Lazy Days

Because Thursday felt like a Saturday, it was a little strange to have two days off following an easy Friday.  Diane and I opted to meet in Insadong, a neighborhood filled with traditional tea shops and souvenirs.  There are also a lot of art galleries in the area, not to mention some real good food :)  We'd been to the area before (on the day of the crazy fireworks festival) but hadn't done much exploring off the beaten path.  That was our goal for the day, and we accomplished it to some extent.

We ended up eating in the same restaurant that we had discovered last time, but vowed to order different food.  So, we did, if by different, you mean the same type of food, but slightly different ingredients.  We know what we like, I guess.  We found ourselves eating kimchi and laver (seaweed) pancake and spicy shellfish/seafood dok buki.  Both were amazing as well as the accompanying side dishes of kimchi, and cold glass noodles.  There were a couple of other side dishes that we opted to skip out on (the only one I remember was pea pods surrounded by anchovies - I ate one pea pod to just make sure I wouldn't like the accompanying anchovy taste). 

After a successful round of Christmas shopping, we found ourselves ready for some tea.  We wandered into a basement cafe to find that the place was literally empty.  We couldn't really walk in and leave when the proprietors had seen and welcomed us to their place, so we reluctantly sat down on the sofas that served as booths.  The place was cute enough and very comfortable, but we tend to stray away from places that have no one else in them.  And, since it was in a basement, the place smelled real musty.  We decided to make the most of the experience and ordered our drinks.  I ordered cherry tea, thinking it would be a nice herbal tea with a mild flavor.  What arrived minutes later was literally hot kool-aid.  No joke.  But, it tasted good enough so I drank it as Diane and I tried to play Jenga.  The cafe had a stash of board games and Jenga seemed to be the best choice among them, however many of blocks were not willing to budge, which made for a lackluster game.  All in all, the place and experience was pretty funny, but I think you had to be there to fully appreciate it :)

After more wandering around, we happened upon a small group of shops that resembled a mall, but made up of small boutiques instead of chain stores.  In the middle of the venue, there was a large gathering of people.  After observing for a few moments, Diane and I realized that a popular paste company (they make pepper paste, soybean paste, fermented bean paste, etc. all of which are heavily used to flavor Korean cuisine) was giving away free tubs of soybean paste.  People waited in line for their free tub for an extensive amount of time and I'm pretty sure Diane and I spent just as much time watching them from the floors above.  We love people watching and this event provided some quality material.

We've seen several groups offering Free Hugs in many of the touristy areas and Saturday in Insadong was no exception.  We saw two group of Free Huggers holding their signs in hopes of spreading warm fuzzies.  I love the statement Free Hugs make and often try to take artsy-ish pictures of them.  As we were walking through the streets, we saw a group of Free Huggers.  A couple of British guys walking behind us also saw the Free Huggers and we overheard the following conversation from which we both got a good chuckle:

(Imagine, if you will, their British accents, which made it even funnier)
Guy 1: What is the point of them giving free hugs anyway?
Guy 2: They're trying to spread goodwill or something.
Guy 1: It sounds more like a chance at a free grope if you ask me.

We figured that we had seen all we wanted of Insadong so we headed to the nearby neighborhood of Myeong Dong (it was time, since we hadn't been there for a whole two weeks!) to scout out some dinner.  We both agreed that we need to start exploring different neighborhoods than the ones in our comfort zone, but we were so close and we knew we would find some really good food.  We were right.  We ended up eating in a restaurant called School Food which serves the same types of food as school lunches, but with much better flavors.  We ordered cheese ramen, bulgogi mari (basically, beef kimbap) and mandu.  When our food arrived minutes later (service here is lightning fast!), I literally started giggling like a school girl at the sight of the ramen.  It was a bowl of ramen in the usual red soup, and the cheese component of the cheese ramen was literally what appeared to be a Kraft single floating on top.  It looked a little sad, but as we dug in, we didn't regret our ordering decision one bit.  Somehow, the flavors combined to taste exactly like nacho cheese.  YUM.  While we enjoyed our meal, we also enjoyed the musical stylings of the hostess's itunes mix.  She played a bunch of popular American songs to which Diane and I sang along to every song with great gusto as we enjoyed our school food.  We made sure to tell her how much we loved her music selections as we paid for our meal. 

Sunday was a lazy, lazy day, just the way I like it.  Nothing special to report, other than skyping with the folks and one of my best pals, Ruth.  Both were enjoyable experiences.

Yesterday was such an easy day...  I'm not really clear on the details, but the third year students spend the mornings this week preparing for another test of some sort and then have the afternoons off, so no third year classes this week.  So, I taught one class yesterday, in which I gave an exam, and had to the rest of the day to work at my desk.  I finished another TEFL lesson and got in some quality Facebook time.

Today I didn't teach any classes because the first and second year students had a mock SAT test.  I've gotten a lot done today - another TEFL lesson, writing the first years' test, prepping for all of the tests, planning part of winter camp (ten lessons right in the middle of winter vacation for the incoming first year students) and planning the teacher's class tomorrow.  I also made an awesome mix on itunes of my favorite 100 songs from movie soundtracks.  Like I said, real productive :) 

Tonight there is a teacher's dinner for the whole staff at some restaurant in town.  I've been told the menu involves duck, which I've also been told is very healthy, just like everything else Koreans eat.  I love that everything they eat has a specific health purpose and that they are not shy about telling you what each food does for your body.  I'm sure funny stories will ensue because of the combination of their colorful personalities and copious amounts of adult beverages.  Raucous laughter can be heard routinely from the office at any point throughout the school day, so I can only imagine what happens over a free dinner.  Stay tuned for the hilarity.

While you all celebrate Thanksgiving on Thursday, I'll be testing first year students over contractions, comparisons and synonyms, antonyms and homonyms.  Then, after school I'm interviewing about eight students to help select who among them gets to study abroad in Australia.  I'm excited to talk to them about what they hope to glean from such an experience.  I admire them for having the courage to study abroad at such a young age.  This school offers its students some really cool opportunities!  Then, on Saturday, I'll spend the day at a Thanksgiving gathering at Dionne's apartment with her family and several of their friends from church, complete with all of the traditional Thanksgiving fare.  This will be the first turkey I've eaten in almost four years, so that will be a little different :)