맥주 하나주세요!

Howdy yall! Sorry for not posting last week.. I had some stuff on my plate (nothing serious or exciting, I was just hardly home). Where'd we leave off??

I got my first paycheck!!

You ever seen that many 0's?? What you sippin' on? Nyuk Nyuk

One of these days was Justin's birthday. I don't know which one because he "hates birthdays" (I think its cause I'm 2/3 his age). So we went out on Wednesday. Me and Emily bought him a cardigan and a bracelet, because he always wears bracelets, and I liked it so much I bought one for myself (its great getting paid!). It was a "guy's night out", most of the guys from Daechi and Peter from Parthenon (the elementary school / slave pit down the street). We went to a pretty nice restaurant, had some drinks and a light dinner, then went to another bar to play darts. Loser's had to pay for the bottle of Jose. Luckily my team won, but Jose is pretty cheap here. 

Saturday was Emily's birthday, and she wanted to celebrate it in Itaewon, the foreigner's Mecca in Seoul. I was sick of wearing my Sanuk's all the time and was dying for a new pair of sneaks. I went to the mall Coex after work to browse around. I desperately wanted a pair of Toms, and searched everywhere for the store (I stopped at every "you are here" map in the whole mall I think). I finally found it after about an hour. I picked up a pair of shoes and asked the guy for a 12. He said "only 11's"... something I'm going to have to get used to. Feeling defeated and like a giant, I left the store. The next option was a new pair of chucks. I went to the Converse store hoping for better luck. They had a lot of really cool chucks, and for those of you who know me and choices, I stared at the wall for a good half hour. I finally settled on a pair, called the girl over, and pointed to my shoe size on a chart she brought with her (heads up play by her). Anyway, she searched the back room and came back shaking her head no. Back to the drawing board! I stared at the wall again and settled on another pair, but with the same outcome (this went on for a good 5 different styles of chucks). Finally, feeling defeated again I asked her what styles they had in my size. Out of all the shoes, they only had the classic white chucks and the classic all black chucks. I settled on the all black, paid my Won, and got the hell out of there. 

As I was walking to the subway station, I spotted a place in the food court named "New York Fries". I ate a huge lunch right before going to Coex, and a huge breakfast in the morning, but I couldn't help myself. I figured a small fry wouldn't hurt anything, but when I got to the menu I couldn't help myself. They had chili and cheese dogs! I got a chili cheese dog and a loaded fry with chili, cheese and veggies. I rationalized eating all of it because it "reminded me of home", although it didn't compare at all with Hot Dog Shoppe. 

Earlier in the day Ben mentioned going to a rooftop party hosted by an English teacher in the Bundang branch, so I texted him and met up with him and we went before Emily's gathering. The view was amazing! And the sun was setting which made it even cooler. She had a ton of food, so I got suckered into eating again. A couple pieces of pizza and some chicken.. and we were going to eat for Emily's birthday too. I ate so much that day but it was great, I love eating. 

We eventually made it to Itaewon and ate at a Thai restaurant. I had red Thai curry with tofu and vegetables. It was the best thing I think I ever ate! (Besides Beanie's sauce) I ate the whole thing and wished another 2 or 3 bowls would magically appear in front of me. After that we headed to a bar called Hollywood. If the name isn't forshadowing enough, when I walked in it was like a bar in America. It was so loud, hoppin, and everyone there was foreign! It was crazy, but cool at the same time. After a few rounds we went to a more dive bar place. We went to a place up the hill called the Grand Ole Opry, and it was very comparable to the 19th Hole. I guess its the bar where all the US military boys frequent. There was a Confederate flag flying on the wall and people were smoking fat cigars. They were playing country, there was a dancefloor, and there was a guy wearing a Harley Davidson t-shirt, cowboy boots, a Nascar hat, and a John Deere belt buckle. I was in shock. I was thinkin "how did you drive your semi truck to Korea??" He was dancin on the floor with a girl in a polka dot dress with pink trim (keep her in mind, she comes back again a few times later in the story). We had a few Budweisers, naturally, and headed across the street to a more clubbish bar playing American rap music. 

Thats the trucker.

I know this last picture isn't the most glamorous shot but I wanted to get the Confederate flag in the picture so you knew I wasn't lying. 

We got to the other bar and were just chillin on the side, off the dance floor. Emily wanted to dance real bad but no one wanted to, so she started dancing with this meat stick of an American guy. She kept saying she didn't want to dance with him because he was fat, but she quickly found out that it wasn't fat, this dude was built like a tank. I guess they don't workout in England like "men" do in America. She had me crackin up though. She came back and was like "That guy kept proper unbuttoning his shirt and I had to be like no no no and button it back up". The girl with the polka dot dress made and appearance too but I don't know if the way she was dancing (or what she was dancing on) is entirely appropriate for this blog. We headed back down the hill to hail a cab home. On the main street, there were two rival sandwich stands relatively next to each other. One was Moroccan Sandwich and the other was Egyptian Sandwich. Not wanting to be left wondering who made the best sandwiches, we got one of each (this was my sixth full meal that day). The Moroccan man won by a landslide. His bread was amazing and his sandwich was spicy. The Egyptian guys wasn't all that great, which is why the Moroccan man had a long line and the Egyptian guy was lonely. 

On Sunday, me and Emily went to went to get our always much anticipated Western breakfast at the Wolfhound in Itaewon. When I say breakfast, I mean we ate toast and eggs and all that, but it was at 5pm. At around 5:30, the girl with the polka dot dress walked in......... STILL WEARING THE POLKA DOT DRESS!! Not kidding.. and she sat at the bar. Girl is a trooper. After breakfast, we went to the foreigner market. Emily hasn't stopped talking about Cadbury Dairy Milk Chocolates since we got here, and doesn't shut up about how terrible Hershey's is. So we went to the market hoping to find Cadbury's and Swedish Fish. We found Cadbury's, but no Swedish Fish :( This country hates gummies I think, they aren't anywhere. Anyway, Emily was sooo happy she bought like 5 bars. She was really excited and was talking a mile a minute about these chocolates. All of a sudden, she stopped talking. I turned around to see what was going on and I saw the candy bar open, a piece missing, and tears legitimately streaming down her face! I was like what are you doing!! She said "This is so good I want to go home". I was shocked. I was like get over yourself. I might have been a little too harsh, but the scene was just so strange. I didn't know chocolates ran that deep. 

We play soccer on Tuesdays, which also happens to be Emily's day off and since she lives so far away she came to play, have lunch, and then go shopping in Seoul. We went to lunch at Pizza Hut at Coex. It was soo great! The pizza here sucks, so having some decent pizza, even if it was Pizza Hut, was a relief. I headed to work and she headed for shopping. I didn't have time to catch the subway, so I caught a cab. The cab driver knew limited English, so we chatted a bit. He asked me if I knew any Korean, and I said 맥주 하나주세요! which means one beer please! He got a kick out of it, but thats the only Korean I know so far. He asked how old I was and I told him 22, and he was like "ohh so young!" and made like a muscle man pose. I started laughing and was like nooo, but I guess I look to big compared to them. At the next red light, he started feeling my bicep and forearm! I was gave one of those "I feel awkward" laughs, but he was getting a big kick out of it. He's like "You have Korean girlfriend?" and I told him no, and he was shocked. I got to my stop, paid him, and opened the door, and he reached over and started feeling my arms again! I knew it was all in good nature, but I couldn't wait to get out of that car.

One of the teachers at the elementary branch a few blocks down the street has been sick, and since our students are testing, I had to fill in for him one day. Elementary kids are wild! They are a lot different from middle school. The middle school students are going through puberty and don't like to talk much, and it takes a while for them to warm up to you, but elementary students love you instantly as soon as you walk through the door! It's great! Although I felt like I was back in elementary school myself. Every time I introduced myself, I got bombarded with questions "Where's Luigi? Where's Peach? Where's Bowser" and they all sung me the Super Mario Bros. theme song. It was kind of funny though. At the end of one class one of the students gave me a piece of candy. In another class, as soon as I walked in the door this one little boy in the front row's hand shot up in the air. When I asked him what he wanted, he said "Teacher, you have very big nose" (must be the theme here in Korea, but big noses are the "in" thing). I just said thanks and was tempted to say he had a small one, but I didn't know if I would offend him. However, in another class, these two boys WOULD NOT stop clapping. And not like a golf clap or anything.. it was like a full on smacking their hands together as hard as they could. I'm not very good at discipline, I'm pretty docile and am still used to having this leader of the classroom roll, so I never yell at them. But I did tell him that he was only allowed to clap three times if he wanted to clap, so him in his 11 year old boy wisdom made one huge clap and then a bunch of quieter claps, followed by another huge clap and smaller claps, three times every time. I was starting to get a headache and couldn't wait to get out! But they are fun overall. Ben's bald and used to teach there and one of his students wrote him a note saying "Ben teacher you should think about wearing a wig. Your head looks huge. I like your clean face but I think you would be more handsome with a wig. Your head and body go together but you would be more handsome with a wig" it's hanging on the blackboard and is hilarious. 

One of three Taco Bells in all of Korea (I think)

Here's a sneak peak of the Native Teacher's room. I caught our team leader Mark mid-sentence, but it was the best picture I took that day. That's Ben loungin, and that's Sam in the background. He just left this morning to teach at a University in China. Justin's to my left and didn't make the cut. 

I finally have a way to make coffee! It was probably the most exciting day I had in Korea. The coffee here is terrible! When you order an iced coffee its literally a cup of ice water with an espresso dumped in. Mark ordered this for me off of g-market, which is like the Korean Amazon.com. This was my first cup of solid coffee I've had since being here. It felt like the first time I ever drank coffee I was going a mile a minute, it was great. I must of had 5 cups of coffee that day. 

Fridays are my day off and I was really jonesin' an escape from the city. As I said, Seoul is surrounded by mountains. I walked to the nearest one to my building and found a route up. I should mention that Seoul has a 24/7 sewage smell, and the street I was walking on was lined with ginkgo trees and squashed ginkgo fruit. For those of you who do not know what ginkgo fruit smells like, it is equivalent to setting the foulest smelling cheese you can think of on your windowsill and letting the sun hit it for at least 8 hours a day, and coming back a year later and sniffing it. It's nasty.  I was skeptical about the path I was travelling on because it looked less like a path and more like a dried up riverbed. I turned around and was met head on by a man walking up it, so I let him pass and followed up him. It was amazing! I was so happy. I don't think I breathed out of my mouth once. I forgot what fresh air and live pine trees smelled like! I took out my earphones while I was walking, partly because I didn't want to be startled by a snake or something else creepin on the mountain and partly because the quietness was bliss. Being on that mountain was like a drug that cured my over-exposure to city. I took soo many pictures of the dumbest things, but I couldn't help myself. A good 90% of the pictures I took don't look like anything I was looking at in person, but it was just such a relief. This was the first time I felt homesick since being here, but it is reassuring that there are many mountains to travel on. 

A part of the city peeking through the trees

There was this little shack with fire extinguishers in it

I continued my trek up the mountain not really sure where I was heading. At the times, the trails looked like this, which was cool. Its like steps made out of logs, and held in the ground by sticks acting as stakes. 

I finally found a road map! Naturally I wanted to go to the peak first, so I took a left and hoped for the best.

Along the way there were these little piles of neatly stacked sticks. There was a sign in front of them, but I couldn't read them cause they were all in Korean. But there was a picture of a squirrel, so I'm guessing people built them for squirrels and critters to live in. 

I stood at this spot for a good 15 minutes and watched these tall skinny trees swaying in the wind. It was very therapeutic.

getting closer.....

almost there.....

made it! Just in time for the sun to go down.. Unfortunately it was surrounded by trees so there were no photo ops of the city.

I tried to find my way back down to that little road map (I say tried because I got lost a couple of times) but I saw the sun peaking through these trees. Its one of those not so great pictures but I cherished seeing the sun. When you walk through the trees when the sun sets, it gets pretty dark. 

After some time I found the road map. If you can't see it, the arrow pointing right says Insucheon Mineral Spring. I couldn't pass that up so I followed it. After some time I came to this little pondish spring sort of thing. There was water coming out of a rubber hose and like some bowls sitting there. I'm guessing its for if you want a sip of the fresh water. I was very tempted to try it (who wouldn't want to taste the water from bottled water before it gets bottled?) but my better judgement (my mom's genes) convinced me that if I drank this water I would be dead well before I reached civilization and no one would find my body for days, so I passed it up.

I stumbled upon this clearing in the woods. At first I thought it was like logging or something, but I don't think they would do that in the middle of a mountain with walking paths on it. Then I remembered reading about the monsoons in Seoul and the massive mudslides in the Beaver County Times and figured this was the damage of one of those slides.

I was walking back and saw a sign that said "walking path" and had steps leading up, so I took them because I didn't feel like going home yet. I parked it on a bench and read some chapters from my book. When it got dark out, the path was lighted by these little lamps. It was really cool! And then on the hill in this picture there were more walking paths, but with more of a mountain trail kind of feel. These paths were also lighted.

That night I met some people from work for drinks. We went back to the lamb place, and as a side they had gingko fruit! I couldn't believe it. I don't understand how people knowingly eat something that smells like nasty cheese. I roasted some and ate them and they actually didn't turn out that bad (they were in the fermented cheese state, they were ripe). Someone told me that you will see old girls picking up the fruit that falls on the ground and take them home to eat them.