西洋오랑캐

This weekend I took a trip to the zoo with Reese and her friend Ellen. Ellen had a Korean name (which I have forgotten), but asked me to give her an English name, which I did.
Once we entered the zoo, the first creature we saw…the zebra, or as my friends (and previously my taekwondo master) called it, the “jeebra” (there’s no Z sound in Korean). Totally awesome!
Anyhow it was great fun in that I got to utter the greatest line of Korean ever, “Excuse me, but where are the hippos?” Totally random!

Today we headed off to a cartoon museum with the kindergarten students. Here are some photos, since a pictures speak a thousand words, which are about 950 more words than I feel like typing.

Here we see Heidi and Simon rockin’ out at the cartoon museum. I don’t think I have any pictures where Simon is not stick out his tongue…I’m not sure what is wrong with that boy.

Oh man this picture rules! We were at some cartoon museum…they had to wear 3-D glasses. Eric ended up looking like this! Eric is really holding it down!

Here are my students Eric and Gabby in 3-D glasses. We were at a cartoon museum and they had watched some 3-D cartoon, hence the glasses.

It’s Juju! I was going to change her name, but she is a Juju…there’s nothing you can do about it. Apparently in this country Juju is some sort of Barbie-esque doll. I think that’s where she got the name.

Here’s my student Kristy at the cartoon museum we went to at some point. She had teeth like a cat, but later they were normal. She has a crush on me and continually tells me, “안아줘요!” (hug me). She’s a strange character.

Reese and Stephanie on the field trip to the cartoon museum. These are the girls who hook up the kids with lunch, clean up piss when the kids don’t make it to the bathroom on time, and sweep up trash when we don’t clean our classrooms.

These ladies up in here are so confusing. They do things that in America would pretty much constitute dating someone, but then claim that they are not dating. I don’t really get it. For example my lady friend has bought me all kinds of random stuff, but then claims she doesn’t want a boyfriend, but then refers to our meetings as “dates,” and holds my hand. I really do not get it.
Anyway I’m outta here! Today is field trip day at school. We are going to a museum of cartooning which should be dope. I’ll give you the full report later.

On Sunday I went rollerblading with Reese and her friend. During this rollerblading adventure I recieved suprisingly few injuries. The only minor injury I suffered was caused when a rollerblading woman (with less skill than myself) cut me off while going down a hill. Rather than slam into her, I swerved out of the way and ended up smashing my armpit into some hand rail. But when all was said and done it was good fun.

Today was the real Chusok holiday. Reese came over to my apartment and we cooked some dinner together. It was a shabbily assembled assortment of food that included 떡볶이, 돈까스, potatoes and carrots, corn, and ice cream.
After we ate, we played yutnori, a traditional Korean game played on Chusok, and then we studied Korean (woohoo exciting). After studying we decided to go to Han River Park and light off fireworks, so we did just that. Also some old man took our picture (it was his job, he was not a perv.) It was a pretty decent end to a nice day.

At Han River Park with Reese.

Today kicked of the Chusok holiday, and to celebrate I went moutain climbing today with Darrell and some of his lady friends. We rocked out on Gwanak-san which was pretty decent. At some point we stopped to eat some ramen, and the German girl we were with was lost. After climbing and decending from the mountain, I met up with wonjangnim. He took me out for some kalbi which was fairly awesome.

On the mountain with Darrell and his ladies. I am seated next to Mandy. Mandy is from Hong Kong. Darrell is sitting next to a Korean girl he met while in Germany. I don’t know her name because she is never refered to by it…she did Darrell wrong at some point, so she has a new name.

This week I discovered some totally rockin’ food stuffs at my local groccer. I have these frozen breaded pork cutlet things (kind of like a shake and bake pork chop), and I found regular pickles (as opposed to the pickled radishes and squids and cabbage that these peoples like to eat). In addition I started buying, cooking, and eating vegetables. Recently, I’ve been eating these potatoes and carrots I kind of stir fry soy sauce and black pepper (that’s all my seasonings right there save for the BBQ sauce my mother sent with my b-day loot but that doesn’t seem to be right for those foods). It’s actually not that bad.
Today I bought a guitar amp for 50,000 won (aka $40). It does not really sound that bad either. So today I spent the afternoon rockin’ out on a couple tunes my outstanding (read “outstanding” as “crappy”) band had written. Anyhow the guy I work with, Darrell, has an electronic drum kit here, so maybe I’ll rock out with him at some point…but then again now I’m really all about karaoke, and not as good at guitar, so maybe I’ll try and become a singer in some band. Since according to the scores I get from the machines at karaoke, and Koreans with limited command of the English language, I’m a “really good singer.”