The grocery store always seems to have something exciting, Tuesday night was no exception. I went in to get some milk and toothpaste and when I was in Homeplus the song “when you happy and you know, clap your hands” came on. All the females that do the marketing, by looking good and standing in front of the products did the dance, the whole place was dancing. Imagine about 20 Koreans doing this dance in a crowded grocery store (in just about no clothes.) It was funny because they all came out one by one to do this dance and you could tell none of them wanted to do this and it was the “Happy when you know it” song.
Two students I had today cried, that was a lot of fun. One cried because she tried attacking another student and I made her apologize and the other girl bit a page in her book and ripped it. She them blamed it on me and cried for the next 30 minutes until class ended. It was a lot of fun, especially when she whacked me with a coat hanger when I was putting her jacket on. I am hoping she has a memory like a goldfish and will forget about this tomorrow, crying 6 year olds are always a treat. It is Tuesday night and I am getting excited about this weekend of March Madness. It will be awesome, going in early Saturday and getting myself a huge Western breakfast at the bar. ( Remember western breakfast hardly exists in Korea.) and then watching basketball from about 10 AM till 10 PM, life does not get much better then that.
Sunday March 21, 2010
The western breakfast was everything I dreamed of. Man was it good; it’s funny I am 24 years old and I am writing about eating pancakes, bacon, and toast. This should be an ordinary thing for someone to eat, but not in Korea. It absolutely takes it toll after a while. I want to talk about the setup of restaurants in South Korea. They could not be any different from Western standards, unless of course you go to Itaewon. Korean restaurants are small, very small, you do not tip, and most you take your shoes off and sit on the floor. I absolutely hate because I am so tall and a knee surgery also does not help. It just is not comfortable, the heated floors are nice; that’s about it. The restaurants are really small, probably no more then 15 customers in a traditional Korean Restaurant and that is a high number. You really notice how small they are when you go to Outback or TGI Fridays because they are up to western standards. Some restaurants have you pay right after you order, some will bring you the bill right after you order, and you do not pay at your table, you have to bring it to the hostess. It is pretty unique. The part I find really odd is when you are ready to order you do not wait for the waiter to come to the table, rather you yell out “yogi yo” that is definitely spelt wrong but that is how it sounds. It means here, telling the waiter to come here because I am ready to order. I find it rude, but that’s the culture.
Saturday turned out to be a fun day and night. I went to Itaewon to watch March Madness and man was this frustrating. The Canadian bartender was not in, so it was up to the Korean staff to run the TV. All the games are from the internet and are streamed to the tv. To put it nicely, they had no clue what was going on. Then some boob ( a customer) decided he was going to randomly change the game and the tv went out for about 30 minutes. Everyone heckled him and he left about 15 minutes later. It was nice to see some games and then later in the day one of my English Teachers came to visit and she brought me to an Irish pub for a Saint Patrick’s Day party and man was that bar fun. Too bad the trains stop running at 11.
Another English teacher and I bought a badmitton set today and man is that game difficult. Koreans love it, and they are really good at it. I made an ass out of myself playing that for a while but got my revenge later in the day playing basketball. Later in the day we were sitting in the park and I ran into one of my students, it was pretty funny. She took the role of the teacher and was teaching me Korean. When a student sees a teacher outside of class they go absolutely crazy, it is pretty funny. A little later in the day I saw another student of mine as we were walking to get some food; it took us a moment to realize it was a student and we already walked passed him so we only got to wave to him. I am guessing his mother is wondering why we did not stop and say hello.
Weather is still rather cold here, which makes for not the best of times. Hopefully it will warm up soon!