weekend fun party with Clayton!

So yesterday we met my friend Clayton at the bus terminal/E Mart. Clayton is a good friend that we have known since high school, and he currently lives in Seoul. For all of you who remember me talking about our "friend in Seoul who tutors that stem cell guy..."--well, that's Clayton. He is also the person who initially told us to check out Asia for job opportunities, so we owe him a lot. Anyway...We showed him around Chuncheon a little bit, and it was a really fun day. We ate on dakgalbi street; went to the underground mall (and ran into the same group of middle school chicks we met last week. They were very excited that we remembered them at all); went to the street market, which was really packed and awesome; saw a Bruce Willis movie at the "cinema"; ate dinner at our famous BBQ restaurant across the street; went to a bar and met some really nice Russian chicks and then went dancing. We got home around 4:00 in the a.m. It was fun. Today we were going to go ride these swan-shaped paddle boats on Lake Chuncheon, but we woke up and it's raining. Who knows what we will do today? Recover perhaps... It is just nice to see Clayton, a familiar face from home; and it's also nice to sort of play tour guide, even though I'm still a newbie in this particular city. Next weekend we will go visit Clayton in Seoul, where there is a giant lantern festival to celebrate Buddha's birthday. I think that means we get a day off of work, so if that's the case--props to Buddha. I'm sure we will have some kickass lantern footage. I've heard it is supposed to be really incredible. We shall see.

It's been awhile...

Since last I blogged. Sorry, folks--we've been busy with school and partying. Just kidding sort of. Yesterday Rory and I walked around Myeongdong, trying to get lost because it was such a nice day. We were going to visit Soktcho, a town relatively close to ours (in the same province) that is on the sea and is said to have some of the most amazing landscape in korea. This is both easy and hard to believe, since Chuncheon and Korea in general (what I've seen of it) is so freaking beautiful. Soktcho for another day, I guess. But here in Chuncheon we got me some new shoes--I have big feet; the girl at the converse store knew very little english, but she did know "oh, very big" and pointed at my feet. Yup, I know. Even in the US of A they're big. Rory pointed to his feet and told her 13, and her eyes got really big. They simply do not grow them that large here in Korea. We ate at a vietnamese restaurant and tried this really good beer called 333--it was a light beer that tasted like a stout almost, so we bought a couple more and walked around all these little side, slummy streets with them (you can drink beer outside here, not like that rules our life, but it's still nice). We met about 7 high school/middle school chicks (all about nadine's age) who thought we were the coolest things they'd ever seen. We walked with them for a bit and they took pictures of us on their phones. I'm sure they are all trading those pictures back and forth. We went back to the first place we ever ate at here in Chuncheon--chan and chan's fried chicken--just for posterity and because we were in our old hood. It was nice to realize how much we have improved; we are no longer intimidated by eateries or korean characters (i sort of just rely on rory to tell me what i'm looking at. thanks...). All in all it was a pretty uneventful day, but it was one of those days where I felt like I was on vacation. It was awesome.

Karaoke

I had thought long and hard about not putting this on the internet for everyone to see, then i decided i don't care.
This is from one of our neighborhood karaoke places. You pay by the hour to sing using their rooms. Sometimes, you get bored....and this happens.

these dreams go on when i close my ey-ey-ey-ey-eyes

i had a funny dream. i dreamt i was on the moon. but i was at a bar on the moon and a guy who looked sort of like a cowboy came and sat down next to me. there were lots of people hovering to get seats at the bar and he lucked out. so i started talking to the moon cowboy, and his name was james mcgregor. i don't remember what else happened, but after the dream was over and i was still in that weird post-dream state, i remember thinking "i need to google james mcgregor and tell him i had a dream about him." so i googled him, and turns out he's not the soulmate i had seen in my dream. my moon cowboy is this guy. great, you wrote a book about business in china, but i don't want to drink a beer with you on the moon, or see you in ass-less chaps. sorry. the alternate spelling is james macgregor. but another dud--a presidential biographer. i like presidents as much as the next person, but i don't like presidential biographers.

other stuff. i think i've talked before about family marts and their prevalence in all of chuncheon. pretty much every block has a family mart. they're just gas-less gas stations. anyhoo, there's one pretty close to my apartment, and one night i needed to get some sundry (i don't remember what). so i walked in, and the same guy who was working the last time was there--50-60 years old and super nice. last time he was reading the bible and he gave me a map of chuncheon. this time when i walked in, he said to me "soju?" so i thought he thought that's what i was looking for, and i said "no." then i wandered around looking for something in the direction of the office. sitting very low to the floor were 4 more middle-aged korean men surrounded by a huge spread of food and bottles and bottles of soju. so then i pointed to them and said, "oh, soju!" then the man "working" started blessing himself and telling me i needed to bless myself. so i did (incorrectly, i think), then he handed me some chopsticks and ushered me into this room of middle-aged men who didn't speak english. so one of them gave up his seat on a crate and then they started feeding me kimbop and soju. i told them i was an american english teacher (miguk saram=american person; sonsaengnim=teacher). but for the next fifteen minutes while i was awkwardly sitting there, this one guy just kept saying "blah blah blah canada", but really excitedly. after we finished one bottle of soju (in dixie cups, no less) one of the men motioned to me to move so he could get into the crate i was sitting on. turned out it was a whole case--probably 30 bottles--of soju. so we killed another bottle. at this point, i started to feel like maybe they were making fun of me, so i politely left. i had not been planning to drink that night, but it seemed like an opportunity i shouldn't pass up. and i ended up drinking the rest of the night. so thanks, random dudes.

the weather here for the past couple of weeks has been really great spring weather, but last week there was some random heavy snow. wednesday nights are my nights to go out to eat with a friend of a friend, so he picked me up and it was raining. by the time we got to the restaraunt on the mountainside, it had started snowing pretty hard. and nice big flakes. not sticking too much to the road, but enough to make the ground white . so it was just me and dude in this really really nice restaraunt overlooking the city. we were sitting right next to the window while this pleasant storm outside quietly worsened. though i couldn't really see the view of the city, i knew it was out there below me. but i was quite content to see snow instead of city lights. it was a really great meal and the conversation with my complete opposite was more natural than it has ever been. so a good relaxing night. when i got home, i propped my feet up in my giant bay window sill and sat in the dark watching the snow.

my korean is still progressing, slowly but at least slowly instead of not at all. every day when i go to teach these little kindergartners, i am amazed by their capacity to learn and their impressionability. they really are little sponges soaking up everything and learning through osmosis. i was skeptical at first, but i'm at the point now where i can actually hear their progress. i get to spend 3 hours a day with these same 3 little kids speaking nothing but english to them. even if i have no lesson plan, it has to have some positive effect on them. when i started the class, the one boy, owen, was the least vocal and most uncomfortable--not just with me, but with the other two girls. now the three of them are best friends and owen is constantly singing the songs we learn. granted he sings, "my name is amy" (and amy always tells him "your name is owen, not amy"), but it's better than nothing. they also seem to be understanding phonics a lot better than most of my other classes. i dunno. it's just cool to see/hear real progress and know that it can only be attributed to me as the only native speaker in these kids' lives. now if only i could learn korean this way...

on saturday, i met another friend of a friend who was the son of watermelon farmers. he's 31, lives in the dormitory and has seen forrest gump approximately 20 times. (if you think living in the dorms as a 31 year old is bizarre, consider the fact that people here live with their parents until they get married. no wonder there's so much societal pressure to get hitched. it's quite common for 28 year old men and women to still live with their parents and have to check in with them). anyhoo...we drove along the riverside, and it was serene and beautiful, despite the pretty constant barrage of rain. we ended up at this cafe by the river called rivercafe. pretty clever there. anyhoo, it seemed like a coffee shop that would have fit right in in austin or something. lots of randomly matched--and seemingly used, which is unheard of here--furniture. there also was a ton of art everywhere because the owner was a former art professor. so sculptures in the yard, paintings on the walls. it was quite refreshing and comforting just to be in an atmosphere characterized by someone who actually had some sort of obvious creative aesthetic, some humanity and a hint of passion in this space.

the other day in my last class at school, two of the boys were talking in korean so i barked "only english" at them. kevin looked at me and told me that ryan loves me. and that's what they were talking about. my face got really red and the other little kid was mortified.

one last random thing. in the cab the other day i heard two songs back to back that i was not prepared for. the first was juice newton's "queen of hearts." the second was "black diamond" by kiss. i think i would have been more impressed had it been the replacements, but shit, i'll take kiss in chuncheon, south korea anyday.