Harry Potter and Double Virility...a deadly combination

The last two days, well, things happened. As usual. And now I sit down to recap them. So here we go. Saturday started bright and early, as I was signed up for a Korean culture day, which originally sounded lame until I found out that I would be going with a bunch of other foreign teachers. OMG, I actually get to speak English. Thank Jesus, Allah, Shiva, whoever it takes. One of the Madison girls who was also at the orientation last week, Amy, was coming so I met here at the train station and we walked to Yangpyeong Middle School. Upon arriving, we met some of the other local teachers, most notably Bert and Max. My stunning introduction to Bert went something like this: "Where do you live? (Bert)" "I live above Myung Moon Hagwan (Me)" "...What room? (Bert)" "Room 302. (Me)" "Room 304. (Bert)". Yep, that's right. I have another foreigner living two rooms down. If we yelled loud enough, we could probably talk to each other through the wall. He's only been here for about a week, but he did talk to the landlord and the guy said nothing about me. What a fucking cockbag! If you know there is another foreigner to talk to 2 rooms away, why the fuck wouldn't you say that? Bert is a 48 year old former safety specialist at a garbage burning plant from North Carolina. He wants to work in Korea for a couple of years, save up some cash, then go to Bangkok and start a sports bars for foreigners where they can see american football and stuff like that. Like I said cool. The other townie on the trip was on Max Han, 20 something from New York and Albany College, who just happens to have immigrated to the US from...wait for it...Korea when he was 10 months, so he can actually speak and converse in Korean pretty damn well. Which means none of the rest of us have to do dick when we go to restaurants now. Well, after introductions, we hopped onto the bus and rode back to Yongin for unteenth time in the last few days. After we arrived at the folk village we were treated to a brunch of bulgogi and some sort of seafood pie kinda thing. Brunch consumed, we had 3 hours to wander the folk village. It was a very pretty with the changing leaves and the river that ran through the middle of it (see pics). Most of the small houses were actually occupied older Koreans authentically performing such tasks as blacksmithing, weaving cloth, etc. Plus, they had a old timey market where you can buy all kinds of sweet little trinkets such as hand made pipes, hand made stamps, Korean burial masks, little carved statues, etc. Expect most of your X-mas presents to come from here, or Insa-dong, since they sell the same stuff. The best part of the day was the hoards of tiny Koreans trying to practice their English. I guess their school knew that many foreigners come here, so they gave each kid a little paragraph about some traditional Korean aspect of life and the kids had to tell it to us in English. Then we had to sign their books and give them a score. It was absolutely adorable, these little elementary kids speaking better English than most of my students. As you can see from my profile pics, they barely come up to my knee so I usually squatted down to chat with them. I just wanted to grab a couple and put them in my pocket, but I'm told that's illegal. One of the many groups actually gave me a little pen and dangly thing that attaches to one's phone, which of course made the other two female foreigners jealous since I was the most popular. They just get beauty over here, that's all I can say. They even started calling me Harry Potter, since I look like him to them. I'm a celebrity wherever I go here. After our trip ended, the foreigners headed home and decided to go out to dinner together, so with our merry band of whiteys from America to Scotland to South Africa and everywhere in between we set out upon a rampage of destruction and carnage through downtown Yangpyeong, terrifying many a school child and woman with our massive height and body hair. Yeah, there was 11 of us, so we made quite the scene wandering downtown. During dinner, I bumped into a soccer team member eating at the same restaurant, once again prompting the foreigners to rib me about the town celebrity. Seriously, everyone knows who I am in this town, weird. After good conversation and drink I had to say goodbye as I had to get up bright and early for the soccer game on Sunday. 6am to be exact, as I was having breakfast with the team before the bus leaves at 7:30am. The game, however, didn't go our way, as we lost in PK's. Which, to my surprise, didn't damper the celebrations. We yet again hit the soju and beer as soon as we got to the parking lot, no different from if we had won. Several hours later I yet again had dinner with the gym teacher. To show you just how insist he is on not giving me alone time, here's my last week: Sun went to Seoram with him, Mon had dinner with him, Tues had dinner with him, Wed would've played soccer but I was much too ill, I guess, Thurs had dinner with him, Fri got alone time by telling him that I was going to hang out with another english teacher, Sat he called about dinner/hanging out, but I told him I already had plans with the foreigners (which I actually did), today went to the soccer game, he invited me to go to Yongmunsa the buddhist temple in the afternoon, I said no because I wanted to relax, but then he wanted me to go to dinner, and I did. Wow. Ohhh, and in the coming week, we are jogging/playing soccer together on Tues, Thurs, and Fri morning and playing tennis after school on Wed. I can only imagine I'll be asked to eat with his family every night as well. This is way too much. I haven't actually had sufficient alone time in the last week to be able to read a book, as school was a mess with the co-teacher just up and leaving with her illness. I blame it on his kids. I would have said no many times before, but what am I supposed to do against a 3 and 7 year old yelling in the cutest voices "Mistah Eric, Let's have dinner!!!". I'm too much of a fucking softy. But seriously, this is getting a bit much. And no mom, its not just as easy as telling them I want alone time. First, they don't really understand the concept and secondly and most importantly, there is no way to go about this without possibly offending them and causing deep long term repercussions. I still need these people to help me get stuff done for my job, and if they take my asking for distance the wrong way, my next 10 months could be absolute hell. Let the tightrope walk begin.