Nobody Puts Baby in Corner

A devastating cliff higher, with Jun Pyo begging Jan Di to tell him not to get married, what is going to happen? I guess I’ll find out more tonight, although GT2B class gave away some important details. I’m just glad they were speaking English. Sarah was able to host Boys Before Flowers after all; her plans fell through. I’m currently making kimbap for tonight’s get together. I hope it will be ok, I think the pack I bought (like two weeks ago) may be expired (like 13 days ago), but everything is pickled so I can’t really imagine that it would be too bad. We’ll find out later guess.

Oh so many adventures since I made Jaemin cry, the past week has been intensely busy. Last Tuesday, for St. Patrick’s day, Sally and I met the gang out in Itaewon at a pub, sadly no green beer. After most of the group split, Mike, Chris, Amber, Sally, and I stayed out, hitting up the Rocky Mountain Tavern for some Canadian beer, also not green. Then the boys left and us girls tried to find a hof, but because Itaewon sucks, we had no luck. Eventually we just gave up and went home; I got in at about 3:30.

Boys Before Flowers on Wednesday, had two action filled episodes, things finally started to move along and currently Goo Jun Pyo and his fiancé are about to get married but Jun Pyo really doesn’t want to; it’s heart aching. And Sally finally is totally into it. We did get pizza, breaking our Kimbap tradition, but it was worth it.

My Rice is ready, I have to go make kimbap now....

Ok, I’m back, Kimbap completed, apartment cleaned, I should be going for a walk right now, but I’m lazy. Soon.

On Friday, I discovered the name of my new hot student, all brooding and angry, JUN PYO! If he was less serious I would have definitely made fun of him, but like I said, brooding angry type. I can’t get that class to pay attention to me, the one student that actually did the work moved to a different class, so now I spend the whole time talking to myself. It’s awful. Jun Pyo is seriously annoyed at everybody in the class and clearly thinks (correctly) that I am inept as a teacher. He constantly makes annoyed sighing sounds. I can’t wait to fail all those mother fuckers on the next speaking test!

After class on Friday, Sally and I headed to Hyehwa to meet, Amber, Sarah, Dave, and Lisa. We hung out at hof for a bit and then we went to see the 12:30 showing of Slumdog Millionaire at the CVG. Although I appreciate being able to see movies so late, I find it difficult to stay awake; I only slept for like five minuets though, I barely missed anything.

On Saturday, I went to a baseball game of all things. I don’t even like baseball. I saw the LG Twins defeat the Doosan Bears in a not so exciting exhibition match. Although, there was one really nice triple play by the LG Twins. The game was free and the weather was incredible. I actually got a little bit of sun burn on my chest. Anyway, going to the game was fun. At the stadium you are allowed to bring in any food you wanted. I even saw one couple with a cake. Outside the stadium, there are vendors selling all sort so delights, included dried squid and beer (a beautiful combination, I discovered a couple of weeks ago).

After the game we walked to the Han River and had a picnic delivered. We had fried chicken and a Chinese dish that you can only get in Korea, a black bean sauce over noodles. It is really delicious. The noodles came in reusable dishes, just like when food is delivered to school. We just left them in a pile by a bush and a few minuets have we finished eating the delivery guy came and picked them up. I love Korea. It is as if we were hanging out at Assiniboine park and had pizza delivered to the park. Is that even possible? Something to keep in mind. This is one of the many reason that it pays to have to Korean friends, they can actually order things over the phone because they speak Korean.

After we were finished eating, Mike suggested that we walk to Itaewon. Sarah and Amber had a rugby meeting there later and we had nothing to do in the meantime. So walk we did, and about three hours later we arrived in Itaewon. The walk is really nice, along the river there are we groomed walking paths. The only bad part is that just before Itaewon is a huge hill, so after walking three hours, we had to trek up an insane hill. It was a good walk though.

We arrived in Itaewon too late for Sarah and Amber to go to their meeting, so we got drinks instead and then had burgers at the All-American Diner. I know, I know, but it was a really good burger. Before we went to the diner, we actually tried to go to the Rocky Mountain Tavern, but it was full and as we looked around for seat we realized that we had accidentally stumbled into an AskNow welcome party for new arrivals. AskNow is the recruiting agency that most of us had been recruited by and we couldn’t leave fast enough. We all have jobs, we all arrived, everything is fine. That doesn’t mean we have to be friends with them. That’s all I’m saying. I don’t really trust AskNow. And they seem to more about organizing social events and sending pointless mass emails then getting people to Korea. And finally, they are a recruiting agency, clearly about the bottom line, then don’t’ really want to be friends, they want to make as much money off of me as possible.

After the burger, was had to run to the subway station, our beautiful sunny cloudless day turned into hard rain. By this time it was already about 10:30 maybe close to 11:00 already. The gang I was with decided to call it quits for the day, but plans had already been made to meet Sally Hongdae so I bravely carried on. I met Sally in Hongdae and we huddled under her umbrella as we trekked around Hongdae, at first the plan was to find a club Free Bird to watch some Beatles cover bands, but as we got wetter and wetter, we abandoned the plan finally ended up, inevitably, at FF. The music was good and we danced the night away. We ended up at Sake bar and hung out drinking nice warm sake until the subway started running again and our clothes were some what dry. I fell into bed at about 8:30.

Then on Sunday, once I finally crawled out of bed and showered, I meet Lisa in Hyehwa for supper. She had invited me out to meet a couple of Korean girls with whom she is friends. We had sushi and then had a traditional Korean drink that is served ice cold. It is alcoholic and it was pretty good. Definitely better than soju, although, apparently more dangerous if you are not careful. I was careful and falling over tired. Fortunately, it was Sunday night and everybody had to get home. I collapsed into bed and slept until 10:00 AM. I was still tried all day on Monday; I even took a nap before I went to school.

I learned something interesting though. Most Korean girls live with their parents until they get married, this I already knew. But it seems that even girls in their 20’s often have curfews imposed on them by their parents. One girl I met this weekend, has a midnight curfew, she is 22! It makes sense though, at night, there are many many more guys hanging out than there are girls. It is much more common to see large groups of guys than large groups of girls and I finally understand why; all the girls have to go home. That totally sucks.

Oh, and Jaemin got over it. I was worred for the next class, that he would hate me, but he didn't. He was all smiles and sunshine, as if nothing was wrong. Kids get over stuff fast I guess, short memories?