Thanksgiving and the whatnot of November

I celebrated my birthday quietly with 2 Korean friends who were kind enough to buy me a cake from Costco. I hadn't had a proper Costco cake since I lived in Alaska in the early 90s. I forgot how big they were and having to eat the entire thing by myself added a bit of bulk to my frame.


The following week we had a mandatory "teacher PE day". It consisted of us leaving school after lunch and choosing to hike up a mountain or take a walk along the coast. I chose the coast as it was easier and closer to the bars that we would inevitably end up at anyway. After an hour we were done and our leader, the vice principal, jumped in a car and vanished. We all quickly came to the consensus that we needed booze (it was 1:30pm after all) and looked for a good place to swig some makali (rice wine). There was a big buffet dinner planned for 5:30, so we had to waste time until then and we did it in style. There was some hole in the wall place that welcomed us and the drinks flowed freely and at one point one teacher (a man) told me that I look "quite fetching in the sunlight".

I hate asking others to take my picture, they can never do it right.

After too many bottles of the white stuff we made it to the buffet which provided loads more beer. I really like these types of get-togethers as a lot of teachers relax around me and a surprising number of them can speak English quite well.


After some time I tried to sneak out with a couple of the younger female interns for a few more beers in a much quieter setting. Unfortunately we were caught and forced to join the old men teachers in a seedy bar with a live lounge band (first time I have seen one of those here) that reminded me of the band in Swingers. Much more beer and lots of excessive touching of my upper thigh by all the male teachers was had.

The next day it snowed.



There was supposed to be a big meteor shower one evening so I woke up at 3am to try and photograph some of it. I tried a few shots and thought I caught one on film but it turned out to be an airplane. Damn cold out.


Thanksgiving was spent with 2 teachers. We ate chicken since the Turkey I wanted was $70 and I wasn't even sure if it would fit in my little oven. I had mashed potatoes (the delicious powdered kind) horrible shrink wrapped corn on the cob and what I thought was a brown sauce that turned out to be meatballs sized for Spaghetti-O's.