Sunday, March 28, 2010

seoul survivor...barely

Oh Ms. Han. The woman just doesn't stop. After a whirlwind week at H (the magekolli bar), I awoke Friday morning with intentions of never drinking the magkeolli ever again. With this new schedule I have, it is super easy to go out every single night. And since I am soooo popular, I always have someone to partake in festivities with :) The nights just fill up. It's Sunday now and I'm booked through next Thursday! haha too bad these plans are often changed, cancelled or abandoned. Anyway, last Friday at 2 I get a call from Ms. Han saying we should meet at 3. Ugh I suppose I can get out of bed to make some money, especially now that it's 2 in the afternoon and all I have done is watch Deadwood and feel sorry for my aching head. I meet her and this time we don't even BS with a lesson. We go straight to a dakdoraetong restaurant and start chatting. She didn't read any of the novel over the past week and I had nothing prepared as well. So we sit, eat, and talk about random things for like 2 hours. She tells me how she's basically sick of being married and a mom. She's totally burnt out and is seeking some freedom. She tells me if her husband dies or they get divorced (which seems kind of likely from what I'm hearing) she would never get remarried. She just wants to hang out with friends and travel. I feel badly because the poor woman works all week, including weekends, and seems pretty confined to a life in the house (except our Friday meetings) when she's not at work. I tell her to take one night a week for herself. Life advice from a 25 year old who can't even hold a job for more than 2 years...anyway...

After a while she starts talking to the Korean cooks and I guess tells them I like magkeolli. The women start laughing and bring one over. Ahh it's 4 in the afternoon Ms. Han! After we finish she says her friends are in the area and want to meet. We go to our usual magkeolli place, and perfectly enough, it starts raining. We drink some more with her friends and I realize I am Ms. Han's hired friend. She pays, feeds and boozes me up on a weekly basis. I hang out with her more than a lot of my friends! I think the guy at the magkeolli bar we meet at thinks we're nuts. We're in there every Friday at 4, a 42 year old Korean woman and me a 25 year old foreigner, and all we do is eat and drink. haha. So 7 rolls around (4 hour 'lesson') and I have to go meet Emily and her private for dinner.

I meet Emily and her private, In-yoon (38), and we go to a Japanese place in Seorae. Seorae is an area of Gangnam with a big French population. Lots of French restaurants, wine bars, bakeries, and markets on the weekend. We go for sushi though. We meet 2 of In-yoon's friends there. Inyoon went to Georgetown, his buddy Rio went to Cornell, and the third guy went to UPenn. Emily and I are feeling stupid. And these guys speak better English than we do! Not really, but there's definitely nothing lost in translation. They wine and dine us and take us to a wine bar. Finally they decide they're old and tired and want to call it a night. We were put in a cab suddenly and told we should do it again. It felt like we were just dumped! Not being light weights we decide to keep going. At this point it's midnight and I have to get up early the next am to work. I stupidly decide who cares and we go out to Dillingers.

After another 3 am night, I awake at 10 so I can cover an English class for my friend Ben. Ugh I got ripped off here. I agreed to work for him to help him out. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. I get to this class (where I'm being paid 20,000 won an hour. BS) and it's two 2 hour classes. 2 hours of me talking, even with adults, is a looong time. My first class was ok, and despite my headache and tiredness, was kind of fun. It was 2 outgoing guys and a nice woman and they actually talked so it went by relatively fast. My second class was four women in their early 20s and they seemed very nice at first. The topic of the week was nightlife. Perfect, something I know loads about. These girls not so much. None of them really drank, or went out, or did anything. They studied and then they studied more. I was like well what do you do when it's your friend's birthday? "Well maybe dinner, but not drinking." Boring. No party? No clubs? Just dinner. They didn't ever volunteer conversation either, so it was 2 hours of me asking questions, getting nods, and then just talking about myself. Sure I liek to talk about myself and tell stories, but when 4 uninterested girls are just looking at me blankly, it's not so much fun. I ended the class 15 mins early and said peace. Ughh it's Sunday afternoon and I'm still tired from the class!!

I am about to head down to Mok-dong. I went out on Monday with this boy Peter. I met him Thanksgiving but was kind of dating his friend at the time. We went out a couple times, but nothing ever really came from it and we lost touch for a few months. I guess I was bored the other day and going through my phone and sent him a text to see what was going on for the weekend. He was busy so we decided to meet on Monday for a date. It was really fun and he's really smart, we've seen each other a couple times since then. We usually meet in my area (because as Emily says, we don't commute to boys. If they don't live in HBC or Itaewon, why should I waste my time), but I feel bad and guess it's my turn to travel. And hey it's a free dinner. Peter's 25, from Walla Walla, Washington, and has been in Korea just a few months longer than myself. And he's really tall. :) So I'm off. Mom if you read this, call me!!!

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