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.
