Thursday was "Children's Day," one of the Korean national holidays that everyone gets off. Everyone, that is, except for my school. Instead, we had to work 6 hours earlier than normal. My students were complaining a bit, since it was also their testing day. But, we got off work at 4PM, which was great. It was 78 degrees outside. J and I were going to get dinner together, but then Tae, Kim, Octavian and Craig called us to join them, so we did. We got to the restaurant they wanted to go to, which basically is a buffet that serves a bunch of delicious side dishes (the same place Queena took me to my first weekend here) at about 4:30. They told us they didn't open until 5PM. Their sign also said they didn't open until 5PM. We said "ok" and went to Holly's Coffee for the 30 minutes to sit and chat. Then, we returned to the restaurant. All the doors were closed and they had changed the sign. They had taped a little piece of paper over the 5PM and changed it to 5:30. So, we went back to Holly's Coffee and sat around and talked some more. We also walked by this cafe:
We discussed how nice and welcoming our branch is and how lucky we feel to be here. I agree too. Then, we had dinner, which was pretty good and headed home for the day.
Friday, Queena, Drew and I went to Costco. On my way to work a woman from Vancouver said hello to me on the street. I'm pretty easily spotted as a foreigner. We chatted for a bit. Her husband works for the Canadian Embassy and she was waiting for her kids to get out of the Seoul Foreign School, which is on the same street as my school. Random Fact: Ken Jennings went to Seoul Foreign School for a while.
Friday evening everyone was quite exhausted for some reason, so we didn't do anything. It was rather cold at 3PM when I walked to work and considerably warmer and more humid when I left work at 10Pm. That was a bit strange to me.
Saturday, I had to work. Then, Queena and I went to dinner and had some delicious delicious chicken. I'm not exactly sure how to spell what it's called, but basically it was half a chicken with dumplings. Quite fantastic. Then, we got desert, which looked like this:
It's called Patbingsu. Basically it's a bunch of frozen fruit and this sweet red bean paste (which, yes, sounds really gross but it's super delicious and I don't even like red beans) topped with vanilla frozen yogurt. Clearly we only needed one order. It's a traditional Korean desert.
I also had to take a picture of the bathroom sign, which was promoting extreme creepiness by men:
After desert, we went to Hongdae and met Queena's friends from her training. We went to a Music and Darts bar and hung out. They were very friendly. We played a huge game of darts, where I gave the illusion that I was really good at darts by getting a bullseye and 2 triple-17s. I was very impressed with myself. And also very impressed that I didn't break any darts this time. Also, I learned that since there isn't a "v" in the Korean language that my middle name would be pronounced "Gene-bieb-uh" which I thought was kind of hilarious.
Today, I went to church with Kim, Octavian, Feng Xia, Steve and Steve's sister. Kim, Octavian and I didn't really know where we were going and just planned to wander around a bit until we recognized the right exit from the Subway. Kim thought it was Exit 12, I thought Exit 8 (I was correct by the way). But, just as we were getting on the train, I heard "Lauren?" and it was Steve. I am pretty easy to spot here, so he recognized my hair. He knew where we were going since it's his church, so that made it pretty easy.
After church, Kim, Octavian, Feng Xia and I went to Thunder Burger and had hamburgers. Pretty delicious. I hadn't had a hamburger for a while and when I walked in, I immediately smelled ketchup and thought "oh that smells delicious" which was strange since I don't even really use ketchup...
Then, tonight, Queena and I went to dinner at a Chinese restaurant and had fried rice and soup. I'll make this statement now so I don't have to repeat it all the time: Food in Korea is delicious.
This evening, I've watched a few episodes of Modern Family and procrastinated learning Korean letters. I can write my name now and might be able to recognize about 10 letters...I'll catch on pretty soon!
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