I meant to write this months ago-Brendan

In October I went to a palace with the teachers from my school. It was ok, but I had been there a week earlier with all the English teachers in my district. Anyway, afterwards all the teachers went to a great Korean restaurant. We were served dish after dish. A couple highlights were these tiny clams, I guess we’d call them cockles, in a vinegary, soy saucy thing with finely diced scallions and hot peppers. I couldn’t get enough. Also, giant prawns covered in sea salt and cooked on a hot cast iron pan. The shrimp were slightly mealy, but I love salt, which I don’t get enough here.

Now to the strange. Towards the end of the meal, we were served fermented (rotten) skate that you eat along with kimchi (which is naturally fermented) that they let sit & rot longer. All this is wrapped in lettuce. Pure funk. This dish made me strongly disagree with George Clinton (figure out that reference!). Not sure I’d be ordering that again. This was followed up with fermented tofu soup. Smelled like old shoes after you played 5 pick-up games in them. It tasted great, however, and I hogged most of it to myself.

So, Tuesday night, all the teachers went out because my principal is leaving for greener pastures (or a smog covered city, not sure which). This was a barbecue place, where you sit on the floor & grill the meat on the table. There were ribs and seasoned pork (though I tasted no seasonings). Side dishes that came with it included ray smothered in a thick, spicy red sauce. The sauce was good, & the meat tasted ok. The problem was, with my piece, they hadn’t removed the cartilage, and there was nowhere for me to spit it out. That was rough (in Will Ferrell voice). Also, there was jellyfish. Jellyfish is much better here than in the states (no offense Balducci’s). I’ve had it a bunch here; I just hadn’t realized what it was. I thought it was some kind of ice cold, slimy noodle. Either way, it tastes pretty good.

And then yesterday one of the special teachers bought Chinese for the rest of us (the non-homeroom-having). There was what amounts to sweet & sour pork, a mix of stir fried veggies that centered on green peppers, dumplings, and larger fried dumplings. This was 2 hours after lunch. Ugh. It was pretty good, though.
The nurse was invited to dine with us as well. While eating, she asked, “Do you have a religion?” I answered that I was raised Catholic. This confused her, and she asked a couple people in Korean what that meant. She then turned back towards me and asked, “Catholic?” while doing the sign of the cross. I answered in the affirmative, & she was quite happy that she figured it out.

The 1st 4 pics are from a school BBQ.

Korean style BBQ

From right: Chaehuen (my co-teacher), ME!, Eun young (the special-ed teacher), & her daughter

Nurse "Nancy" in the bottom left. The #1 badminton player at our school (pre-pregnancy).

Tisu (the other English teacher), Bongsoon, Chun gyun, Hyeon Jung, ME!, Eun young, & Myeonghee

A kind of long day...

So, today I had a kind of long day.

I awoke at 7:00.

Dressed applied makeup, brushed teeth.

Started walking to subway at 8:00.

Arrived at school around 8:30.

Taught some classes.

Watched the superbowl streaming online. Although it cut out every 90 seconds and I had to refresh the page.

Lunch at noon. (Fried fish, sweet potatoes, well not sweet potatoes, but potatoes that were sweetened, radish kimchi, spam soup) Koreans love that spam!

More classes.

Left work at 3:50

Walked back to subway.

Took train to Paju. (A city outside of Seoul.)

Arrived in Paju at 5:40.

Grabbed cab to Dive Center.

Took final Scuba test. (Written)

Got directions from scuba instructor.

Tried to walk to train at 7:45.

Got lost.

Wandered around a city I was unfamiliar with at night.

Finally found train at 8:25.

Boarded Train.

Arrived at my station at 10:15.

Brendan tried to call me, lost connection in subway.

Walked to fried chicken joint.

Waited for takeout.

Got chicken.

Walked to corner store, bought beer and water.

Walked home.

Called Brendan back.

Ate chicken at 10:45.

Now updating blog.

Seems like a long day to me. Note the no eating between noon and 10:45.

Today I was walking to Brendan's apartment from the subway and feeling kind of eh, so I decided to stop at this little hole in the wall place and get some hot chocolate. No really, it's literally a hole in the outside wall of an apartment building with a lady that stands inside and makes awesome hot chocolate. So anyway, the lady was so smiley and genuinely kind and happy to see me and her hot chocolate is so good I no longer feel eh. I have no illusions that she was actually excited to see me per se, I know she was excited to see my wallet and my 2,000 won, but it was nice.

Also, my paper coffee cup (which I promise to recycle) says this on the outside, "Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking together in the same direction." I like this.

Brendan's co-teacher's birthday is the day before his, so he bought her an ice cream cake and a bag of oranges. (The oranges are just what people do here for some reason, they buy bags of oranges for each other and everybody has one.) Well, they aren't really oranges but i'm not sure if they're tangerines. They're small. So he showed her the cake and pointed to the grocery bag and said, "I also brought oranges." But since she's Korean and their accents are weird, she thought he said orange juice. Koreans say orange like "ahrahnjuhhhh," and orange juice like "ahrahnjuss."
She says, "Ahrahnjuss? That needs to go in the fridge."
Brendan says, "Do you really have to refrigerate oranges?"
Then it goes back and forth like this:
Her: Ahrahnjuss?
Him: Oranges?
Her: Ahrahnjuss?
Him: Oranges?
Then she finally looks in the bag and says, "I thought you call these tangerines!"

Was that funny? I don't know, it's hard to type out a story like that.