Time and Time Again

It's been a while since I put anything up. A lot of the time I've either been too tired or thought that I'd just do it later. Last weekend was Chuseok, which is just Korean Thanksgiving. It's more similar to Christmas though because there is a lot of gift giving and I got three days off of school. I meant to write some that weekend, but I went out a lot with Danny and Tane and then thought it would be best to put on an episode of The Critic or watch the Vice Guide to Travel. Also, I've become a bit addicted to playing Knights of the Old Republic II. But, I've found that I've been able to keep in contact with most of you on an individual basis. I don't think I've outright neglected anyone. You've either emailed me or talked to me on Skype.

I guess to tell you what I've been up to. On Wednesday I went and submitted the information for my Alien Registration Card. It's supposed to take three weeks. Bastards. Mrs. Kyoung says they're lazy. After that I went to Pasta Vanita with Danny and his co-teacher Jey. It was a really nice pasta place and at $10 a plate it's very good. I had seafood pizza for your information.

Thursday was the day before Chuseok vacation began. The students were all on edge and the teachers were excited as well. I gave the Principal a bottle of Johnny Walker Black and he seemed astounded and very grateful. He held it above his head and waved it while the other teachers oohed and ahed and said, "well done" or "great gift." I then gave the vice principal a bottle of Chilean red wine that she seemed to enjoy. She felt sorry that she had not gotten me anything. So I got a cleansing collagen mask. Apparently, the male principal was in charge of getting a gift to all the men and the female vice principal was in charge of the women. So the males got a bottle of red ginseng which is supposedly a healthy stimulant and a cure for erectile dysfunction. So I packed away the boner juice for later that night in lieu of coffee. At the end of the day, when things were winding down the entire faculty was treated to "Mexican Food". This in actuality resembled General Tsao's chicken. I've been munching meat occasionally just because I think it's impolite to turn down offered food and often it's the only food available to eat. Most of the time it comes inadvertently, because I don't know what I'm ordering.

That night, we decided to meet up with some other people in the EPIK program. They were going to meet at an out of the way bar that we didn't know how to get to. So we thought we knew and just decided to find it. Didn't work. I can read most Korean now (even though I know so few words) and had some close calls where we found Shakies or Shakes, but no shakers. So we went to a PC Bang (PC Room) to rent the Internet. We looked at the original face book directions and made our way there. No one was there and we waited an hour and a half before anyone else got there. It was a nice place, but expensive. Drinks were 8,000 won a pop. So we ordered a couple long islands, played some pool, and waited it out.

They finally arrived and it was a rag tag group: Canadians, Britons, and Aussies. We sat down for a while with some girls and everyone else immediately started complaining about the prices. I'm not sure why they decided to meet at a bar they didn't want to drink at. So we eventually left. The group schismed and one set were going to find one bar and we recommend another, The Black Inca. So half of us set out for the 1400's Peruvian theme. We sat for a long time and guzzled three bottles of Soju and 3000cc's of Hite beer. We sat, laughed, and talked about Palin and eventually left.

Tane felt his night was coming to an end, so we waved him farewell and set off for another bar. We decided to go to Cools which is a beer mart. It turns out that everyone else did as well. Westerners from all around were hunkered in a corner swapping stories. I saw two Kenyans who looked rather lonely so I went to talk to them. Big mistake. They wouldn't stop talking to me for an hour. Their English was great, but they only wanted to talk about the election. After a bit, I had a chance run in with the former Guest English Teacher at my school, Kirk. We talked for a while about different things and then he imparted some wisdom. His time was up and he was taking off. He mentioned that what he was going to miss was the excitement in life. In Korea, everything is always new and interesting. It's all a challenge that is to be overcome. The people are dynamic and everyday brought something glorious and interesting. Back in England, it all turns into routine. Same shit, different day.

Danny and I decided to mosey and went on our way. The buses were too infrequent to count on getting us home so we took a cab. While walking to a cab port, I saw a man sleeping on a grating with green duct tape all over his face and he had also fashioned some sort of cod piece. I also walked past someone pissing in the street. We had been told that's not uncommon. We got the cab and had him drop us off at my place. Only $4; brilliant. Danny didn't want to walk home from there so we had a sleep over instead.

The next morning was delicious. I tried my culinary skills and made scrambled eggs, hash browns, and jellied toast. Also available was some fruit cake that I had received as a gift. It was delicious, topped off with a cool glass of orange juice. We watched the Daily Show online and parted ways.

I lounged around for the rest of the day. We were supposed to have some sort of date with Tane's co-teacher and two of her friends. We weren't sure if it was just showing new people the area or if anything else was implied.

We met them after walking, the bus, the subway, and walking. Then we took a cab. We arrived at a large fish market. I don't recall if I've mentioned the markets, but think of something similar to a fish store. Lots of open tanks with fish swimming and writing around. You walk up to a tank and choose what you want. Each section corresponds to a store above you. Instead of wrapping the fish in a plastic and taking them home, the woman chopped each in the head with a meat cleaver until they quit wriggling.

We then went up stairs and waited. The eventually brought all the food, raw, prepared on little platters. I thought it was OK, but not great. A lot of the stuff was downright bad. Sea cucumbers? It's like eating salt water flavored cartilage. Other weird shit was put in front of us as well. The clams and oysters were delicious. Then we got a giant platter of raw white fish. It was ok, but I prefer salmon and tuna a lot more. These were all accompanied with vegetable dishes, large pickled roots, and kim chi. Then came dessert, fish head soup. It was delicious and I know most of you wouldn't be able to get past the floating head in the teok (mini cauldron) to try it. Far more pricey than I have would liked, $25.

Afterwards we went walking along Gwangali beach. There was a large "viking ride" which was like Adventureland's shooting star; just a large boat swing that went back and forth. Tane said he'd vomit so we decided to go to a bar. The area was gorgeous. It was well kempt and the decorations were nice. The gardens were well tended, the light posts were an ornately shaped metal, and art and interesting light installations dotted the area. You could also buy fireworks on the beach to shoot into the sea. We eventually settled on a place called Thursday Party. It had moderately priced drinks and was good. This area was just a hub for other whiteys. Up down and all around had bars filled with westerners.

We soon found out that the girls with us were extremely narcissistic. They were concerned with their looks at all times, constantly posed for pictures and deleted the photos taken by us that were deemed unflattering. I've always considered posing for photos bizarre. Just watching people hold a certain position for a little while someone tries to work a camera. As a historian it's bad history. They're trying to influence posterity and make an impression on the future people who look at it. It's dishonesty for portraying a natural look. Which is what they kept doing. Endless pictures of them looking disinterested were taken. They'd perfect these portraits until they were satisfied. Fluffing their hair or touching up their face if necessary. That's most of what they wanted to talk about as well. C'est la vie.

That covers the first two days of break. More later. My mouse isn't working at school at the moment