Fitting In

Beginning my 3rd month in Korea, it's actually interesting to see how far I've come. It's honestly probably farther than I ever thought I could come on my own. I started off as a "baby back bitch" who couldn't figure out how to turn on the washing machine and was afraid to leave my house because I thought I would get lost and end up wandering the streets of Korea forever.

Tonight I went out for Korean BBQ with my director and co-teachers as a sort of "going away party" for Boram, and got to bust out a little of the Korean I had learned. Earlier today I pseudo-ordered gimbap on my own as well. If I keep going at this pace, I hope to be able to hold a minor conversation within the 4 month mark. We'll see how that goes.

At some point my director just started feeding my soju,
then after I got a little tipsy reminded me
 to keep my Korean language in "polite" form.

It honestly feels like Final Fantasy X/X-2, when you had to learn the Al Bhed language. Like...at first it's all absolute gibberish..but it's more like a phrasal cipher. I keep unlocking little bits and learning more and more. It's really cool. Certainly more fun than the 3 years of Spanish I took and didn't retain a word of.

It's really a wonderful language and culture. It's really redefined the concept of gratitude for me. Gratitude isn't something you owe to someone after they do something for you, but rather something that you pay forward. You aren't thankful for what people have done for you, you're just grateful for those people. I really miss Boram at work already, after only working with her for two months, so I can't imagine how it'll feel when I have to say goodbye to everyone in ten months, potentially. 

We had the manager help us set it up
thanks to Catherine's skilled Korean.

Same with Casey and Caitlin. They'll be gone at the end of the month, and I'm not sure what that'll mean for me. Luckily, Casey has graciously been connecting me to the rest of his social network in Korea, and there are really some solidly cool people here. This weekend we went screen golfing with a Canadian couple, David and Catherine, who really made me see Korea as a long term prospect. Just listening to Catherine talk to the proprietor in fluent Korean after only a year here was an awe-inspiring insight. There's really no way to explain how cool it is to speak a foreign language on foreign soil. It's humbling and inspiring simultaneously. Their enthusiasm for the language and culture here also drove me to study harder.

Screen golf was a lot of fun, but nothing like real golf at all. I was terrible at it. The feel is totally different, and I didn't really get the hang of it until the end of the game. They were also pretty serious about it there. I would like to open a noraebang/screen golf course, because that seems like it would be a complete blast.

Casey ended up being pretty damn good.

We were mostly dicking around...

Meeting people in Korea is also pretty strange. It's very ephemeral. It feels like we're all chilling at this eternal rest stop. Some people get off the train and join the circle as other say their farewells and board the train for God knows where. Some people have grown tired of even greeting their new company since they'll most likely be gone soon enough anyway. Everything feels very spectral...very transitory...like we're all just sort of floating between dimensions. But that's not a bad thing. It's just not...America. haha. It's more about enjoying the journey than fortifying the castle, so to speak.

I finally feel like I'm fitting in. I have Korean friends, Western friends, and sort of can fumble my way through basic Korean. A few things are still on the agenda:

1) I found a comic book (manga) store, and thought it would be a great way to learn the language because of all the pictures. However, it turns out it's a manga LIBRARY, which I really have no idea how to negotiate my way around yet, so that'll have to wait a bit.

2) I opened a bank account yesterday and will hopefully a bike pass and Korean cell phone will follow.

Doesn't look like anything special, just a bank.
The ATM is what looks super awesome. Need a picture...

Seriously, Korea is the future. They use their phones for everything from bank transactions to bike rentals to online shopping to vending machines. Unfortunately, that future sucks for foreigners. lol.

They also have ATMs that let you deposit money AND checks so...yeah...we're a bit behind the times.

It's strange. Before coming here, I honestly thought my life was extremely limited in terms of what I could do professionally...but today it suddenly dawned on me...I can practically spin a globe, stop it with my finger, and any landmass I'm touching, I could go teach there. I basically have a free ticket to explore the world. I'm not sure what's next. I love Korea, but maybe I'll go spend a year in Brazil to be close to my brother, or go to Japan to be closer to Alexis, or Peru...just because! The world is full ov possibilities!

There's like a million flavors of this stuff.

I've gotten really lazy about blogging and I should spart posting useful stuff I'm learning for newbies. I'll probably post my "MTVKorea Cribs" blog/ "Survival Kit" blog soon...and I've set a goal for myself to document every single kind of triangular gimbap they sell and rate it (there is a LOT). I'll post that some day too.

This weekend should be a pretty awesome adventure. More fitting in and expanding of the social circle. I'll let you know how it goes! Good morning America! I'm off to bed!

Epic Weekend Act 1: Sangnam-dong

This weekend was amazing! I finally had my first real exciting weekend of excursions in Korea, and it really was all thanks to the great friends I've managed to make here. It honestly didn't even start with the weekend. Thanks to Katie and Casey being on vacation while I still had work, we went out Thursday night in downtown Changwon (Sangnam-dong) to get an early start on the weekend.

Now I know why Koreans are obsessed with chicken.

As I'm coming to learn, Korean nights out typically involve 3+ venues of varying grades. Most involve food and booze and they almost always end at a noraebang (karaoke bar). Our first restaurant was a chicken and beer kind of place where we met up with Casey and Katie's Korean co-workers, Jessie and Sophie. They surprised us by pulling out a big bottle of pomegranate juice and immediately ordering some chicken and a bottle of soju.

They had an established set of soju drinking games that I had never played before, so obviously by the time I picked up on the rules and such, I was already a solid five or so shots in. Lucky I was really good at some cap flicking game and spared myself some unnecessary drinking through that, but Casey should have warned me sooner that Katie has a sneaky way of constantly refilling your glass without you noticing. I was getting a good buzz going after being there for only about 20 minutes. The chicken was also the most phenomenal chicken I have ever had in my life.

I call top bunk!

Next, we headed to a restaurant that served different food and makgali in big wooden bowls. Makgali is kind of like sake, but sweeter and smoother. I imagine makgali's only reason for existing is the same reason Smirnoff Ice exists: to get girls wildly inebriated with minimum discomfort. But by no means is it a girly drink. It's just absolutely delicious. The restaurant we were in was also really really cool. It had a sort of treehouse-y, Swiss Family Robinson vibe. You sat on padded mats on the ground at a low table and it was multi-leveled like bunkbeds. We obviously chose to sit on the top bunk.

Caitlin always steals the spotlight.

This is what you drink makgali out of.
Like a soup...that gets you hammered.

I don't remember what the thing we ate was called...Casey/Katie will have to remind me and I'll edit this later. It was really, really delicious. It kind of reminded me of a better, more family style version of a latke? I was so full from the chicken. but I just kept eating anyway. We were downing makgali, and I felt pretty good so I started looking around and noticed the hostess at the door. Casey and I started making guesses as to her age. I said 19, I think he guessed slightly older. I asked the hostess if she spoke any English when she walked by and she said no, so we got Jessie to ask her how old she was in Korean. Turns out she was THIRTY-FOUR. I wish I took a picture of this girl. I mean...she was a Korean 34 which means she was 32-33 in America, but still...unbelievable. We started realizing that Korean's hit a temporal break when they hit 16 and they just stop aging until they get to their 40s. Anyone in that range is nearly impossible for us to guess their age correctly.

Casey demonstrating how to get soup-hammered

The delicious thing we ate called
kimchi jeon (thank you Caitlin).

I think I promised to sing Big Bang's "Monster" with Jessie
...but I only could sing the one English line in the chorus.

We got pretty solidly drunk off that makgali, even though no one realized it at the time. After food, we soon decided to head off to our final destination: the noraebang of course! Katie took some rather embarrassing videos of Casey and I drunkenly singing and hoarse and...it's just awful. She's taking them to her grave. But I think Jessie and Sophie were extremely tired, drunk, and feeling a little left out since we were all drunk and speaking English very rapidly. They ordered some pork or chicken or something (it was really good) and a bunch of beer, but Sophie soon began falling asleep and they left shortly after leaving three drunken Americans alone in a noraebong. What did we do? We got drunker. And then we started singing the anthems of our homeland, like Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" and Tenacious D's "Tribute". It was hella fun.

Out like a light!

Casey and I singing Tribute

We fuckin' love Tribute.

No no no no...actually...fuck YOU!

 After the noraebang, we decided "Hey...JD has work tomorrow...we've been drinking soju and makgali all night..but let's go for the trifecta." So we hit up some beer place I was just way to drunk to even bother remembering, but it's kind of like World of Beer, I guess...if the world was only full of overpriced Hoegaarden and Stella. But it was still nice to have familiar beers again. Casey and I ended up in our usual drunken conversations about things we both only have a very limited knowledge on. This topic of conversation was the eventual fallout that would result from North Korea attacking South Korea/China telling America it wanted all its debts repaid/Communism vs Democracy in general. Pretty sure I won like always.

Oh hey! LEt's drunkenly play some sports I suck at!

Of course, we had to eventually leave...so we wandered back through Sangnam-dong and found some familiar batting cages we passed on a previous night. We were inebriated enough to wander right on in, pick up a bat and let fly a few balls. Except Casey was the only one who did that. Turns out, I'm just as bad at baseball when I'm drunk as when I'm sober. I probably hit like 2 out of 18 balls? Whatevz. I beat Casey at the punching bag, which is all that really matters. But then I almost missed the bag entirely the second time, so I would get a solid first hit in and then totally get my ass kicked in whatever drunken brawl I managed to get myself into. Going through this pictures, I learned Katie is a phenomenal paparazzo, because as I got drunker and drunker, I took less and less pictures. She, however, was goddamn dedicated to documenting this shit..and I am glad of that. Because I literally have zero pictures after the makgali restaurant. They are all hers.

Obviously venting my
frustration over the batting cages.

So after that we all grab a cab home and Casey checks out a public bike for me. I really can't wait to get my ARC (Alien Registration Card) so I can get my own bike pass. They're way more convenient than I ever considered. I go home, pass out, and SURPRISE! Wake up the next day with the worst hangover in recorded history from slamming soju, makgali, and beer all night. Luckily it was only 10am and I had 3 hours to recover before class. I still felt like Jack Black from School of Rock...

Omg, this food is so good, even the onions want in!

Friday was supposed to be our rager day, but we went so hard on Thursday, the club we had intended on going to had a $15 cover and we were like "fuck that, we're foreign" and just ended up grabbing some Korean BBQ which was fine by me. Casey did all the cooking while Caitlin and I solely participated in the eating, but it was some of the most tender meat I've ever had. I also learned that I love onions raw, I do NOT love cloves of garlic raw. New things learned every day. Also, I should mention it's rude to wait for your waiter at a Korean restaurant and whenever you need anything you push this little button on your table. However, here, it's sort of like a buffet of side dishes that you go and help yourself to to cook with your meat. Caitlin even grilled some kimchi, but I'm still learning to love it. It's a hit or miss flavor with me because it really actually varies a lot. I'm sure with time I'll master it..just like the general spicy-ness of Korean food.

This is really anyone's guess...

After BBQ we hit up O'Brien's for some beers and darts. Oh wow! Look! Another recreational game that involves hand-eye coordination that I suck at! Fun! -_-; But it really was fun. I didn't think we got that drunk, but we obviously were buzzed enough to try this...

I was going to do this whole weekend as one post, but it's super late and I have so much more to talk about and post pictures of, it'll just have to wait until tomorrow I guess!