Another Day, Another Adventure

It’s Wednesday evening, and there is yet another fruitful days worth of adventure to report. School was yet again the same ol’ sit around and do nothing. At least today I got a schedule of what classes I’ll be teaching, although the internet failed throughout much of the day and my free trial of Microsoft Office is running out so I don’t really have a word processor in which to write out my plans. Ohhh well. I also found out that I won’t be getting internet till at least next week it seems. Just swell. But enough of the bad news, as there was plenty of good to report. I now have a bank account and am happy to report that I am a happy and successful several hundred thousandaire…in won. 300,000 won to be exact, as I finally got my living allowance for the next month and an ATM card to boot. That victory was closely followed by my first encounter with an actual living and breathing English speaker, namely another English teacher from the local elementary school. His name is Deon and he’s from South Africa and he’s been in town for six months now and he gave the full rundown on everything, finally answering all the questions I couldn’t communicate to my gracious hosts. After the school day officially ended one of the fellow teachers at my school offered to drive me home, take me out to dinner, and help me find a PC bong, that’s Korean for room as I learned, so I could use the interwebs. For dinner she took me out with her sister and fellow friend for delicious kalbi, which appears to be grilled beef. Yes, dictionary confirms it is spare ribs. Anyways, the food was wonderful as usual, and Im assuming not cheap at all, as calamari was one of the endless side dishes available. Yeah, these Koreans don’t fuck around when it comes to restaurants. This makes 5 nights eating at restaurants out of 6 days in Korea, and none of them on my tab. At this rate I’ll have hit all the food joints in town in a matter of weeks and there is a fuck ton of places to eat at here. After dinner it was off to the PC Bong, or PC room, which is where many a Korean child has wasted his or her childhood away with games such as Starcraft, Starcraft, and undoubtedly more Starcraft. Once inside, one could smell the broken dreams and wasted lives in the air. It was pungent to say the least. After sending off a e-mail to the family, I arrived at home, only to be greeted not five minutes later by Deon, who decided to stop by and offered to show me around town. So we left and wandered around town while Deon showed me the best bars and clubs, as well as let me in on the secret of teaching English under the table at private academies behind the school’s back for some extra cash. Who knew there was a dark and dirty side of English teaching? Anyways, we headed off to the English teachers bar of choice, Bobo’s for some cheap, by Madison standards, beer. Beer is generally about 2.50 per mug here in Yangpyeong. I also learned there are about 10 or so native English speakers from England and Scotland, and several from the States. I got back to my apartment after several drinks only to be interrupted, this time by the PE teacher who came to inform among other things that I’m invited to come along with him and probably his family up to the mountains to fish and then eat that fish over the Korean thanksgiving holiday coming up next week, where I get Monday and Tuesday off. Ohhh, and I’m probably heading into Seoul this weekend to get shown around by Hyun, one of my former students from ESL. And you guys just started class. Wow, sucks to be you guys.