Wedding

I completely forgot that I went to a wedding last weekend.

It was for a fellow teacher and it wasn't what I thought it was going to be. It was a normal Christian wedding and there was no reception (at least I wasn't invited) afterwards. It is a custom to bring money for the coupe so I gave 30,000 won in an envelope and was given 10,000 back in another envelope.

The wedding was very relaxed, people talking throughout and others wearing t-shirts. One interesting thing that did happen was many of the church youth gathered round the couple and sang some songs. Maybe I can get my brother's students to do that for his wedding soon.

No pictures yet (waiting for a teacher to send me some) so enjoy this shirt that I saw for sale in the subway.

Last week my friend Dave came to visit. It was a typical weekend of eating and drinking. On Saturday we went to a little restaurant that had tables out in an alley with scooters zipping by. Dave brought his tiny yet very cute Korean friend with him. Turns out she lives in Busan but Dave never thought to mention her to me. Oh well, she is gone now (thanks Dave). The restaurant seemed to like us and gave us some free beef. It was just a plate with cooked ground beef. I have to admit it was tasty and they secured return business. Afterwards Dave and I went to the bar "Cowboys" to have a few beers before we headed in for the night.

As we were drinking a drunk Korean guy walks up and asks if we are Americans, I said we were Czech in hopes that he would leave us alone since he didn't speak English (except for a few basic words) and I was pretty sure he didn't know any Czech. Unfortunately this didn't deter him and he kept saying either "your gay" or "ok" again and again. He would leave then come back and at one point brought over a plate of half eaten food and picked some up with his bare hands and tried to feed me. The manager finally had to drag him away.

After a while he returned and was even more annoying and at one point he somewhat slapped me. I started to push him away and say goodbye but this pissed him off a bit and he through a shoulder into my back (we were sitting at the bar so our chairs were high). During this Dave and I were both staring down the manager to get this guy away from us. Finally the manager came and kicked the guy out.

Koreans are like most people and when the guys get a few drinks in them they get very in your face and feel the need to prove themselves. I have had a few drunk Korean men stare me down, or at least try to, and it is more comical than anything else. They are so cute and tiny, like little elves (I kid!!).

On the opposite side of things, more teachers are finding out that I am not coming back after the semester and they really seem disappointed. In fact, they are angry at my co-teacher because they think it is her fault for not getting me to stay. Everyone at the school has been so nice to me and they have done nothing but help and try including me in everything. As I got back from one class on Friday I had a giant box of tomatoes sitting on my desk. Turns out some of the parents got them for all of the teachers. It was only a coincidence that it was the last class before finals.


This next week I will sit around and do absolutely nothing all day. During the testing I have no job but have to be at the scool so I will spend all my time reading or sleeping in the rest room. The great thing is that on Saturday I will be going to the USA for my brother's wedding. Huzzah!!

I will miss the school.

push the little pink button.

Yeah, that's the ticket!

While at the Lotteria (Korea's McDonald's) on Thursday I ran into a fellow foreigner. There are very few on my island and he is the first non-Russian I have seen here. I got a little excited and made plans to meet with him and a friend of his on Friday night. He was a short fat man with no chin and a lot of stubble. He seemed like a nice talkative guy and would make for a good night out.

I met up with him and he started telling me about his friend who has been here for a couple months and was a great story teller. I am all excited for a good night of some light dialog and crappy beer. As I am talking to the guy a hand pops out through the plants behind the booth. This hand precedes to give "bunny ears" to my booth-mate for 2 minutes thinking it's the bee's knees. The bunny ear maker then sits and starts shouting in a horribly fake Australian accent (he obviously doesn't know about the rule where only I can make obnoxiously bad attempts at accents).

This guy (the one making the bunny ears) looks like he is in his 50s but the way he was acting and from what I gathered throughout the evening he is only in his mid-twenties. I thought he was gay but it turns out he only worked in a gay bar. He was married once to a stripper that died but he only married her because his parents wouldn't let him marry the German girl that he'd met through the Internet (who is also now dead). He talked about how his girlfriend got a restraining order against him and how he is so poor and medically challenged but was supposed to be a Marine sniper. I heard about how he picked up a woman and her 14 year old daughter on the side of the street and let them live with him. Turns out the daughter was pregnant and the woman later became his "medicine woman". He sold candy in school and became so rich he paid $3000 (CASH!!) for his first car. He also mentioned politics and a few other things.

It wasn't so much that he talked a lot, it was that he was the worst storyteller I have ever heard (even worse than me!). Most of what he said was BS, much of his story telling mirrored John Luvitz' style. All of his political rants and anything about history (he is a history buff) were blatantly based on crap mass emails that have made the rounds over the years. I found myself going to the bathroom just so I could get away from it all. I had a beer mug planted to my mouth so I would either get drunk quickly in hopes that his blathering would make sense or I would quickly pass out. Neither happened.

A tad under dressed

I am definitely not one to judge if some one is ever under dressed but a teacher just walked by me wearing a "Psycho Bitch" t-shirt. She saw me looking at it and ran. I diligently looked up the word bitch in a handy "swears of the world" website and tried to write it down in Hangul (Korean) for her. Now they are passing the note around to everyone and laughing. Glad to be of service.

sniffles

I was expecting on writing about what a great time I had at the Netherlands Korea soccer game but it is not to be. I have been looking forward to this day for at least and what happens? I get sick the day before. I spent all last night coughing and my throat is raw and nasty. The friends are all still going to the game so I hope it is a good one. I also hope that they will broadcast it on TV, but since I get the Singapore sports channel and not the Korean one I somehow doubt I will see it. Sorry for this weeks post being so lame. Maybe something exciting will happen during the week that I can write about...or not.