We found some white people..

So on friday we heard more foreigners were heading to the Tacasabal - Tacsa Bar (Asians and their L's and R's...) We met 2 Aussies, and a Brit around our age and two older dudes, another Brit and an American. We arrived later in the night so they were a bit sauced when we arrived but cheerful to meet us! So we hung out with them a bit, we were strapped for cash but they dragged us with to a "Noraybong" and they showed us an international ATM! We couldn't find one for the longest time in this small town.

A noraybong is basically a karoake bar like the one Bill Murray visited in Lost in Translation. You pay 15 bucks for your party and you get an entire room to yourself to sing your heart's delight and you can bring in your own drinks!

One thing I've noticed is with foreigners, if you just bring up Soccer (Football) it's a great way to get some conversation going, that or mentioning Oasis to the Brits and Aussies. Apparently we were well recieved and much better than the last two teachers who taught at our college and were basically jerks to be modest about it.

As far as footie goes...

They love Park Ji Sung (Manchester United), Yung (AS Monaco) and Nakamura (Celtic). There's soccer on all the time so it's a great pick-me-up in the morning and later in the day! I also found FIFA 08 for XBOX in a drawer but we have no XBOX. 

The city of Yeongwol is very scenic. Many of the cities in this province (Gangwang-do) are basically towns built into valleys in between mountains. And so there are lots of rivers, falls, caves and outdoor activities to do. Which we will do eventually... 

Diet...

Yep, you guessed it. Tons of rice here. And kimchi which is marinated cabbage and they LOVE this stuff. Even though most of it doesn't taste great. BBQ pork, eel, and fish. Seaweed is actually pretty tasty. We've been going out a decent amount since it's almost cheaper to do so. At home we've got some noodles and lots of frozen dumplings since they're easy to make. We were going to make a lot of our own Russian dumplings but ground beef costs like 20 some dollars a pound :-S !

Beer is pretty affordable, at least the local ones are, Hite, Kass, and Dark Stout which is neither very dark nor stout. We found they do have Corona, Budweiser, Heineken and wheaty hooray!-- Hoegaarden! 

Soju-- Soju is basically like a bit of a vodka with a bit of sweeter after-taste sans harshness. The most common is made by Jinro and we've tried a few types and they all taste the same. It's only about 20% in strenght but for a 366mL bottle, it's 980 won which is probably 60-98 cents US now, depending on the day with this economy...

I started reading Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis; he also wrote American Psycho which was also made into a great movie, starring Christian Bale. It's pretty good so far, I like the style and subject matter (rich kids in california, drugs, and monotony- basically a grittier version of gossip girl)

We also successfuly figured out how to use the Seoul subway system and how to buy tickets back to our city with no knowledge of Korean. Woot!

That's it for now...we teach our first classes today to the Culinary Department students and finally get our alien registration cards and can now get cell phones and internet at our apartment! We'll let ya know more about that soon. Send your addresses as well if you want some letters your way!

Anyang-Kasayo for now! And kammsameda for reading!