TIK

I'm officially getting settled into my life here. I'm starting to feel like I'm actually living here. I feel more at home in my apartment. I'm cooking almost everyday so that's a lot more comforting (and economical). I even made pinonates (these fried cookies that my grandma taught me how to make when i was little) and all the teachers at my school, especially the Korean teachers loved them. I'm starting to make friends more. Overall, this is great.

Last monday i got my cel phone. Yup, I'm officially reachable people. If anyone needs to - or wants to - call me the Korean country code is 82 and my cel number is 010-5118-3143. So in order to get my cel phone, Kate, one of the other Korean teachers went with me, since no one in the phone store spoke any english, and she totally ended up hooking me up. I was able to get a cel contract rather than a prepaid and I only had to pay W20,000 (about $21) for a brand new cel because she set it up under her name rather than under mine. She saved me over $150. I love her. I told her since she was so nice to me I wanted to treat her to dinner and on tuesday we went out to get something called "samgyubsal." It was basically like pork meat that you cook in front of you on this big hot plate type thing. There were a lot of really good side dishes. Yummy! And we just got to hang out and talk for hours. After a little while her friend James came and joined us. (It was really funny because before he got there she tells me "Susy, James is like playboy and he will like you. You are very pretty. Be careful" She's so cute.) But we just sat there and talked until like 11PM. Then by the time we left the buses had stopped running and James was nice enough to drive us back to where I live, rather than making me take a taxi. It was ridiculous though because i live on this teeny, tiny alleyway which seems unmaneuverble in a car, especially when there are cars already parked on it, but i think James wanted to show off and he just barreled on through. Lol. I seriously was terrified he was going to scratch up his car, but it was fine.

Last week we also had to start teaching our classes Christmas carols. Two of my classes are singing "Jingle Bell Rock" which is, amazingly enough, the one song that my normally tone-deaf self can actually carry a tune to. My other two classes are singing "Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer." The classes doing "Jingle Bell Rock" are doing really well. My Playground 4 class (my lower level english students) are so great. There's a part in the song, after the line "In the frosty air" that you kind of have to hold for like 2 counts. Well they weren't getting it so I was trying to teach them to snap their finger and then I heard this loud clicking noise. This one kid named Eric, who is normally very uncooperative, can click his tongue super loud, so I asked him if he could do it twice fast and so now he has a little mini solo. Its so funny cuz now he's totally into it. And it makes the whole thing hilarious. I can't not laugh when they do it. :-)

On Thursday I went downtown with Jenny since I didn't have any classes until 4PM. She took me to some cool thrift stores and we found some neat stuff. There was one store that we found this amazing sweater-dress thing. It's knitted and its gorgeous. The guy only wanted W20,000 for it so we both tried it on. Jenny didn't really like it, but I really, really loved it. Only, as I'm trying it on, the Korean guys at the store started telling me to suck in my stomach. I was like "WTF??" Apparently people here give you their opinion, whether or not it polite, and whether or not you ask for it. And supposedly if they think something looks bad on you they won't let you buy it. That's just messed up. Then, for some reason, they started calling me Natalie Portman. I don't think I look a thing like Natalie Portman (wish i did) but apparently to these guys I was a fat Natalie Portman. Great...

Friday was great cuz my friend Jure, from orientation, was coming to visit. He got in at like 10 so we went and got some Galbi near where my school building is and then just chilled at home. Saturday, was really cold outside, so we just vegged out and watched a movie. He had never seen "The Devil's Advocate" so I felt he was missing out and should watch it. Now he thinks I have really weird, morbid taste in movies. Oh well, I am kinda weird, but honestly, Al Pacino playing the devil, it doesn't get much better than that. We also made pinonates, which he totally doubted. Everyone has doubts about my cookies but they always eat their works (and a bunch of my cookies). Hee hee. Saturday evening, Jure was nice enough to let me and Liz use his Costco card to buy food. We took a taxi (which was an ordeal all its own since the first taxi driver let us get in his cab and drove off before he told us he didn't know where Costco was) instead of taking the bus cuz I did not want to be responsible for getting us lost in some random area of Daegu. But it all worked out. And I finally was able to buy meat for a reasonable price. It's definitely not as good as in the states but at least its affordable. So I got chicken and pork and beef. YAY!! Then Sunday we headed downtown and just wandered for a little while.

-----Jure and I in Downtown Daegu.

It was rather enterntaining looking at all the wacky Korea stuff. Sometime you just gotta laugh and (as Jenny taught me) say "TIK" - This Is Korea.
----- what??????


We did get to eat some yummy ribs though. I will also admit that my horrible sense of direction was at it again. And I got us a little lost and made us walk like 4 extra block in a circle. I know, I know I'm an airhead sometimes. But as Susa always says: if you're looking for Susy in a crowd of people look for the most oblivious one and that will be her. So alas, that is me. My sister is wise beyond her years. Lol!

Today was back to the grind. Classes went well. I got to talk to my mom and Tati and Randy (skype kicks ass) from home now that I have internet and I added all the pictures to this blog. Overall a productive day, except I didn't do my lesson planning, and I didn't do my dishes (what else is new?), and its 4AM and I'm not asleep. Oh well, let me live in my little cocoon of positivity and denial.

Soju is the Devil!

That's my thesis statement for this blog. Soju is the devil! For those of you not familiar with it, Soju is the most popular Korean liquor. It comes in these very recognizable little green bottles (which I now cringe at the sight of) and although it only contains like 20% alcohol it has the capacity to completely knock you on your ass. Like quick.

My tale begins on Friday night when I was invited to go out for Stella's birthday. Stella is the Korean girl that Nate (one of the other foreign teachers) is dating. She's a really sweet girl and we really hit it off last week at the Taco party. (Btw, as a random tangent: I think its so funny that all the girls here think its absolutely fabulous that I was a bartender. They all say "oh like in coyote ugly!" and they think its so cool). So it ended up being just Nate, Liz and I heading downtown to meet up with Stella and her best friend Alice - who teaches Korean at the YMCA on Saturdays so I think in January I'm going to take her class ;-). After grabbing some food, we hung out at this random bar for a while. I just had some beer and some shrimp crackers (yummy). Then after we left there we went to a place called "Fish and Grill" or "Passion Grill" I'm not sure, the letters were in Korean and I really don't remember the name.
-----This was pre-drunkenness. The 5 of us at Pish and Grill (me, Liz, Alice, Stella and Nate)

When we got there they ordered pitchers of something called a Soju Cocktail. Ok, so now I need to remind everyone that when I was in Seoul I tried Soju but I just tried it as a shot so I really didn't like it at all. Well, the Soju cocktail that they ordered was Apple-raspberry (I think?) and it was sooooooo yummy. Like deceptively yummy. And as if it wasn't bad enough they added one or two additional bottles of Soju to each pitcher of the cocktail. The Korean drinking glasses are these really cute little saucer-type-shot glasses, so inevitably we started playing a drinking game and got completely plastered. To add to the hi-jinks, this restaurant only had what are the common type of public toilet in Korea... the squatter toilet. Oh as I got more drunk the experience got funnier and funnier.

-----The squatter toilet in all its (disgusting glory).

Anyways, we were playing a Korean drinking game called "ddalgi" which is the Korean word for strawberry. The way the game works is: you slap the table, then clap your hands, then stick up your right thumb and then your left thumb. You're supposed to say "ddalgi" once for the first person, then twice for the next person and so on. It's not too easy to describe but really funny to play, especially the more drunk you get. I'm definitely taking this one back to the states with me. Anyways, I sucked at this game. I was horrible. They started calling me "the black hole" because everytime it came back to me the game would stop and we'd have to start over. I decided I didn't want to be the only one drinking so I started to combine a little "circle of death" in there so I started making up rules like when I drink, Nate has to drink (yup I was responsible for getting him drunk).

Well after a while, 3 pitchers of cocktail and about 8 bottles of Soju we were all DRUNK (ohmygod the pictures are hilarious)!!! So, Nate started throwing up as soon as we left the restaurant. Then we get into a club and Nate is in the girls bathroom throwing up. Liz took care of him for a while and Stella, Alice and I went downstair to dance for a bit, but since we were all drunk too we decided to leave. So Stella and I carried Nate to a taxi (and there are a pictures of all of this).
----- Samples of the drunkenness:

-----Sample #1: Me and Nate thinking that something is hilarious, apparently.
-----Sample #2: Yes, he's throwing up.
-----Sample #3: I think I thought I was dancing beautifully... not so much.
----- Sample #4: Stella and I carrying Nate to the taxis.

Well at this point I was doing fine. Just fine. Until I got in the taxi, then the buildings started whizzing by and I could not deal. So I stuck my head out the window (yes, like a dog) and started throwing up. I regret to inform that I vomitted all over the side of a Korean taxi. We finally got home and Liz and I carried Nate to his place and then I stumbled to my apartment. I have not gotten that drunk very often. But it took me less than three weeks in Korea to do it. An accomplishment as far as I'm concerned.

And the answer is yes I was very hung over on Saturday. I didn't manage to crawl out of bed until like 5PM and my stomach hated me all day. So that was my weekend (oh and I cleaned more mold out of my apartment all day sunday, but that is less exciting than the drinking wackiness of Friday night).

De-dumpifying my apartment.

Ok I'm admitting it. They say that's the first step right? My apartment is a dump. The whole thing is mostly pink (and since I'm not a pink kind of girl this is not a great big plus) with the piece de resistance being an entirely - like floors, walls, counter, cabinet, all of it - Pepto Bismol pink bathroom that is always cold and horrible. Plus its what they call a wet room which means there is no separate shower area, you are just supposed to take a shower in the middle of the room where there is a drain. Nice huh? Additionally, the floor mat is all lumpy and lifted. There's no hot water. Apparently if I open the water so that its just at like 30% strength (my school manager's words not mine) then I can get hot water. We'll see tonight cuz I'm sick and tired of cold showers in 20 degree weather. And to top it all off, the walls were full of mold when I moved in. Despite all this I am determined to make it my own homey little place for the next year. I've made sure its all clean. Today my school's manager went and cleaned it up with mold killer??? I'm getting internet hooked up there and I think in the summer the bathroom won't be so miserable. In all seriousness, Cuba is way worse, as far as bathroom and the hot water situation is concerned, and I don't really hate it there. Which makes me think that the biggest contributor is the cold weather.Speaking of which. Today is absolutely freezing. Like frigid cold. Since Daegu is completely surrounded by mountains it becomes a freezer in the winter and an oven in the summer. I asked the academic director why the weather was so bad and she said "because its Daegu." Poetic, I thought. I am beginning to like the city more though. Wandering through downtown is fun and full of interesting people. I love to people watch there. The stores are all so cute. Just this sunday I was walking through some really shady back alleys that I found. It was cool. Just little Korean ladies selling stuff. Then I walked into one shop and the lady made me sit down and have tea with her. They just kept speaking in Korean and looking at me quizzically. But most importantly I was able to buy a good space heater for \27,000 won.

Now that I think of it I forgot to mention that this Saturday was a lot of fun. Nate and David (two of the other teachers) decided to have a Taco Party (a mexican-ish themed pot luck) and so we all got together and made some stuff. I made chilli although, as any of you that have had my chilli will totally back me up, i make some excellent chilli but with the lack of proper ingredients it just wasn't up to par. The party itself was great. We mostly just hung out and talked. I met Stella, the Korean girl that Nate is talking to, and she's really cool. We talked a lot and I think she's my first official Korean friend. This saturday is her birthday and we're all supposed to go out. She also promised to take me salsa dancing. Imagine me actually finding a decent latin club in South Korea. That would be soooo kick ass. After a while (as people got more drunk) we started dancing. Somehow I got talked into doing my horrible immitation of the worm (and they all laughed) but then I did that really cool backroll thing I can do - most people will have no idea what I'm talking about - and everyone was really impressed. I also tried to teach them bad phrases in Spanish. Gabriel (the other teacher that's from Canada but is actually Uruguayan) is dating a Korean woman named Uni. I taught her how to say "vete pal carajo" and he got so mad at me. He pulled her away and said we were bad influences. Overall a very fun night.Teaching is also getting better. The students are getting to know me more and I'm trying to do fun activities for them. Just yesterday I made a tic-tac-toe game that incorporated the lesson. They had to use the right kind of sentence to get the box. They really liked it. Today I got to teach more kindergarten kids. They are sooo freaking adorable. Right now I need to go home (to my dumpy little apartment), make myself some dinner and try to do my lesson plans for tomorrow.
PS: As soon as I get internet I'll try to post some pictures that I've taken.

Here we go: David took some cool, creative pictures at the Taco Party.

----- Hanging out with Stella at the party.
-----Our little collection. We're so bad.
----- The black and white pic.
-----My Fav...