Year 1 - Seasons Greetings

Season's Greetings, again!

When I last left off it was the day before the night before Christmas.

Christmas Eve caught me at my best and worst. I had supper with Don and Mary, the owners of the hagwon as well as the 2 South African teachers. We went to a meat and side dish place and hade Galbi. Galbi is beef on the bone. Actually a strip of beef attached to the bone, which you grill up in front of everyone with garlic, onion, Korean sweet potato, and mushrooms. Plus you have a plethora of side dishes. Several types of kimchi, duenjoen chigae, oysters, miniature clams, large peppers to dip in a bean paste, sweet potato noodles, daikon radish, things like that. It was a pretty good time. Even with a bit of a suck up fest I had to put up with from one of the other teachers.

The night took a downturn after dinner. Hilda and the gang who went to Cheju Island called. After talking with them I started getting depressed. All my friends in Korea were either on Cheju Island or off snowboarding. All my family and other friends are in Canada and the US, far away. Yeah, I got a case of the "poor me's". So, I promptly smacked myself one and decided to go out. It turned out that a teacher (Patrick) from another Hagwon and his brother Gordon were still in town. He had hurt his ankle so the snowboarding trip ended up being one night. I ended up joining them at a nearby bar.

Along comes Flint, with his Santa Hat on, and the festivities began. There was a table with 7 Korean women at it. They kept looking over at us. So, mainly due to Patrick, we ended up joining them, and picking up all 7 of them for most of the night. :) What can I say, it was amusing to see other guys try to come over, and the girls send them away to stay with us.

It turns out all 7 of them had been in Canada. They had each spent time, some a year, in British Columbia. Several even sported Canadian flag decals on their phones. They also all spoke English fairly well. We ended up at a nurae-bang (karaoke room) with 4 of them. I got home after 5AM Christmas morning. It was a great night. Odds are we will be getting together with them tomorrow night, New Years Eve. ;)

Mind you it is pretty much impossible to have a social life right now. Actually for the next month. It is winter break here, so all the parents send their kids to private schools. My January hours will be 11 hours a day teaching. 6:30-11:00Am and back from 2:30-9:00PM. Weekends are free, and we have a four day break at the end of the month. Which we will definitely need. I am thinking of spending some time in Seoul.

New Years Eve should be fun. Mind you, it will also be a little sad. It will be our farewell, again, send off for a teacher, Dave. He will be leaving January 2nd for Prague to take a course, and teach. He is a pretty cool guy, one of the better teachers, and people here. We will miss him.

Tonight we took him to the same place I went to Christmas Eve for a send off dinner. Damn it was good. :) Here is a price comparison for you. For 7 of us to eat it cost a whopping 43,000 won. Lets say $43 CDN. It cost 4 people $120 CDN to have a similar, but smaller, dinner at a Korean restaurant in Halifax. Quite the difference.

I hope everyone has a great New Year!

Take care

Flint

*****

I will have to devote a post to the other 2 teachers at the school. I don't really mention them because they were assholes. (Done.)

Heh ... the 7 girls was ALL Patrick's work. Not mainly due to ... all due to. One of the most outgoing people I have ever known and just a great person over-all.