My 22nd!

My lovely Irish girlfriend, Rachel, and I dancing our bums off later that night. 

Joy, the little girl next to me in the purple, bought me a birthday cake!! The whole day the kids were giddy and I got countless little notes and small little presents. It made it really fun and special. 

Christmas Shopping!

That flash of Blonde is Rachel on our Saturday shopping trip to Myeong-Dong. It was one of the worst decisions of my life to go there on the Saturday before Christmas. It was like a moving sea of black hair. 

A pretty fall moment

Yellow ginkgo leaves littered the ground of Seoul this fall and made everyday bright. 

A trip to the jjimjilbang

Rachel, Afsheen(the new teacher taking Diana's place) and I ventured to a Jjimjilbang last week for a casual soak. And we got oh so much more. I wish I had pictures of this place, but as it stands, taking pictures of unsuspecting naked elderly women is frowned upon in most societies. 

I'll explain: Jjimjilbangs are like upscale spas that only cost 6,000 won to get in (under $5) and then extra if you want certain special treatments. They separate you between men and women and give you a uniform(Korea loves their uniforms), a locker key, and a towel. The uniform looked like a little kids Karate uniform thus we decided to forgo it and be truly korean with the au naturel look. 

So essentially we went in, stripped down and stuck all of our stuff in our lockers. Although all of us were non-korean, none of the women batted an eye at our appearances. I can not same the same for myself, however. I was openly staring at people for the entire rest of the time we were there. To much flesh to try and be aloof about. 

The place is like a deluxe dream bath house. They have all kinds of different hot tubes, including a really cool green tea one, saunas, showers, pools, massaging water -jet pools, etc. But they also have rows and rows of individual vanities which have counters, sinks, removable shower heads, soap, exfoliating scrub, and lotions. So you go soak, scrub up and go home. 

After an hour of being there we finally decided to check out this one sectioned off corner of the spa. This is where I can safely say I almost got kicked out of the spa for laughing. For 15,000 won you can have two or three little korean women clad in black lacy bra and panties exfoliate you from top to bottom and in just about every crevice you think you might have. Not only does this look hilarious being done it is just a hilarious concept of multiple women, old enough to be your grandmothers, scrubbing you down like you were 5 years old again. 

And because I'm me, I think have to go get it done this week as a special Korean birthday treat. How can I resist old women in black lacy undergarments scrubbing me??? I mean can life really get more awkward?

Notes on November

We started a new term on Monday and with it we got a mass of new students. My school highly suggests students choose an English name for class purposes. I'm still not convinced this is for the students "immersion benefit" as it seems more for the school's reputation;  their native English teachers are not butchering the Korean names of their students. However, most kids choose their own name before they come to class. If they don't, we are allowed to choose one for them. Sadly I have only given out two and both have been pretty weak. One was my brother's name, Drew, and the other was Doug (aka, Doug Funny). 

But Monday I had a student without on English name on my roster and I got oddly excited. The thought of naming someone gives me a little thrill. So when I got to his name on the attendance chart I had my sheet of potential names in hand and was ready to start firing them off. He beat me to the punch however, and proudly stated that he was going to be named "Potter". At first I thought he said, "Peter" and I wanted to scream because I already had about 6 Peters in other classes. But he calmly repeated himself again, "Potter". He was about 7 years old and had decided to not name himself "Harry" but rather the surname "Potter" and was completely convinced that he had named himself appropriately. It was one of those shining moments of defiance and pride in a little kid's life and despite it I laughed to myself for the next hour every time I called on his proud little soul. 

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In the after math of Obama's win in the states, black people in Korea have become the new blondes. They are few and far between here, with the majority of them Africans who sell purses on the street in Itaewon. Thus Koreans didn't necessarily have a good view of them until now. In the past few weeks however, even old Korean men and women who can not even pronounce the english word "hello" have learned the name "Obama" and the word "President". It is incredible how many times people will see me and ask "meegouk saram?" which means "American person?" and when I nod they say "Obama President!!!" and give an often golden toothed grin coupled with a double thumbs up. And now everytime my students see a  picture  of a black person in one of my lessons in unison they yell, "teacher it's OBAMA!!" The attitude toward the race of black people has done a drastic shift here and it feels really cool to be at the epicenter of a change like that in a foreign country. 

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I have been hanging out with a fair amount of Brits in recent weeks and I guess from movies and some previous traveling I felt like I was pretty accustomed to the majority of their lingo. But as it stands I have laughed harder at some of their terms or maybe simply at the nonchalant way they have been expressed, than I ever had before. Terms such as "gangrape" to mean something is a rip-off,  "cunt", "tosser", and "wanker" all used like the word "jerk" in the states , and of course the term "pissed" for when they are really drunk. Thus making conversations eternally entertaining and wildly inappropriate.