To be honest, there were some great students but I'm never dealing with the ridiculousness of this situation again. Only two forms of weaponry were recovered during the two months (airsoft gun, and butterfly knife). I did introduce some good jazz and reggae to our last group. They had quite the bubble over Louis Armstrong's voice and appearance.
We were able to visit the city of Busan a bit. It has beautiful beaches and many more options for eating and inebriation. Our initial taxi driver sped to speeds of about 140km/h through the highway feeling completely safe in the embrace of the leather seats in his Hyundae.
My birthday was a couple weeks ago and I received a nice package from my parents with FourFourTwo magazines, gummy bears, cool glasses, and a set of David Beckham cologne and body wash so that I can now not just look like him but also smell like him. I got a couple bottles of wine from Blake and our co-worker Pam. One of which was consumed at the bar. We went out in our quaint but sewagey town to a couple bars.
The first bar started out slow and steady with a few harmless games of "G'day Scott" (australian based) and famous names. Upon leaving the bar, we hurried into a taxi but not without some incessant honking from an unruly motorist behind us. Being a bit unnerved, one of us extended a finger of gratitude and shouted a cry of appreciation in the form of a two words, eight letters...
After getting out of the taxi near the next bar stop, we were met with a few other Korean teachers of our buddy's. We didn't initialy realize that the driver who was honking like an asshole also followed us and began to well... attempt to speak to us via our friend's coworkers asking us if we said "bad words" to him and showed him the finger of appreciation. We were a bit perplexed at first so we shrugged him off but it was ridiculous to think that he was justified in being an asshole and we were out of our minds to respond. Koreans are cute when they're angry; just wanna pinch those cheeks.
The last bar was marred with new encounters, more pouring, a walk home and a personal altercation with a road sign and a late night chat with Madness of which both incidents having no record in the annals of my mind.
The following weekend was another birthday of a friend of ours but this time taking place in the area of Sinchon in Seoul. We met some more foreign teachers from Pennsylvania and the UK and enjoyed a nice Pale Ale from Alberta at London Bar, my first Pale Ale in at least 4 months. Good beer is a bit harder to come by, you'd understand the state of my depravity. Further altercation ensued on the streets as another dousche bumped into us and telling us not to mess with him because he lived in LA. Our new friend confronted him and told him, "Well I'm from Hampshire", a small town in southern England. A rather intriguing man who left with kind words of our mothers. Later we went to the strangest western bar. I felt like I was in an episode of Fear and Loathing in a bar full of weirdest looking entities. It seems like a good majority of westerners, especially Americans, that come here have some strange skeletons in their closets and/or are outcasts of society. Of course this is not the case, with yours truly. One of the monsters grabbed our buddy and almost got a beating and the same for our birthday girl. Needless to say, I did not fancy staying too long even if the music was a nice change.
The Courtesy/Clog Award goes to Blake Wergeland. Before this past weekend Blake was finally successful in clogging our toilet but also was courteous enough to call me before I came home to inform me that I should probably by a plunger from the 1,000 Won (Dollar) Store.
On a last note, Korea has a lot of security guards at schools and apartment buildings. Though what their job is, is another matter. Same thing goes for our local police force. We have these two guys whose job is to move a plastic barrier everytime anyone drives up the hill towards the school every day. Extremely redundant and a waste of funds.
In Korean news, North Korea has taken a rather aggressive stance with the South challenging them even with the arrival of Hillary Clinton and planning on satellite launch very soon. It will be interesting to see how this all works out. That's it for now, take care!
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