Ok so Friday night I went out with some friends after work. Friends I met through a coteacher. The teacher that got me this job in the first place came out too and it was so nice to meet him. So we went out for galbi. Photo bellow that is not mine. Stole it from another blog here hope that's ok... It's the closest photo I saw to what we ate.
Anyway so they cook it right in the middle in one piece and then you cut it with scissors and then you get a couple awesome sauces and some lettuce to wrap it in. Just grab the meat (ours was pork) and other items (we had kimchi, garlic, and salad) with your chopsticks and put it in the lettuce, wrap it up and try not to make a huge mess. It was sooo good. I had dak (chicken) galbi tonight with my co teacher and a couple other friends and that was really good as well. Sooo much galbi. Mmm.
So with the galbi dinner Friday night we took shots of soju in the traditional Korean fashion (mostly) and were feeling quite good leaving. Oh yes and I forgot to mention, it was raining cats and dogs and I almost couldn't go in the first place but my school's owner gave me his umbrella! Such a nice man! After we ate it finally stopped though. I was hearing today this storm season is the worst in 100 years for Korea...
So after dinner those of us troopers went out to a bar. All of this was happening in Nowon-gu where my school is located and I'm moving next month. Nowon definitely has a lot more going on than where I currently live, Dobong-gu. Looots of foreigners. It was really quite weird seeing so many, just like last time I was out. The bartenders did a pretty dramatic and drawn out show spinning bottles and making this tiny little shot stacked up on a bunch of glasses and lighting the whole thing on fire and spitting fire and all that. I was so impressed but apparently its kind of par for the course around here. My friend told me its kind of part of the job here and most of the bars have a fire show. Huh... kind of odd considering they don't even make tips! Guess they get paid pretty decent. I don't know. I had a delicious mudslide. I thought it fitting since we had just eaten some ice cream from the gas station (all the ice cream shops were closed). I had a chocolate covered green tea bar. mmmm. We ran into some coteachers from the same school as us (the Nowon side that we merged with) who were out for a going away party for the guy whose position I'm taking actually.
Oh yes and before the ice cream and the bar I used my first squatter toilet. It wasn't that bad.
So then we went to a different bar. It had a luxury toilet in comparison. Wow... soap and a hand towel. Oh and a squishy toilet seat like grandmas have. Seriously. Luxury. Anyhow, enough about toilets. The Nowon teachers had all migrated to this bar so I chatted with them some. Then these 2 Korean guys were talking to me and a friend at a different table and were super excited, said we were the first foreign girls they had talked to. My friend orders a gin and tonic... the bartenders bring out a bottle. She says I didn't order this! And the Korean guys were like no no its fine! Drink. Then she went to the bar and I was talking with the Nowon teachers and the Korean guys brought the bottle over for us all to drink. It's not till we get to the end of the bottle and the bartender wants money for it that these guys start asking everyone for money! Oh it was a huge fiasco with arguing in Korean and English. It really was a sneaky stunt. We each ended up giving them 10,000 won (less than 10 bucks) just to get them to shut up (the bottle I think was around 150,000 won). One girl only had 5,000 in her wallet and didn't want to give them that and was really sticking it to them about how she didn't order it and they just stuck it on our table. We all knew she was right but a half an hour had passed and we were just sick of them.
So me and 3 friends just left and went to a 3rd bar to dance. That was really fun. Everyone seemed really cool just dancing with whoever there. This group of Korean girls we didn't know just ended up dancing with us for a while. Finished the night after a Heineken at around 5 am. Then the one Korean friend in my group of 4 survivors for the night drove us to McDonalds for some breakfast and then home. Got in around 6 am. This bars not closing thing here is nuts! Its especially weird though considering the subways stop... literally stop, at midnight. No matter where you are. Just stop and off you go.
Saturday I was... "resting". lol. Sunday I was supposed to hang with a friend but she was... "resting" from her Saturday night. She went to the same bar I did a few weeks ago that looks like a cave. But then Sunday night I went out with my friend Hi-Jin and shopped around her area. Tried to buy some clothes but... I dunno. I really like the styles here when I see them on other people but its harder when I have to think of what I want to wear. The clothes aren't that different but I'm already so picky. I think I have to give myself time to wrap my brain around this new clothing direction I'll have to take. I did buy some cute blush and nailpolish. Gave myself a French manicure that turned out alright until a busted pen in my bag ruined my nails before I even got to work. Oh well.
I made it there alright. I have to take a bus to the subway from where I am and then the subway to her. Got back on the subway alright. But once I got off I couldn't find the bus I needed so I just took a taxi home. Kinda sucked.
I got my new schedule and all of my classes are completely different, even most of the books I'll be teaching with. Kind of sad and frustrated but I'll figure it out. At least I'll be ending work at 7 instead of 9 and I will be living in Nowon near a subway station. I want to do something... like Korean lessons and maybe one other thing. Perhaps some sort of fitness class or guitar lessons. Or why not all 3! We'll see what I can find and for what prices.
I'm learning Korean so slowly even though I feel like I'm pushing myself really hard. Maybe its a slow start because of still getting used to the new sounds and characters cus at this rate... oh boy. There was a word I've been studying from the first chapter of my book that means "office worker". Well I needed it today in class and I totally didn't remember it. A girl translated something wrong for her dad's job and wrote "My dad is express." Turns out she wanted to say office worker, and wrote the word in Korean on the board for me. It was vocab from chapter one and I just didn't remember until I was like... that looks familiar and went back to the teachers room to grab my book. I felt like such a dummy. I'm not used to anything being so hard after all this effort! (except maybe art history). I need to kick Korean's ass. Grrr. I will learn this language before I leave if it kills me! At least enough to converse!
That class is my favorite btw. 3 older girls, maybe around 11 or so. There were so ecstatic to see my Korean book and asked me to speak Korean to them on the break. "No Korean allowed during class!" I had to remind them because they stopped everything to giggle and ask me to talk!
OHHHHH!! And my hilarious tidbit for today. I gave me lowest level class (aside from kindergarten) a little practice spelling test. The youngest girl got the highest grade, 12/20. Then the 2 next best students (one of which was the girls older sister) got 8/20 and the other 2 who don't pay attention much in class got 2/20! Didn't even spell dog right! I'm talking the words were like, dog, cat, cow, horse, bird, running, jumping, eating, etc. The girl that got 12/20 was still very close with all the ones she got wrong. The 2 kids with 2/20 weren't even in the ballpark with most of the words!! I literally could not recognize almost any.
Ok so anyway the word was "quack".
the boy writes "kyke"
the girl writes "cok"
wow. they managed to make 2 completely different explicit words off of the same completely innocent one.
Ahh the life of an English teacher.
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