Tuesday 25 September 2007

Happy Chusok


There are two major holidays in Korea, Lunar New Year and Chusok. Today is Chusok, which is basically the Korean equivalent of Thanksgiving, with some ancestor-honoring thrown in for good measure. The best thing about this is that in order to worship one's ancestors properly, one must go to one's hometown so the day before and the day after are taken off for travel time. This means that this little migook gets a five day weekend! Assah!

It has been heaven. I originally thought of taking a trip to Bali or some other exotic destination but since I have to make a visa run to Japan in a couple weeks, I opted to stay in Seoul. It's been the most relaxing time ever. I got to spend an entire day nursing a nasty soju hangover and I didn't feel bad since I had four other days off!

I kicked off the weekend with some bowling. Some friends and I have started going bowling every Friday night and it's so much fun. You can bring your own drinks to Korean bowling alleys so it ends up being a very cheap night out. I actually did really well for the first game but as my soju intake went up, my bowling skills went down and my third game was in the 50s. Woops.

On Sunday, my friend Hannah came up to visit from Daejon. We went shopping in Itaewon, where I found a sweet ass Casio calculator watch...assah! It's incredibly awesome in a Dwight Schrute sort of way. Yesterday, I made a birthday dinner for some friends and drank an obscene amount of wine and today, I took a nice long coffee break/walk/late lunch with my friend Paula. And I still have one more day off!

Kindergarten is still going great and I actually miss my students over this break. Not enough to want to be at work, of course, but I do miss them. Allan told me he loved me last week and it was very sweet. Dylan, on the other hand, grabbed my boobs. Oh, kindergarten!

Sunday 16 September 2007

Insanity!

Whew! My new jobs have been keeping me incredibly busy! I've ended up teaching at the kindergarten full time and I've got 4 different business classes. I'm hopping around the center of the city all day but it's been fun. I feel so much happier now that I'm not working at CDI. I'm cooking more, getting to see friends more, and I'm just feeling a lot more positive about life now that I actually enjoy the teaching. The kindy in particular has been great. The kids are awesome and it's a lot of fun. It can be a head ache sometimes but for the most part, I'm loving it.

I've also been leaving the Itaewon area when going out, which is a lot of fun. Hongdae has great dance clubs I've been going to and it's nice to be around more Koreans. Again, have come across more and more foreigners who are kinda anti and it's odd. Hi, you're in KOREA. Eh, what can you do?