weekends and stuff

it's been a while, so i feel obligated to post something. as the weekend just ended, i should probably talk about that very subject. i'll start with last weekend.

last weekend was more interesting in retrospect than it was whilst in the thick of it.
friday night:

finished work at 10:30, then headed to the only bar i've gone to with any sort of frequency in ilsan, torro's. met up with a korean dude that i'd met there before. the last time i saw him, he was talking about studying for the gre and going to america. told him i didn't really have any drinking buddies, so we should get a drink sometime. anyhoo, as soon as i show up to this bar, i can tell that he thinks this is more than just two peeps getting liquored up. rut ro. awkward from the very beginning. highlights of said awkwardness:

-he complimented me ad nauseum. yes, of course i like compliments, but when you say them just to fill the silence and look at the floor while you speak, it makes it a little uncomfortable.
-when i went to the bathroom, he offered to escort me.
-when he went to the bathroom, he said "i'm just going number one. not number two. i think it's cute to tell people which one you're doing." is it cute? maybe i'm just old-fashioned...
-when we decided to quit drinking, he said "do you see any cops around? if there aren't any cops around then i can drive you home. " uh, no thanks.
-i got in the taxi and he just stood there looking like a sad dog.

i have a real problem when i find myself in these all-too-familiar situations. people might think, "why don't you just leave?" and i ask myself the exact same question, but when i'm there, i think it's my duty to uphold whatever the obligation is. i guess i'm sort of a pushover in many aspects of my life. this was a very clear reminder of that.

saturday i worked until 8 pm, then i headed into seoul to meet my friend lesley, from the asian affairs center in como. we went to itaewon and started off the night with a pitcher of margaritas at poncho's. headed to gecko's after that where my toe was nearly impaled by a wayward stiletto heel. interesting to me that that's my only real observation from that bar. after that we followed some other peeps to a bar on hooker hill, the name of which i don't recall. danced for a while, drank for a while, then needed a change of venue. this is where it got slightly more interesting, as some mischief which has been grossly lacking from my life ensued. we headed down a side street and stumbled upon a bar at the table. lesley became engaged in what appeared to be an engrossing, or at least mildly entertaining conversation. the next thing i know, the dude next to me has his arm around me and is trying to kiss my neck. eww. at this point i tried to send some distress signals to lesley, but it took a while for her to receive my transmissions. in the meantime, this dude says he wants to marry me and that he doesn't want another man to ever touch me. yikes. we eventually made it into the street, with my new husband's arm on me. he sure didn't want to let me go. nervous laughter. so i finally removed his arm from me, and we went on our merry way. then we noticed one of the other dudes from this bar was following us. it was fun to hide behind street signs and tents in order to evade him. but we did. ended up at bar nana, where the guys with tattoos who have consistently ignored me in the past decided that i was finally cool enough to acknowledge. headed to mcdonald's at about 6 am to round out the evening. post-mcdonald's headed back to lesley's hotel so i could gather my things. then i had to go to seoul station to catch the ktx train to busan for a friend's wedding. so yeah, a whirlwind of a night, which explains why i was awake for 40 straight hours over the course of the weekend.

moving on to my first korean wedding experience, also known as the least romantic event i've ever been privvy to. i guess a pap smear is pretty unromantic too, but let's not split hairs.

i got to busan where my friend gun (yes, his chosen english name) picked me up from the terminal. then we headed to jack's wedding. let me first note that i'm a tall girl. and on this day i was a tall girl wearing heels, so i got many a stare. so yeah, we walk into the monstrosity that is a korean wedding hall, the fast food restaurant of nuptials. people book these big banquet type rooms by the hour, so it's just a big building that's constantly full, shuffling wedding parties in and out of the rooms. so for every wedding that's going on, all the guests of all the weddings are sort of bottlenecking at the elevators. it was strange and crowded and i didn't know anyone. but i did get to see jack for all of 2 minutes. then he had to go get married.

the service itself was interesting. there's not really a lot of pressure on the bride and groom, as they didn't even have to speak during the whole ceremony. the parents were all wearing hanbok (traditional korean clothes), while the bride and groom were wearing bastardized, arguably gaudy versions of western wedding clothes. i seem to recall a lot of sequins. like the deb or rue 21 version of a dream wedding dress. the bride did look very pretty though. or at least i think she did, as she never looked up from the floor the whole time i was there. she did cry a lot, and there was a woman who worked for the wedding hall whose job it was to dab away her tears. very strange to have this woman in plain clothes shadowing the decked out bride. there was nothing inconspicuous about it at all. but back to the service. there was some cctv screen that all us peeps in the back could watch. the bride and groom just stood at this alter while a man talked a lot. there was no exchanging of vows, no exchanging of rings, no sentimentality in general. but there were some prerecorded commands that were played, announcing things like "this is the part where the groom bows before his new in-laws!" then there was a disco ball light that was turned on while the cake came out. i also recall a projection on the screen behind them of some little anime-type bride and groom characters. some chick sang a song about jesus, then some dudes sang a song about something else. and that was it. then we all shuffled upstairs for the free buffet. the buffet was also for all the other peeps attending all the other weddings in the building, so there was no sense of community, or of the worlds of the bride and groom nervously(beautifully?) colliding. it was just "hey, food's ready." i didn't even see jack and his wife in the buffet room. but, there was beer on the table, so that was cool. efficient is an adjective i would not usually associate with anything korean (same for romantic, and that holds true...), and yet, this wedding was the epitome of efficiency.

after the wedding, i was really planning on just hopping back on the ktx and heading home. i was exhausted, hadn't slept, smelled sort of funky, and had no motivation whatsoever. but gun had decided to be my tour guide for the day, so i wasn't let off the hook that easy. i felt bad for him, as i was basically this comotose zombie he dragged around the whole day, but we managed to do a lot, consuming lots o' coffee along the way. my tired, limited hours in busan made me rethink my whole negative attitude about korea. seems like that happens every time i go there. the air is different, the people are different. and i found myself wondering, "why the fuck am i in ilsan? i should be in busan." but, only two more months here, so i think i can hang in there.

anyhoo. we went to a beach first. not hongdae, but close to it. at this beach, there were people actually surfing. granted, the waves were too small to yield much success, but it was still cool. always wanted to try that, but i didn't even realize you could go surfing at beaches in korea. so we sat and watched the surfers and the kite fliers and the families engaging in general beach merriment. quite nice.

after that we headed towards hongdae, which actually took a long time. on the way, there's a scenic point where you can look out from a cliff onto the water. there were lots of vendors out and about selling food, used clothes, random toys and drinks. you can definitely tell when the weather changes in these parts, as the homeless people, beggars and vendors come out of the woodwork.

made it to hongdae and went on a quest for some keychains. these aren't regular keychains, they're keychains with dead fish in them, and i just think they're cool. or at least the last one i had was cool until it broke and oozed dead fish oil everywhere. eventually found the keychains, then bummed around the beach, drinking more coffee. gun wanted to try his hand at frisbee, so we hung around some foreigners, waiting for the wayward disc. he wasn't pleased with his frisbee prowess.

left hongdae, ate some samgyupsal, drank beer, then i headed back to the train station. i had some time to kill, so i fell asleep briefly at the coffee shop adjacent to the terminal. a very kind older woman came and woke me up and checked my ticket to make sure i wasn't going to miss my train. finally got to seoul, then had to get to ilsan. there were no buses convenient enough for me, so i said fuck it and took at taxi. taxi drivers in korea sure are chatty. i have the phone numbers of so many of them, too. in korea, it's hard not to get someone's number, because as soon as they see that you have a phone, they think you're going to be best friends. nevermind the fact that i live an hour and a half away from you, you speak no english, and you're 60 years old. yeah, sure, i'll call you next time i'm out drinking! rolled in at a cool 1 am in the morning. thus ending my 40 hours of being awake. you know, it wasn't as hard as i thought it would be. and i didn't even sleep well when i got home.

so that was last weekend.

on tuesday night i hung out with lesley in myeongdong. we tried to take a taxi elsewhere, but apparently that's impossible when it's raining. so we went to some random, generic bar. then we ended up in a street tent in the rain, drinking beer out of dirty bottles and eating clam soup. rather, i ate all of the clam soup. i'll eat whatever you put in front of me.

this weekend was a little less exciting, but still good. pretty much ruled out any sort of friday night, as i had to work at 8 on saturday morning. gross. my friend is in amsterdam now, but he wanted to get drunk on saturday before he left on sunday. so of course i agreed. headed to seoul after work, started drinking. we ended up in gangnam, which is losing whatever lustre i had previously afforded it. one drinking 'hood in korea is the same as any other. drank in a pseudo-tent, then went to the czech bar with meters of beer, met up with some dyb peeps at another bar. it's been awhile since i've been around that many foreigners who i sort of know. but it was good. i've given up on making friends 'round these parts, and i'm quite comfortable with that decision. ended up drinking until about 4 in the morning. felt bad for my friend, who was looking a little rough around the edges. but hey, he made it to amsterdam (i think), so no harm done. i, however, felt like shit all of yesterday. way too hungover, considering i just drank a shitload of beer. hmmm.

in other news, i got a new class at work. it's full of the lowest level 5th and 6th graders combined. they're beginning readers, so they don't really understand what they're reading yet. at any rate, the class certainly requires a lot of pantomime on my part. roles acted out so far: a stork, some frogs, and the god jupiter. but hey, they seemed to understand the story, so i can't be too bad.

good news, bears

i was accepted into the vietnam program. so at the end of july, i'll be spending a month in ho chi minh city [hopefully] getting my CELTA certificate. cool beans.

i have funny students.

today in one of my classes, we were talking about the story "the king's new clothes." i was explaining to these fourth graders that the term "birthday suit" meant naked, like when you're born. and james, a pudgy kid who is perpetually sweating and flustered, says to the korean teacher "maybe if the mother eats clothes then the baby will be born with clothes." i thought that was pretty funny.

in another class full of my mega-smart kids, we were talking about college and jobs, so i asked "what do you call a person who studies insects? and a kid says, "an insector." ha ha.

sickness and sadness

today is my first sick day since i started this job last june. i am very sweaty. there is snot-crusted toilet paper strewn all over my apartment. when i replace the tissues in my nose, a thin stream of goo pours out. also, the korean medicine i was given makes me more than slightly loopy. and i've drank a lot of nyquil in the past couple days. so that covers the sickness part....

now for the sadness. a few days ago i went to my favorite drinking establishment here in ilsan, the rosenbrau brewhaus. said brewhaus is known for it's meter high beers and for my favorite filipino band, featuring the vocal stylings of lloyd. lloyd needs no last name. usually, i go and get hammered drunk and embarass myself in any number of ways: 1) screaming "LLOYD" at the top of my lungs the whole time while the rest of the restaurant glares at me; 2) having lloyd sit on my lap for photos; or 3) going onstage to dance with the band and being forcibly removed by korean security. anyhoo, i show up the other night, ready to get my lloyd on, and his band's fucking gone. no more. replaced instead by a marc anthony wannabe and his jiggly, whorish side kicks. i don't want to hear shakira, folks, i want to hear journey. so my point is: fuck the brewhaus, i'm never going back.

seriously, i was really pissed. so yes, i had a crush on the lead singer of a filipino cover band in ilsan, south korea. and now my world is shattered.

here's a picture from the ol' good days: