Thursday, September 02, 2004

hello soju, goodbye vodka tonic

today is my first day of school. all jet lagged with no idea of what day it really is. this should be F.U.N. horace made us a good old u.s. breakfast of eggs and hash browns. at school we were greeted by jk. his father-in-law was there and he introduced us to him. he grabbed my arm smiling and said something in korean about my giant watch. thats one thing about koreans they aren't afraid to speak their mind. i also met the other employees: sunny, jk's sister-in-law, who is the receptionist, jean and sammy who are both teachers. everyone at school has english names. the whole was kind of surreal especially since i was running on very little sleep. i had one class that day. green a with a girl named sally. she's eight. horce taught her that day and i observed. i also sat in on one of his classes so that i could get a feel of what is expected of us.

after school which ends at 7 pm, we went home changed cloths then went out to dinner. horace took me to his favorite bbq place where the owner is this very extravagent woman. she loves westerns. we order the bbq pork which comes with all these side dishes that are refillable. the meat is cooked at the table but we didn't have to worry about it because she cooked it for us. one of the side dishes, kamja, was a cross between potatoe salad and cold mashed potatoes with a mayo type dressing. it was so good. all the food was really good. we also had a bottle of soju, a rice drink. it's like vodka but a little smoother and sweeter. i think i found my new drink. hello soju, goodby vodka tonic. the whole time we ate the owner kept coming to our table to sit and try to speak english to us. i probably understood every third word she said. the hardest part about the meal was trying to use the metal chopsticks. they're a little more trickier than the wooden ones. she brought me a fork but i refused to use it.

after dinner we went to carre four. its a super walmart/target/grocery store. it was a little over whelming. espeically since everything is in korea, however, they do have english written on the self so you get a general idea of what you are buying. carre four is my new favorite place. everything i could possible want is there. all the packaging is so damn cute, too. i wanted to buy everything. however, i only bought the staples for now. i did get some korean brand frosted flakes and herbal scented toilet paper which is now stinky up the cabinet.

the weather has been warm but i have airconditioning in my apartment. YEAH! now if i can only block out the neon lights i'll sleep like a baby.

No comments: