.4 million in the Berlin-Brandenburg Metropolitan Region. So yeah, Seoul is a little more crowded. This makes Berlin look sooooo nice. Everything about it seems less crowded. The apartments only go up about five or six floors, as opposed to the monstrous thirty something story high rises they have in Seoul. Even out where I live in the middle of nowhere they have high rises that are close to 20 stories. The S-bahn and U-bahn were easy to use and quick to arrive. I had mastered them within a day and was exploring the city like a champ. Also, something very nice about Berlin was the amount of graffiti. I never thought I would say that, but there was graffiti everywhere. Lots of it seemed like it was really really old, but it gave the city a feel that it was alive. Like every inch of the city had been explored, and the person who did the exploring had even stopped to tell you who they were. At first I thought it was a bit trashy, but as I saw more of it, I began to like it. Some of the graffiti was downright artistic.
The flight back was not nearly as eventful as my flight over. The plane was only half full, and the movies were only half as good. I left Berlin at noon on Thursday and got into Seoul at 9 AM on Friday. From there it was a couple of subways and a bus back to Gamgok where I immediately passed out in my bed. I had a couple of beers with Graham trying to decompress, but even now I feel like my jet lag is still present.
To end this post I will put up a video that Joanne Hynes shared with me by R.E.M. It is a perfect example of what the subway map looks like, and not a bad song. Here it is.
So began my week in Berlin. I loved it. It was a great city. I had always wanted to visit Germany, and my only regret is that I didn't have more time to get around the country some. Buhner had an awesome roommate named Florian, who was German and spoke perfect English. It makes me so jealous, because as Americans we are only raised with one language. It isn't until at earliest high school that we are exposed to other languages in a classroom setting. I found that most Germans spoke perfect English, with only a couple of people who didn't understand. One of the first things I ate was a Doner Kebab, which was basically shaved meat in a toasted pita that had been filled with onions, feta, yogurt sauce, and maybe some cabbage or lettuce if you wanted it. I don't think I have to tell you how delicious it was, but I will anyway. It was so delicious I ended up getting two or three of them throughout the week I was there, at different places. It was nice to have food that wasn't based around soup or rice. Buhner had to go to school a couple of times throughout the week, so I entertained myself quite a bit, but the first couple of days she took me to a lot of sights. She took me to see the TV tower that had been erected in Berlin back before the wall had come down. We also got to see the Television and Film museum, which was very informative. It covered the history of film in Germany all the way up to the present day. They had many informative pieces that were playing various significant televised events on loops. They seemed to be strangely fascinated with JFK. Apparently he had made quite an impact with his speeches, and he was featured throughout the museum. There was also a theater in which they showed significant scenes from German television shows. All in all I think I would have gotten more out of it if I was more familiar with German television or the German language, but Everything you could read was also in English, and it was a fascinating museum. The aesthetics of the museum alone were over the top beautiful, and then you add the various pieces. It was by far the prettiest museum I have ever been through, and it only took about an hour or so. I highly recommend it if you are ever in Berlin. I was able to see the Reichstag, the Brandenburg Gate, the Siegessaule, the Olympic Stadium, and like I said before, the Television Tower. Most of those things are right near the Tiergarten. Pictures forthcoming.
I spent a lot of time on my feet, and walked and stood a lot, so for a couple days during the week when I was there, me and Buhner just sort of hung out. It was good to be in the company of an English speaking person whom I have known for more than half a year, and even better to be drinking delicious German beer while I was doing it. After a couple of nights sleeping on her couch, I moved to a hostel that she had suggested. I don't blame her for wanting me out of her hair, as it can be stressful to have another person couch surfing with you for a couple days, much less the week that I was there for. She had also had to put up a couple of other people before me who had apparently pushed the boundaries of being a guest. The whole time I was there she kept saying "It is awesome that you only have a small backpack that doesn't take up my whole floor!" which was nice of her to say. The hostel was ok. The problem was that it only had wi-fi on the bottom and top floors. I had to either sit in the lobby, or in the bar to use the internet. Funny thing about that, my smart phone that I use in Korea has a wi-fi connection, so I was able to text people through Kakao talk and use facebook to communicate and upload pictures. So between the lobby and the bar, guess which wi-fi I used... yeah, you got it. The bar was on the top floor and had a great view of the city. I have already uploaded all my Germany photos to facebook, so if you are connected to me on there you have seen them. They put me in a room with five other people. Two of them were from Brazil, but I am not sure where the others were from. I didn't speak more than five words to them the entire time there. The only time I was even in the room was to sleep. They gave me a nice locker to put my backpack in, and clean sheets to sleep on. What more could you ask for? I hit up some sights on my own and had a good time before I left Berlin at the end of the week.
One thing I liked about Berlin. Public transportation. I am a big fan of public transportation. Dallas only had the DART rail, and that was difficult to use at best. New Orleans had a great street car system, but that didn't work so well in the rain. Korea has awesome buses and subways, but the subways are sooooo huge. Seoul subway map vs. Berlin subway map. It may look like the Seoul subway is less cluttered, but I assure you it is not. The central line in Seoul has 43 stops, while the central line in Berlin only has 27. Seoul and all of the areas within the "Seoul National Capital Area" or areas that fall under the economic and cultural influence of Seoul (this doesn't even include all the places the subway reaches) were said in 2007 to be 24.5 million people, while only 10.2 million of those reside in the heart of the city itself. To contrast that, as of 2011 Berlin had 3.49 million people with 4.4 million in the Berlin-Brandenburg Metropolitan Region. So yeah, Seoul is a little more crowded. This makes Berlin look sooooo nice. Everything about it seems less crowded. The apartments only go up about five or six floors, as opposed to the monstrous thirty something story high rises they have in Seoul. Even out where I live in the middle of nowhere they have high rises that are close to 20 stories. The S-bahn and U-bahn were easy to use and quick to arrive. I had mastered them within a day and was exploring the city like a champ. Also, something very nice about Berlin was the amount of graffiti. I never thought I would say that, but there was graffiti everywhere. Lots of it seemed like it was really really old, but it gave the city a feel that it was alive. Like every inch of the city had been explored, and the person who did the exploring had even stopped to tell you who they were. At first I thought it was a bit trashy, but as I saw more of it, I began to like it. Some of the graffiti was downright artistic.
The flight back was not nearly as eventful as my flight over. The plane was only half full, and the movies were only half as good. I left Berlin at noon on Thursday and got into Seoul at 9 AM on Friday. From there it was a couple of subways and a bus back to Gamgok where I immediately passed out in my bed. I had a couple of beers with Graham trying to decompress, but even now I feel like my jet lag is still present.
To end this post I will put up a video that Joanne Hynes shared with me by R.E.M. It is a perfect example of what the subway map looks like, and not a bad song. Here it is.
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Christmas and New Years
Dearest friends, I am so sorry that I am not updating more, I have been very busy recently. Lets start from the beginning.
Christmas was fun. I got lots of awesome presents from my parents. They gave me Skyrim, a game for my X-box that I have been waiting on the edge of my seat to play for the last couple of months. It is a seriously huge game that is very detailed and a lot of fun. I have already sunk many many hours into it, and plan on sinking many more. I also got lots of much needed cold weather clothes. I was in Seoul last week for New years and thought I had lost my jacket. I basically cut my New Years night to go look for it, as I was thinking to myself "If I lost my wallet I could always get my cards and ID replaced, but I will have to wait for a very cold few weeks to replace that jacket." Seriously though, Thanks for the clothes Mom and Dad. These days it is so cold that when I walk to school in the morning, my hair literally freezes. At first I thought I had somehow thought I accidentally put hair gel in or something, which is weird because I don't own any, then realized how cold my hair was, and that it was basically melting in my fingers. I mean, I knew it was cold, but this is kind of ridiculous. It was on one of these cold days that I had a craving for a hamburger. I didn't want any of that freeze dried crap you get at Lotteria either, so Graham and myself set out to get one from the one local burger place. It is located in Janghowon, over by the bus terminal, and neither of us knew the name. So we get there and it says 다라스 "Oh, Darasu. I wonder what that translates into. Probably ground beef or something." We go inside and check out the menu and there is a distinct feeling to this place that it is from the early eighties. Looking at the pictures of cups and fries I realize they say "Dallas." "Hah! Dallas! They probably lifted these random pics off the internet and put them up on the wall, or maybe it's the name of the cup company. That's funny." I said to Graham. So I ordered the Darasu Sapeshul. (in case you haven't figured out, everything that is in Konglish here is spelled with extra emphasis on vowel filled syllables) As I am sitting there I type in "Darasu" to my new program on my phone, my Korean English dictionary. "Darasu" suddenly becomes "Dallas." I felt like an idiot. That feeling though was soon eclipsed by the fact that I was sitting on the other side of the globe in a burger place named after my home town, and that I had burger craving for a Dallas burger, and that is exactly what I was going to get. Well needless to say the burger wasn't the best I'd ever had, but it was good. A double patty with a fried egg in the middle, smothered in mayo and ketchup. It wasn't the best, but it sure sated my craving.
We spent our Christmas here a little differently than we do back home. No trees or carols or stockings, just friends and food and drink. A couple nights before Christmas Nate, Shaneel, Phillipa and myself had a good noraebang session with lots of caroling. Noraebang!!! You can find the video on my facebook page if you are interested. Our friend here in Eumseong named Tom decided that he would take it upon himself to do a lot of cooking on Christmas, so when the night came around we had quite a feast. He cooked some sausages wrapped in bacon, some stuffing that we joked were made of kangaroo, steamed carrots and leaks, and a few other dishes that were delicious. We picked up some chickens from a local vendor and took them over along with some wine and cake. I came into it still hungover from the previous night, when we ran up a bar tab totaling 340,000 won. I think even then it was a low estimate by our friend Moon Shik who runs the bar we frequent. There were over ten of us, all celebrating Christmas, so it wouldn't be that difficult for us to do such a thing. Anyway, we all gathered around this delicious feast that we ate on the floor of this guys tiny apartment, and we had some really good food. After dinner was over we all just sort of hung out and celebrated. Lots of beer that we purchased from the local 7-11 mixed with some good music and good times gave us quite a festive atmosphere. Everyone else was teaching the next day, but since I work at a Catholic school we got the next day off. It is Korean tradition to spend Christmas as a sort of a couples holiday, so they don't get or give presents like we do in the west. Anyways, the party quickly got out of hand, and we ended up dancing and drinking the night away. We even learned a few drinking chants by the Korean girls there. The Korean girls were nice, but one of them kept losing the drinking games pretty early on, so guess how she was doing by the end of the night? We can't claim responsibility for her getting totally drunk though, because she kept pouring these massive cups of soju for the loser to drink, then always ended up being the loser herself. There was a hilarious interaction with drunk Joo-he in which she kept trying to ask us if we like peanuts. Lets just say she didn't pronounce the "T" very well. "Do you like peanus? Peanus... my favorite drinking food! Did you bring peanus from store? Can you get peanus next time?" We tried explaining it to her over and over, but after awhile of her not getting it, and the fact that she kept saying it, we started to roll with it and fuel the fire a bit. "Do you like salty ones? Do you like little ones or big ones? Have you ever tried peanut butter?" Yes, I realize how juvenile it is, but it was also probably the hardest I have laughed in a year. My face hurt from laughing so much. Nothing like a good amount of five year old humor to keep the party going.
The school week ended a few days later, and so did my first semester. I was making plans with all my friends for new years and didn't really plan for winter camp that much. Also, I hadn't even gotten my schedule for the classes I would be teaching. When I finally did, I kept it to myself. Most people teach four to six classes a day for about two weeks, and have to stay at school for the regular hours. I taught one week, two classes a day, and only had to be at school from 10-12. I planned for the whole week in about twenty minutes. The site waygook.org is just full of stuff to do, so I downloaded a couple of presentation and corresponding quiz games that I could use. I did one on food and how it tastes, one on hobbies, one on movies, and one on music. For two of the days that I taught, I only had two students. One of those days we just sat there and traded songs "One k-pop song for one western song" was our agreement. They showed me a lot of new stuff, and every video I showed them got a "ooowahhhhh!" The first day of winter camp I actually didn't know my winter schedule, so I showed up at the normal time of 8:30 for my class which I knew was at 10:10. Around 9 something my co-teacher comes in and says "Oh! What time did you get here?" He then explains that I don't have to be there till ten, and can leave right after classes are over. Compared to Phillipa, who teaches six classes and has to be there for a few hours after her classes are done, I have it quite easy.
I skipped over new years for a second so I am gonna go back and hit that. I went up to Seoul on Friday to see Justin, and we went out for bbq. I am really a fan of Korean bbq. The various meats that you throw on the grill are so good, and then you add the delicious taste of the Gochujeong to that and it's straight up mouth watering. We ate at a place called "Meat Kingdom" and Justins ex coworker was with us. He was a very nice Korean man whose name I cannot remember. He had a good friend with him who was a blast. We ate a lot of food and they kept saying "These pieces of meat are the enemy, and we must defeat them." We got some of the hot bean soup, Duenjeongjige, and all in all had a fantastic dinner at the meat kingdom. Justin keeps telling me about this place called Dyno-Meat, which I hope to one day try soon. Throughout dinner I was texting Phillipa trying to solidify New Years plans, and we both got a good heckling from the people we were with, probably because we are still in the stage where we grin like idiots every time we talk to each other. The two Koreans, Justin and myself then went to Dublins, a bar owned by my now facebook friend Aureum. She is a very nice girl who taught herself to speak English. She said that she only had English until middle school, but taught herself after that. Her bar is a lot of fun and does an incredible business. After that we went to Noraebang, Noraebang!!!, and had a good night of singing and drinking. Too much somek made my head split the next morning, but it was worth it to find a new noraebang song. Country Roads by John Denver, which is great for belting out well into the night and getting people to sing along when they don't want to participate. I ended up losing my jacket somewhere in that span of time. Too much somek makes Jeff a drunk bear. New Years night we decided to head out kind of early and get some Mexican food at the On the Border in the Coex in Seoul. It occurred to me there that I was eating Mexican food in South Korea at the turn of the year 2012. Just not something I would have thought would happen a few years ago. We left, and after a brief encounter with some Storm Troopers from Star Wars, we made it safe and sound to Hongdae, the college neighborhood on the west side of Seoul. We met up with Phillipa at a place called Garten Bier that had these awesome things in the table. You set the temperature and these little metal drink holders get really cold. You put your beer glass in there so it stays super cold while you are drinking it. I had picked up a can of Dr. Pepper for Phillipa who wanted to try it and had it sitting in there for awhile. She tried it eventually, and said she liked it, but who knows if she is just yanking my chain or not. A little while after that we met up with some of my friends from orientation who were on their way to a punk show, and then we met up with our group from Eumseong that we were going to be spending the evening with. We all made our way to the same bar we were at last time we were in Seoul together, where there was much debauchery, called Zen bar. About the same amount of debauchery occurred this time. I was significantly less drunk, because instead of Cass and soju I was drinking Budweiser and Jack Daniels. I don't know how, but Jack Daniels, which is twice the strength of soju, seems to effect me less. Maybe I am just more used to being whiskey drunk instead of soju drunk so I don't seem to notice it as much. Either way it was a fun party. We were all dancing and having a wonderful time. The clock hit twelve before too long and on the screen they had some buddhist monks ringing a buddhist prayer bell to signal the new year. Take a guess who I kissed. There was a lot of dancing after that, and we headed out after awhile. We got to another club, the one we went into last time for a second before I had to take care of drunk Theresa, and we almost went inside before opting out. They had an expensive cover charge, and it was totally packed. Me and Justin threw in the towel so we could retrace our steps from the previous night and try and find my jacket, and there were some extremely sweet text messages sent my way before the night was over. All in all, a good start to a new year.
I booked my flight today for winter vacation. I am going to... wait for it... Berlin. Not what you expected, huh? I didn't either. My friend who was gonna go with me to Thailand bailed at the last minute because his work schedule is screwed up, and everyone else has already made flights and accommodations elsewhere. I had the choice of either sitting over here doing nothing all break, or going out to another country. I didn't want to go somewhere where I didn't know the language and also be alone, so I made plans to see an ex-student, Rebecca Buhner, in Berlin. She speaks German and has been over there for about a year almost. Me and her hung out a couple of times outside of school back in the states, skyped a couple times since I've been over here, and she is probably the chillest most laid back person I have ever met. Shes just over 21 now, and has been telling me I should come visit for awhile. I have been saying the same to her. Her sister, who lives in Cairo, has a friend over here on Jeju Island, so we were trying to organize something where they come over and hang out near Seoul for a bit then on Jeju for a bit. Either way, Beer, History and Techno. Who can argue with that? Plus it will be cheaper to stay with her for a week than it would be to stay in a hotel, and I can probably travel pretty light, taking only clothes and something to sleep on. I am very excited about going to Europe, as I have never been, and finally I will get to eat some real western food again. It may not be Mexican food, but I have a feeling that a little bit of sausage and sauerkraut in me will do my spirits wonders.
Finally, here is your k-pop for today. It should be a refreshing change from the over produced stuff I have been posting. It is by a group called "Two months" or Tu gae wol. They are performing on a show called Superstar. This song has been playing everywhere over here for months and I just found the name of it the other day. Don't be afraid to turn your speakers up, because its a soft jam. Anyways, I hope all is well for you my friends, and promise to update again before I leave for Berlin.
Christmas was fun. I got lots of awesome presents from my parents. They gave me Skyrim, a game for my X-box that I have been waiting on the edge of my seat to play for the last couple of months. It is a seriously huge game that is very detailed and a lot of fun. I have already sunk many many hours into it, and plan on sinking many more. I also got lots of much needed cold weather clothes. I was in Seoul last week for New years and thought I had lost my jacket. I basically cut my New Years night to go look for it, as I was thinking to myself "If I lost my wallet I could always get my cards and ID replaced, but I will have to wait for a very cold few weeks to replace that jacket." Seriously though, Thanks for the clothes Mom and Dad. These days it is so cold that when I walk to school in the morning, my hair literally freezes. At first I thought I had somehow thought I accidentally put hair gel in or something, which is weird because I don't own any, then realized how cold my hair was, and that it was basically melting in my fingers. I mean, I knew it was cold, but this is kind of ridiculous. It was on one of these cold days that I had a craving for a hamburger. I didn't want any of that freeze dried crap you get at Lotteria either, so Graham and myself set out to get one from the one local burger place. It is located in Janghowon, over by the bus terminal, and neither of us knew the name. So we get there and it says 다라스 "Oh, Darasu. I wonder what that translates into. Probably ground beef or something." We go inside and check out the menu and there is a distinct feeling to this place that it is from the early eighties. Looking at the pictures of cups and fries I realize they say "Dallas." "Hah! Dallas! They probably lifted these random pics off the internet and put them up on the wall, or maybe it's the name of the cup company. That's funny." I said to Graham. So I ordered the Darasu Sapeshul. (in case you haven't figured out, everything that is in Konglish here is spelled with extra emphasis on vowel filled syllables) As I am sitting there I type in "Darasu" to my new program on my phone, my Korean English dictionary. "Darasu" suddenly becomes "Dallas." I felt like an idiot. That feeling though was soon eclipsed by the fact that I was sitting on the other side of the globe in a burger place named after my home town, and that I had burger craving for a Dallas burger, and that is exactly what I was going to get. Well needless to say the burger wasn't the best I'd ever had, but it was good. A double patty with a fried egg in the middle, smothered in mayo and ketchup. It wasn't the best, but it sure sated my craving.
We spent our Christmas here a little differently than we do back home. No trees or carols or stockings, just friends and food and drink. A couple nights before Christmas Nate, Shaneel, Phillipa and myself had a good noraebang session with lots of caroling. Noraebang!!! You can find the video on my facebook page if you are interested. Our friend here in Eumseong named Tom decided that he would take it upon himself to do a lot of cooking on Christmas, so when the night came around we had quite a feast. He cooked some sausages wrapped in bacon, some stuffing that we joked were made of kangaroo, steamed carrots and leaks, and a few other dishes that were delicious. We picked up some chickens from a local vendor and took them over along with some wine and cake. I came into it still hungover from the previous night, when we ran up a bar tab totaling 340,000 won. I think even then it was a low estimate by our friend Moon Shik who runs the bar we frequent. There were over ten of us, all celebrating Christmas, so it wouldn't be that difficult for us to do such a thing. Anyway, we all gathered around this delicious feast that we ate on the floor of this guys tiny apartment, and we had some really good food. After dinner was over we all just sort of hung out and celebrated. Lots of beer that we purchased from the local 7-11 mixed with some good music and good times gave us quite a festive atmosphere. Everyone else was teaching the next day, but since I work at a Catholic school we got the next day off. It is Korean tradition to spend Christmas as a sort of a couples holiday, so they don't get or give presents like we do in the west. Anyways, the party quickly got out of hand, and we ended up dancing and drinking the night away. We even learned a few drinking chants by the Korean girls there. The Korean girls were nice, but one of them kept losing the drinking games pretty early on, so guess how she was doing by the end of the night? We can't claim responsibility for her getting totally drunk though, because she kept pouring these massive cups of soju for the loser to drink, then always ended up being the loser herself. There was a hilarious interaction with drunk Joo-he in which she kept trying to ask us if we like peanuts. Lets just say she didn't pronounce the "T" very well. "Do you like peanus? Peanus... my favorite drinking food! Did you bring peanus from store? Can you get peanus next time?" We tried explaining it to her over and over, but after awhile of her not getting it, and the fact that she kept saying it, we started to roll with it and fuel the fire a bit. "Do you like salty ones? Do you like little ones or big ones? Have you ever tried peanut butter?" Yes, I realize how juvenile it is, but it was also probably the hardest I have laughed in a year. My face hurt from laughing so much. Nothing like a good amount of five year old humor to keep the party going.
The school week ended a few days later, and so did my first semester. I was making plans with all my friends for new years and didn't really plan for winter camp that much. Also, I hadn't even gotten my schedule for the classes I would be teaching. When I finally did, I kept it to myself. Most people teach four to six classes a day for about two weeks, and have to stay at school for the regular hours. I taught one week, two classes a day, and only had to be at school from 10-12. I planned for the whole week in about twenty minutes. The site waygook.org is just full of stuff to do, so I downloaded a couple of presentation and corresponding quiz games that I could use. I did one on food and how it tastes, one on hobbies, one on movies, and one on music. For two of the days that I taught, I only had two students. One of those days we just sat there and traded songs "One k-pop song for one western song" was our agreement. They showed me a lot of new stuff, and every video I showed them got a "ooowahhhhh!" The first day of winter camp I actually didn't know my winter schedule, so I showed up at the normal time of 8:30 for my class which I knew was at 10:10. Around 9 something my co-teacher comes in and says "Oh! What time did you get here?" He then explains that I don't have to be there till ten, and can leave right after classes are over. Compared to Phillipa, who teaches six classes and has to be there for a few hours after her classes are done, I have it quite easy.
I skipped over new years for a second so I am gonna go back and hit that. I went up to Seoul on Friday to see Justin, and we went out for bbq. I am really a fan of Korean bbq. The various meats that you throw on the grill are so good, and then you add the delicious taste of the Gochujeong to that and it's straight up mouth watering. We ate at a place called "Meat Kingdom" and Justins ex coworker was with us. He was a very nice Korean man whose name I cannot remember. He had a good friend with him who was a blast. We ate a lot of food and they kept saying "These pieces of meat are the enemy, and we must defeat them." We got some of the hot bean soup, Duenjeongjige, and all in all had a fantastic dinner at the meat kingdom. Justin keeps telling me about this place called Dyno-Meat, which I hope to one day try soon. Throughout dinner I was texting Phillipa trying to solidify New Years plans, and we both got a good heckling from the people we were with, probably because we are still in the stage where we grin like idiots every time we talk to each other. The two Koreans, Justin and myself then went to Dublins, a bar owned by my now facebook friend Aureum. She is a very nice girl who taught herself to speak English. She said that she only had English until middle school, but taught herself after that. Her bar is a lot of fun and does an incredible business. After that we went to Noraebang, Noraebang!!!, and had a good night of singing and drinking. Too much somek made my head split the next morning, but it was worth it to find a new noraebang song. Country Roads by John Denver, which is great for belting out well into the night and getting people to sing along when they don't want to participate. I ended up losing my jacket somewhere in that span of time. Too much somek makes Jeff a drunk bear. New Years night we decided to head out kind of early and get some Mexican food at the On the Border in the Coex in Seoul. It occurred to me there that I was eating Mexican food in South Korea at the turn of the year 2012. Just not something I would have thought would happen a few years ago. We left, and after a brief encounter with some Storm Troopers from Star Wars, we made it safe and sound to Hongdae, the college neighborhood on the west side of Seoul. We met up with Phillipa at a place called Garten Bier that had these awesome things in the table. You set the temperature and these little metal drink holders get really cold. You put your beer glass in there so it stays super cold while you are drinking it. I had picked up a can of Dr. Pepper for Phillipa who wanted to try it and had it sitting in there for awhile. She tried it eventually, and said she liked it, but who knows if she is just yanking my chain or not. A little while after that we met up with some of my friends from orientation who were on their way to a punk show, and then we met up with our group from Eumseong that we were going to be spending the evening with. We all made our way to the same bar we were at last time we were in Seoul together, where there was much debauchery, called Zen bar. About the same amount of debauchery occurred this time. I was significantly less drunk, because instead of Cass and soju I was drinking Budweiser and Jack Daniels. I don't know how, but Jack Daniels, which is twice the strength of soju, seems to effect me less. Maybe I am just more used to being whiskey drunk instead of soju drunk so I don't seem to notice it as much. Either way it was a fun party. We were all dancing and having a wonderful time. The clock hit twelve before too long and on the screen they had some buddhist monks ringing a buddhist prayer bell to signal the new year. Take a guess who I kissed. There was a lot of dancing after that, and we headed out after awhile. We got to another club, the one we went into last time for a second before I had to take care of drunk Theresa, and we almost went inside before opting out. They had an expensive cover charge, and it was totally packed. Me and Justin threw in the towel so we could retrace our steps from the previous night and try and find my jacket, and there were some extremely sweet text messages sent my way before the night was over. All in all, a good start to a new year.
I booked my flight today for winter vacation. I am going to... wait for it... Berlin. Not what you expected, huh? I didn't either. My friend who was gonna go with me to Thailand bailed at the last minute because his work schedule is screwed up, and everyone else has already made flights and accommodations elsewhere. I had the choice of either sitting over here doing nothing all break, or going out to another country. I didn't want to go somewhere where I didn't know the language and also be alone, so I made plans to see an ex-student, Rebecca Buhner, in Berlin. She speaks German and has been over there for about a year almost. Me and her hung out a couple of times outside of school back in the states, skyped a couple times since I've been over here, and she is probably the chillest most laid back person I have ever met. Shes just over 21 now, and has been telling me I should come visit for awhile. I have been saying the same to her. Her sister, who lives in Cairo, has a friend over here on Jeju Island, so we were trying to organize something where they come over and hang out near Seoul for a bit then on Jeju for a bit. Either way, Beer, History and Techno. Who can argue with that? Plus it will be cheaper to stay with her for a week than it would be to stay in a hotel, and I can probably travel pretty light, taking only clothes and something to sleep on. I am very excited about going to Europe, as I have never been, and finally I will get to eat some real western food again. It may not be Mexican food, but I have a feeling that a little bit of sausage and sauerkraut in me will do my spirits wonders.
Finally, here is your k-pop for today. It should be a refreshing change from the over produced stuff I have been posting. It is by a group called "Two months" or Tu gae wol. They are performing on a show called Superstar. This song has been playing everywhere over here for months and I just found the name of it the other day. Don't be afraid to turn your speakers up, because its a soft jam. Anyways, I hope all is well for you my friends, and promise to update again before I leave for Berlin.
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