The Weekend

Ok, I am slacking hardcore on the posts here. Once again, I feel I have adapted a bit to living here and I don't really have any stories that I feel are as exciting or as new of experiences as the first month.

But alas, people have started to complain about how infrequent I make posts these days. I know that I've been pretty lazy, but do we really need to hear about the things that I am doing here, that don't really differ from my University days?

I mean, last weekend I did some drinking. I got hung over. I recovered and drank some more. That's really not much different from my days at Trent.

To add to that, last night I played some poker, I won some money...how is that different from school?

I guess I will dedicate this post to my weekend and try to outline any key differences I find from weekends in Canada.

Alright, so the weekend started on Friday night...who'd have thought? I called Anne when I got home from work around 9:30 to see what the plan for the night was. I was told to meet in 45 minutes at communes, a favorite foreigner bar of the group of friends I hang out with. It took me about an hour to get there, but all was good. We had some drinks there while we waited for others to trickle in.

At first it was a small group of people which was nice for socializing. I told everyone I wasn't staying out too too late as I wanted to be up at 9am for a class my school offered for free. The class was Korean lessons which I was quite excited about taking. As more people came we decided to go to a restaurant close by as many people had not eaten yet.

At the restaurant we ordered Pork which we barbecued right at our tables...something more common in Korea then I recall back home. It was an opportunity to see if the practice with chop sticks had paid off. Success I was able to use them to feed myself pork! I also ate a bit of fried Kimchi, which I really have no idea what is. I don't really like it, but it doesn't make me gag so it is ok. I think it is better fried as well.

We forgot to order beer with our food, but luckily there is a little button at each table you can press to summon the waiter. Mike summoned him over and ordered some beer for the 4 of us at that table and we had beer with our BBQ'd pork! Mike also had a menu and I tried reading some of the things on it. Mek Ju and So Ju....Beer and well, So Ju. It's a really cheap Korean alcohol kind of like vodka and usually made from rice. I got props for being able to read so well for being here only a month.

After eating we headed back to communes for some pitchers of beer. At around 3am everyone decided it was time to head to Thunder Birds at which point I decided it was time to head home so I could wake up for my Korean class in the morning.

I didn't make it. My alarm either didn't go off, or I didn't hear it, or I unknowingly woke up and turned it off and went back to sleep. I woke up around 9:45 and it takes around 45 minutes to get there, so I probably wouldn't be able to make it until 11. I was not even sure how long it was, but I found out later it was a 3 hour class. 1 hour would probably not have been worth my effort. I just went back to sleep and woke up around 1pm.

Later that Saturday, I met a guy I play poker with and some of his friends at Hotel Ariana. They have a band that plays there Saturdays and they offer an all you can eat buffet along with all the beer you can drink from 5-9. We showed up at 5. Unfortunately I had to work at 9am Sunday and this was something I definitely couldn't miss so I vowed to take er easy. I did not indulge in all the beer I could drink but I did eat perhaps more food then I had in my stay in Korea so far. I also did drink a decent quantity of beer, I just paced myself and let food absorb it a little better then I normally do.

It too was a good night. Enjoyed the company of some new people...mostly Brits actually. The regular crew I hang out with are mostly Canadian....mostly from Ontario at that. There are a couple Americans and a couple Koreans as well. I spent a lot of time practicing the chop sticks and believe I am steadily improving.

Once 9 o'clock hit and they expected us to pay for our drinks we headed down town. I went for a drink with one of the Brits at communes before I caught the Sub Way and was home before mid night.

I made it to work half an hour early and they put me to work right away. I spent 8 hours editing and grading the papers and assignments that the kids had written. Fun. It wasn't that bad actually. Surprisingly I can actually sit and do work hours straight when I am getting paid to do it. I was also fed lunch. I once again used chop sticks and I pretty much ate the pork. And by that I mean I only ate pork and I ate most of it. I hope the others didn't want any.