4 Weeks in?

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When our agile and ardent adventurer isn’t defending the English language against a formidable army of child warriors, hell bent on throwing articles where they don’t belong and assuredly refusing to put them in places that would guarantee fluency, he also goes out and sees the metropolis that surrounds him; but he mainly, a white board marker his only weapon, attempts to thwart calls of “Teacher! Teacher! Teacher!”

This week went by more or less uneventfully—which was OK by me. I got sick. I got better. I am getting better at breaking out the Purell every time one of those germ covered hands touches any part of my person.  We did have a kid pull the fire alarm this week—which sounded like an air raid siren and almost influencing me to lose control of certain bodily functions. My kids, the smartest in the school, just started giggling and asking, “Fire?!, Fire?!” no help to me at all. Upon walking out in the hall I find the rest of the foreign teachers on the floor equally confused but maybe less scared since they likely watch less science fiction than I might.

Friday is my long day and I have two classes who were sent by an angry, vengeful god who I have indeed offended to test my patience and my will. However, to paraphrase Star Trek, every moment of pleasure is balanced by an equal moment of pain, giving my Friday nights all the more reason to head out and find that pleasure with my teacher buddies having already experienced those moments of pain.

Itaewon was my Friday night destination to celebrate Chilean Independence Day. I found empanadas, Paraguayan not Chilean, but delicious as always.  Itaewon can’t be adequately described to the reader, despite said reader’s impeccable taste in blogs, the reader would just have to experience certain things here for themselves to really know what I’m talking about. I might give it another go in a future entry. It’s to foreigners what a Chinatown is to Chinese anywhere else in the world. It is the foreigner district located next to the military base, harboring massive amounts of foreigners, GIs in particular. One bonus was that I met some nice dudes from a Peruvian flute band ordering kebas in line with me.

Saturday night was my friend Gabi’s birthday and we spent the night in Hongdae and Hyewa with a visit to one of the nicest noraebangs in the area; leather couches, big screen tv, AC, not bad.

 Today I spent the day cleaning my studio and then went back to the Hyewa area with my friend Rosie stopping for galbi, the tastiest of tasties: Korean short ribs. Cooked in front of you and cut into small pieces, wrap them in lettuce and cover them in hot sauce. We have a winner. I need to learn more Korean however, asking for pork short ribs was an embarrassing and funny experience for both Rosie and me and two of the cooks and an English speaking college student on a date with his girlfriend… After devouring the ribs, now residing pleasantly in our stomachs, we headed to a place called O’Sulloc which has traditional Korean green tea from the island of Jeju. I’ve wanted to try the green tea for a while and I wasn’t disappointed.

The author wishes to respectfully acknowledge that this entry was really, really long and you have a job and should have been working. So go back to doing that and know that the author has every intention of writing more edible sizes of text. Adios.