WOOOOOOO!!! Crazy night!!!!! So I did end up going out last night. ^^ ALL night. *lol*
So yes, that means I did come up with a costume. ^^ It was Grisel's idea that I be a golfer. Couldn't find a polo in Myeongdong though so just went with a pink t-shirt and wrapped Grisel's black sweater around my shoulders. ^^
Met up with Tiffany and Deborah in Hongdae at 630pm. Then went looking for the concert venue. It got changed numerous time so finally settled for the second concert which starts at 10pm. Went out to have supper first then went back to the venue where we met up with JOa. ^^ Yup Joa came out!!!! ^^ She was a devil. ^^ So cute! ^^
So we went to Club Spot for the rock concert. At first the girl wasn't going to give me the discount because she didn't think I was in costume. But I was like "Dude, I don't dress like this everyday." *lol* The entrance fee was 10 000 won. The bands were alright. We stayed for 3 sets. the first set was a Korean band. The lead singer was dressed up as Kim Jong-Il with a name tag that says Kim Jong-Il. *lol* Anyways, to be honest, the music just wasn't my style. I can't seem to get into it.....
Left early and went to Con Bar. Tiffany didn't want to go to a bar so Dan helped her flag down a taxi home. ^^ So Joa and i went with Dan to Con bar to meet up with the others -- Dan, Owen, JiHyun, Nick, Nick's friend Vinh. They drank, but I just had water. I have more fun when I'm sober. ^^ Later Jessica, Jessica's friend Eric, and Diana came and we all went out looking for a club. Freakin weather didn't let up on the rain. It was pouring like crazy and there were long line ups going into the clubs. We walked for so long and it got cold. Everybody was getting a bit frustrated because it was rainy and cold and there were long line ups. We lost Jess in front of one of the clubs and so her friend Eric stayed behind to wait for her. Dan and JiHyun
decided to take a taxi back home and the 5 of us (Me, Joa, Nick, Diana, and Vinh) went in search of a club. We later settled for Club NB2 and it was PACKED!!! And it was mostly Koreans going there so it was pretty cool to see how Korean party it up. Club NB2 is a hip hop club so my kinda music. Entrance fee was 15 000won but you get a ticket for discounted drinks. I didn't get any cuz drinking is not my thing. I kept the coupon as a souvenir. ^^ After a lot of shoving and squeezing through people, we finally found a spot on the stair platform (the club has 3 levels) to dance. ^^ Sometime during the night, I felt some guy grinding up against me from behind while I was dancing with Joa so I moved away. *lol* Ah, not shocked, just a little bit turned off cuz he must be one desperate dude who came alone looking to hook up with girls. *bleh* *lol* Nick was giving me this "uhh what are you gonna do about that guy behind you" look so I was like "whatever" and moved away. *haha* The night was fun though and I didn't feel tired at all cuz I slept until 3pm that day before going out. ^^ So I had a lot of energy to take me through the night. ^^ Joa got tired towards 3am but we had to go find Diana somewhere first. ^^ So the guys went looking for Diana. We ended up dancing until 4:15am and leaving around 4:30am. ^^ Joa, Diana, and I decided to wait for the train to open up again so we went to a street vendor and had ddokbokki until 5am. ^^ The we took the train home. ^^ I slept a little on the train and didn't get home until 6:30am. ^^
Through out the entire night, I saw 3 seperate fights break out. First fight was when we were walking out from Con Bar, we saw 2 Korean guys shoving and punching eachother. Their friends were holding them back. The second fight happened while we were waiting for Jessica in front of a bar. Two Korean guys were grabbing and punching eachother while their friends were trying to seperate them. The guys' girlfriends were having a cat fight of their own pulling at eachother's hair and clothes. The 3rd fight was while we were leaving Club NB2 and I saw this drunk Korean guy with bloody scrapes on his face shoving his friend away, stumbling, and falling on the street while his friend was trying to help him. He later turned on his friend and they had a flailing wrestling match out on the road. His friend managed to subdue him later, thank god. *bleh* So much drama.......
But I don't regret going out and staying out late last night. Because that was one thing I was looking for by coming here to Korea. New experiences.........And every step of the way last night was a new experience. ^^
So yesterday after school, I ran into a bit of a problem with the stupid key pad lock on my apt door. It ran out of batteries (I still can't believe the apt don't change the batteries every now and then....). So I was locked out for 2 hours because the lock refused to take the password I entered. SO I called my co-teacher and she called the management of the building, and two ajussi came up and they tried to get the door working again to no avail. To keep a long story short, I later had to pay someone $20 to open my door. Then I had to go downstairs to buy 8 AA batteries in order for the ajussi to change the batteries on my door. Finally it's working now, but if they told me I have to pay to change the lock on the door because some bimbo punched a button in, I WILL refuse to pay for it because I did not break the key on the lock. The tenant before me broke it. So yeah, I'm no gonna pay for something I didn't do!
Enough of that, so after this whole fiasco, I met up with Grisel and we went downstairs for some din din at this Korean porridge shop. So good! ^^ So that was a bit of a highlight in the midst of a bad evening. ^^
Oh! I went to Costco three days ago with San, Maryann, and Grisel in Yangjae and I bought a lot of fruits, candies for my kids, and a pumpkin pie. We took the taxi back to the apt because we bought too much stuff. ^^ Oh yeah! We also had dinner at Costco except they didn't have the fries that I wanted. So sad.... *sigh* So I had a hotdog plus icecream. ^^ And I also went to Costco again (this time took the bus to the one in SangBong) with one of my co-teachers two days ago and I bought 2 more pumpkin pies. One for myself and one for the teachers at the office. I bought it in to the office yesterday and it was all gone instantly! ^^ They loved it. ^^ I'm happy because I like to share food and see happy faces enjoying it. ^^
So tonight after school, I'm going to Myeongdong with Grisel to try to come up with a halloween costume for tomorrow. If I do manage to put together a Halloween costume, then I will go out tomorrow, but if I can't come up with one, then I think I will pass. But I'm definitely meeting up with Tiffany to go see a free concert tomorrow night in Hongdae. ^^ Should be interesting. ^^
Sorry for my negligence keeping up with this blog. I guess I've surpassed my "honeymoon stage" with Seoul and now everything just seems normal to me. Honeymooning Seoul's been fun while it lasted..........I've still kept up with my picture taking though as interesting things begin to creep up so don't worry. ^^ I can't remember where I left off in my updates, and I can't remember what I did after that.......so instead of giving an inaccurate update here, I'm just going to wait until I upload the pictures (soon) and update everybody with the captions below. ^^
I got sick a few days ago. Caught a cold, but I'm slowly recovering thanks to medicine mom packed for me from back home, plus sleeping this weekend away and staying hydrated with water and orange juice. ^^ *sigh* But you know, it takes just getting a simple cold to make a person begin to feel homesick. I've been having a mad case of homesickness since getting sick. I know that this is just a phase and that it is alright to feel homesick, it doesn't make you a weaker person. And I know if you ask me on a normal, healthy day about how I feel about coming here to South Korea, my reply will still be "I wouldn't change this for the world." But right now I'm homesick and I admit it.
I'm having mad cravings for a bowl of MacNCheese right now............
But enough of homesickness. It's beginning to sound depressing. *lol* Anyways, classes are going alright. Some of the kids are starting to warm up to me which is cool. If I can influence and encourage at least one kid to continue to pursue English studies after high school, I can say that I have fulfilled my purpose...and even better if it's the whole class. I've come to have a favourite class. Class 2-11 is the most advance class among all the grade 11ers classes. Their only weakness is their shyness at openly speaking English. They have all the vocab tools to carry on a decent conversation with you, but some of them don't want to stand out and appear like they're show offs and others are too insecure about their pronunciation to even try. But I'm sure with a little more encouraging, I'll get it out of them. ^^ The other classes are ok with a mixture of kids who really want to be there and kids who don't give a crap about English. Oh well, I guess things never come in neat little packages. Here's to, hopefully, an endurable term.....I have only 5 more weeks with my kids before their Korean teachers whisk them away again for final exam reviews. *sigh*
Speaking about the end of term, I must reconfirm the dates for my winter camp again with CJ because I'm feeling a vacation to Hong Kong in February is in order. Even if it is only for a week, I'll still take it if my relatives in HK oks my staying at their place for the week. ^^ I'm definitely not going to spend thousands on a plane ticket back to Canada just for Chinese New Year, so HK is a short distance alternative. Plus it would be cool to spend it with relatives for a change. ^^
This past Friday marks my 2 month anniversary here in Seoul, South Korea. I can't believe it's been 2 months already........Life is short because time just flies. This just confirms it. Cherish each day like it's your last.......
So over the past weekend, it was 추석 holiday here in Seoul. ^^ So we didn't have to work on Friday last week and Monday this week. ^^ Sweet, eh? I heart Korean holidays!!! ^^ We spent last week monitoring the kids' midterm exam, so now midterms are all finished. ^^ Back to teaching this week. ^^
As mentioned in the video, I met up with a few friends on Friday and we went around taking pictures in 명동, downtown by the stream, and later 건국. ^^ I met up with San, Ashley and Jessica in 명동 for lunch before we went off taking pictures. While walking through 명동, we discovered a very nice Chinese elementary school. ^^ So random. *lol* We walked to the stream and took some pictures, then we walked to the fountain area and took a lot of jumping pictures. From there we walked to Insadong and then to Konkuk to meet up with Nick and his buddies. Went for Kalbi in Konkuk then to a bar called "Beer Girl." *lol* Yeah, it is a guys' bar so Jess, Ash, and I felt a little out of place there. *lol* I drank only a little (maybe 3 sips), didn't like it and left my beer-soju-mixed there. It just reaffirms my dislike for alcohol. Hated the taste.
All in all, it was a good day. ^^
Saturday I went to the temple again. ^^ Spent the whole day there plus had supper there too. ^^ Because it was also Mid-Autumn and Chuseok, I had mooncake and Korean rice cakes at the temple. ^^ There was calligraphy sutra transcription so I stayed for that in the afternoon. ^^
Sunday, I went to a Global Festival in Incheon with Nick and Ashley and some of Nick's friends. It was an alright festival. ^^ But nothing special because it felt like Heritage Festival back in Edmonton for me. ^^ Not much to talk about there except things were pricey and portions were too small. Incheon is almost 2 hours away from my apartment so I didn't get home until close to 11pm.
Hmmmm......where did I leave off???? I guess this happens when I don't keep up with my blog. *lol* Sorry.....
Anyways, Yesterday I met up with Marissa, her boyfriend, and Shannon in Isu. ^^ Took me close to 45mins to get down there because it was south of the river and I live in the far North side. It was awesome fun seeing them again though. We ate at this fast food place (which wasn't bad) because we couldn't decide on a real restaurant. *lol* But then we had awesome yogurt at Red Mango which makes up for everything. ^^ I ordered in Korean again and again I was self-conscious about my acent and pronunciation (we're not even going to speak about grammer). The lady asked me if I was Korean, and I said no. Then she asked me if I was Japanese, and again I said no I'm Canadian. *sigh* Why do people ask me about other ethnicities when, seeing that Iam speaking English with Shannon and everybody that I'm not from this part of the world???? This stereotype just because I look Asian is getting old........I told her that my Korean is bad and sorry, and she told me that I should practise more and it's going to get better.
We couldn't visit this cool coffee place with swings for seats though because we lost track of time at Red Mango. Darn....oh well, next time. ^^ Ok so this was last night. ^^ I didn't get home until around 11pm. But I went to sleep right away. I also forgot to take pictures yesterday (darn it)....Oh well, I remember for the next time. ^^
Hmmm......Oh I met up with Dalki again on Tuesday after work and we went to Insadong. ^^ It was awesome in Insadong and I was really digging the whole folkart atmosphere. ^^ Everything in Insadong is homemade and since it's one of the tourist hotspots, the prices were a bit expensive. I didn't get anything (next time), but we did eat at this cool, nicely decorated restaurant plus drank ginger tea at this cozy tea house. ^^ I took pictures so I'l post it up soon in my slideshow. ^^ Remember to double click on the slide show to see even more pictures!!! ^^ The slideshow only shows a minimum of 50 pictures. ^^ I took over 300 already. ^^
Ok, that's the recap of this week so far. ^^ I'm meeting up with Dan and Jessica later to shoot some photos around Seoul. ^^ Should be fun. ^^ We're meeting in MyeongDong at around noon-ish. ^^ Will update more later. ^^
Yeah it's Friday today. ^^ No school for me for 4 days because of Chuseok holiday!!!!!! ^^ Gota love Korean holidays. ^^ *lol*
