Monday, May 16, 2011

Buddha's Birthday, Movies and BBQ

Well, I haven't blogged for a while. Sorry guys! There usually isn't enough during the week since I'm mostly just working to blog about. But here is a post after several days!

Random story: I made hard-boiled eggs to eat for breakfast for a few days. I put them in the water, then forgot about them...Apparently if you forget about them, the end will crack, then some of the egg will come out of the egg shell, then cook so it's stuck there. It looks like this:

Tuesday was Buddha's birthday, which meant working at 9:30AM instead of 3:30 again for the holiday. My students were tired but pretty well behaved considering they could have been home. A few of the students did stay home though. Apparently many other kids did too, because I had 9 extra students in my Wednesday class.

After work, Bree, Craig, Octavian, Kim and I went to lunch. I got chamchi Kimbap (tuna kimbap, which is still my favorite thing) then went to see "Source Code. Here we are at the movie theater.


It's the Megaplex seen in previous blog (the one where I got lost), which has enormous theaters inside. and an elevator that looks over Sinchon. and I believe it may have been several floors. Kind of awesome. The movie was interesting. It was definitely entertaining, but this one actor really ruined it for me. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0942482/ He played the guy who created the "Source Code" technology. The problem was that he spoke sooo dramatically that it was completely unrealistic. I was thinking during the movie, "Wow he's not doing very well right now...He's being so dramatic." It was at about that point that Craig leaned over and said "He's talking like he's Yoda" which was very true.

After the movie, Kim and Octavian went to the Apple Store to buy Kim's new computer. Craig, Bree and I went to a coffee shop to sit and chat for a while. We ended up staying there for about 2 1/2 hours just talking. It was about 9:30 and we hadn't eaten, so we went to get dinner. We just had something small. I have absolutely no idea what I ate. One was a Kimchi Crepe thingy that wasn't a crepe, but there's no other way to describe it. The other had egg and meat and was in the shape of a circle. Both were really good. We ended up talking for about 3 more hours, then headed home for the night. Luckily, we didn't have an early day again!



Wednesday, I taught my enormous class, which required me to teach in a different classroom because I didn't have enough desks, then still have to borrow a desk from another classroom because there wasn't anywhere for a student to sit. It was a bit crazy, but the kids were well behaved. Wednesday's one of the days I just have one class while everyone else has two, so after class, I went home to relax a bit and watch my Tuesday night shows from home. Aka Glee and the Good Wife, the two best shows ever. I was just hanging around being lazy and in my pajamas, when at about midnight, Queena texted and asked if I wanted to go meet her friend in Hongdae (about 10-15 minutes walk from where I live). He is leaving Korea soon, but was in the area and she didn't want to go there on her own. I said yes of course. We went to a Music Bar, which of course had darts. We hung out with her friends and played darts. These friends were also very nice. I continued the illusion of being amazing at darts for another night. I got 3 bulls eyes this time. I have no idea how that happened.

Thursday was a normal day of work.

Friday after work, Bree, Craig, Jane and I got sam-gup-sal (Spelling? who knows). It was this:

Pork with various vegetables, garlic and other things. It was very good of course. As you can see, you cook the meat on the table and just move things around. The frying pan was tilted, so the grease ran downhill off the pan, which is gross, but at least it was going somewhere. It also kept crackling up and hitting us in the face, which was fun. haha. At one point, Bree was moving the meat around with the tongs and all of a sudden an enormous flame came shooting off the stove and straight in the air, which left us all looking really shocked and horrified. We hung out and ate for a bit, but went home relatively early, since Jane, Bree and I had to work early on Saturday.

Saturday, J and I walked to work in the morning. Then, I taught my class. After class, Queena, J and I went and got Shabu shabu (again spelling no idea) the soup where you cook the meat in the soup, then they make fried rice. Afterwards, we went around the neighborhood looking to see if there were apartments available for J, since she's moving closer to the school. She lives about 90 minutes away right now. We then went to the store and bought watermelon. J had to head home after that. Queena and I met Octavian, Kim, Peter and their friend Will Smith (yes that is his name) and we headed to the Han River to BBQ and eat lots of food. We took separate taxis because there were 6 of us and we were slowly quickly losing daylight.

This turned out to be a problem. Kim, Octavian and Will's taxi dropped them off at the right spot. Queena, Peter and my taxi dropped us off reallllly far away from the area where we were allowed to BBQ. We kept trying to get there, but had different directions from various people. Finally, a bus driver and passenger lead us in the right direction, which involved walking on an overpass across the highway, which had a lot of traffic,

down these stairs to the riverside, along the river for a long time,

and then finally getting there. Queena kept asking people if we were going the right way and each time the answer was "yes but it's really far." Poor Peter was carrying a watermelon We ended up at the wrong group of tents for a bit, which we realized when the entrance tickets were 66 dollars. Finally, we got to the campground where we could BBQ, just as the food was ready.

We ate lots of food, which including the watermelon that was amazing and just sat and talked. The campground was very busy and did not seem like the ideal place to camps, since the tents were very close together and not really near anything...but there were lots of families there Barbecuing and camping. We had lots of fun. We just chatted and hung out and ate food. Three of Kim's friends joined us. We played cards and talked about girly stuff that made Peter feel uncomfortable. haha. It was lots of fun!

When we left, we accidentally left at the same time that some sort of spring concert on the river was getting out. We knew we needed to take a taxi, but saw this line and thought it was for the taxi:

Thank heavens, it was for concert shuttle buses, otherwise we'd have been doomed! We hopped the shuttle bus' fence for the line, then walked up the hill. Then we kept walking and walking, until we finally got to a street that would lead us to a taxi. It didn't take too long to find one, so we managed to get home pretty quickly.

Sunday I went to Hwaseong Fortress, which I will write about in the next blog post!

1 comment:

  1. Hello Lauren,

    Wow been getting caught up on all your posts. What a great time you are having...not at all like Gig Harbor. Much more exciting. Love your photos and descriptions. You will be an expert by the time we come to visit...hahah.
    So glad your having fun. How is your computer doing? Your dad saved Anna as our computer froze and Anna had worked all day on a power point project. He talked her threw it. It was warm for a day...now its cold and greay..wahhh. Thomas ordered his cap and gown today...the last day you could..I will have a party for him, just a small things but we will be missing our Lauren. I will have Allison post some photos of it.
    Miss you.

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