So I wasn't feeling my BEST last saturday at work.. it was an early morning saturday, I was starting to get sick, and I had a few beers the night before. I went to work and made it through the day.. but every ten minutes I was like "I can't wait to go home and just chill! not do anything!" I'm sure everyone was getting sick of hearing it. I remember I told Joon I would hang out with him after work, but if he didn't call me I was just gonna blow it off (sorry Joon!) and go home. Anyway, there was five minutes left before work ended and I still hadn't heard from Joon. I was just telling Ben how I made it through the day unscathed when my phone started ringing. DAMN! I didn't even have to look at the caller id, I knew who it was.
Me: Hello?
Joon: Hey Mario. How was work? Me and Emily are going to this fabric market / clothing district.. You still want to come?
Me: UGHHHH..... fine.
I met Joon and Emily on the subway a few stops from work. My cold was pretty bad at this point, I was coughing and phlegmy.. the works. I stopped at a convenience store and got an OJ and some black bag nacho chips (they are the best). To make matters worse, I was about to get on the subway when one of the larger kids from my class was like
Student: "Teacher! Chips!"
Me: "Do you want one?"
Student : "Yes, so hungry!"
So I opened the bag of chips and told him to take one. This kid took about a third and ran off. I was like great, thanks.
I make it to the rendezvous on the platform. The first thing Emily says to me is "Wow, you look like hell". Again great, thanks.
We ended up going to wrong way at first out of the subway and stumbled upon this gem of a Korean place. We were the only foreigners in sight. It was lined with markets selling random stuff. Towards the middle of the building, the aisles were filled with little mom and pop shops selling food. We said we had to go back if we were hungry after finding this place.
These pig parts were everywhere! Pumba!!!
We made it to the market but I was moving even sluggisher than normal. Barely able to keep up with a sloth at this point. The fabric market was pretty cool. If I end up being able to make clothes I'd love to go back and pick some stuff out.
After some browsing, we made it back to the market. It was awesome! Such a great experience (Thanks Joon!) We sat down at a booth filled with ajeossi's either in suits or in hiking equipment. It felt like the local "hangout" for older Korean people. I think they were surprised to see us there. We had plenty of different kinds of pajeon (Korean pancakes): kimchi, sprouts, green onion, meatballs covered in pajun. There was salmon so I had to get some raw sliced salmon.. it was delicious! They also gave us baby clams but I didn't like those much. The benches had a pad on the top that was heated! There was no excuse to leave.. so we just ate plates and plates of pajeon and drank soju and makgeolli. I don't like soju so I just stuck to the makgeolli. It is a fermented mixture of rice and water. It is cloudy and has a sweet taste to it, and you drink it out of a bowl! Here is our array..
^^ this plate right here is one of many plates of pajeon piled up
Now, notice the ajuma who sat to my right. At some point in the night she spilt a full shot of soju all over my jeans! I was like great, now I'm gonna go to work smelling like Ben!
On Tuesday we had a parents meeting. I was a little upset because I had to miss sewing class, but I got over it. We had to dress up and stand in the doorway and say 안녕하세요! (Anyeonghasayo!)
Over and over and over again for the 300+ ajumas who had kids who went to DYB (only like 5 dads showed up). After they all went in we had to practice a little song and dance to perform on stage for the crowd. It didn't go so smoothly.. but I don't think they noticed / cared. After that, we were taken to lunch at a buffet place which was pretty good. (Side note: I was so excited to wake up the next morning and watch the Duke vs OSU game, the first Duke game I could watch all year) I get to work and Mark wrote on the board "Mario, Tyler, Alan show up at Parthenon (DYB elementary school across the street) at 10:20 tomorrow for their parents meeting. I was like NOOOOO!!!!!!! I was in a foul mood and sent hate texts and tweets to Suzie all day, even though it wasn't her fault. So the next morning we had to do it all over again. Emily let me watch the box score on her iPhone, and Duke ended up getting killed anyway.
Look how tiny this kid is! He is in 9th grade I think.. maybe 14 or 15 years old? I whipped out my camera and took a picture.. forgetting that the flash was still on and everyone turned around. I just pretended I was taking a picture of Alan.
I also snuck a pic of Mark and Alan. Mark is leaving us in two weeks :(
Suzie hosted a Banged Up Christmas gathering at her place. A play on words of Banged Up Abroad, her latest addiction about foreigners getting kidnapped or jailed abroad. She had Christmas lights, red and green candles, and a fire stoking on the tv. We were drinking red wine and Suzie made delicious pizza on tortillas in her little oven. Her co-teacher Sangah came too.. only Sangah, true to form, brought two boxes of fried chicken and a six pack of Heineken. We listened to Christmas music and just hung out. I put on B. E. Taylor and they all made fun of me! I tried to convince him that he does tour, and they said "How longs it take him to tour around Beaver Falls? One night?" Haters.. Eventually we are gonna watch some Christmas movies.
Emily, Sangah, and Ben. Suzie's hand snuck in there putting Bali hot sauce on her pizza slice
Ben and Suzie
Me, Emily, Sangah, and Ben
Alan showed us a Kalguksu mom and pop shop restaurant underneath one of the buildings by work. It is so delicious! It is in the basement surrounded by little foreign markets, nut sellers, seamstresses, you name it. But this place is a gem. When you go, there is a line down the hallway of people waiting to eat it! The kimchi is so good to. And all for only $5! Kalguksu is a soup with just raw cut home made noodles in a broth with zucchini stripes and green onions. Topped with dried seaweed.
On my day off on Friday I went Christmas shopping. I was hoping to get it all done in one day, and I did it! Although it was a hassle. First stop was dongdaemun, where you can buy clothes, not in a department store, but from individual vendors where you can haggle (even though I'm never good at it). I covered some people here. I have Uncle Sam for my grab bag and was thinking about getting him a chunky knit sweater or something.. until I stepped foot on the men's floor. The first three floors are womens and I could peacefully browse through. However, immediately as I got off the escalator, I was hounded! It was a nightmare! Every single vendor you walked by stuck out his hand and said "Nice to meet you! Where are you from?" You feel obligated to shake the mans hand, even though you haven't even "met" him yet, so you do. I think its some kind of trick though because when you shake their hands, they don't let go! They grab hold of your hand and start selling their stuff. "What are you looking for? Suits? Jeans? Hoodies? T-Shirts? He's showing you all his stuff and simultaneously holding your hand. When I finally broke free I was just like thanks! and walked away. You walk ten feet past the next booth and he does the same thing! In ten minutes I think I shook hands with every single vendor on the floor.. because its so big I couldn't find the escalator. I ran out of that floor as fast as I could.
Outside of dongdaemun there is a bunch of street vendors. This alley was full of shoes!
Here are some Christmas decorations. Doota is like the department store in dongdaemun.
I was walking by this and thought "Who in the world would eat these things?????" They look so nasty! I had to take a picture. I don't even know what they are, let alone how to eat them.
I still had some shopping to do so I went to Insa-dong (I go there all the time! It's really cool though). I spotted this stone quarry sort of thing full of stone statues of tigers and things. This was the biggest one: a statue of Buddha!
On Saturday after work Suzie, Sangah and I went for some bbq. It was a pretty relaxing Saturyday (finally!) On Sunday, Suzie, Emily, Peter, Ben, Justin, and I went to Itaewon for some lunch, bloody mary's, and some guinness's. We were looking at the little promotion thing on our table with all the different shots they have. We were curious as to what most of them were, so we made a game. We ordered 5 shots that sounded like they were either cool or good, and 1 shot that we knew was absolutely disgusting. We played rock, paper, scissors for who got to choose what shot they wanted to take. Here are the shots from top left, down, and towards the bottom left: sex with an alligator, pineapple upside down cake, scooby snack (thats the one I won! it was delicious), slippery nipple, chocolate cake, and 3 wise men (the disgusting one! Justin had to drink that one) It is named 3 wise men for the 3 different types of whiskey that go into it: Johnnie Walker, Jack Daniels, and Jim Beam!
Until next time.. fare thee well!
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