Food and Stupidity

Howzit?

My weekend started a little earlier than normal this week. My "parent
students" decided they wanted to take me to lunch and I never say no to
lunch! Another Korean dish bites the dust!

We went to a place that was something like a BBQ Restaurant. There was
the normal assortment of condiments, but then there was this hole in the
middle of the table. After placing the order the ladies arrived with a
little metal bucket containing charcoal. This they placed in the hole
and then placed a grill over it. They then brought pieces of partially
cooked, marinated meat. This gets grilled the way you prefer and then
wrapped in lettuce leaves with a bit of whatever you choose to put
inside. Normally it would be this salty paste, a bit of cabbage and
then something else of whatever is left.

I was told that Westerners don't like the smell, but I can't see why?
It smells just like a spicy marinated sosatie in South Africa. Give
the meat to the Pretoria Boy, I say! I was told the name of the dish
and promptly forgot what it was. Today I had class with the parents
again but forgot to ask them the name. Rest assured that I will get
back to you on this because I would like to go for another session of
that.

This week I had lots of sessions with the 3rd graders. You remember the
conversation practice? Yes, that. All of them are suddenly willing to
do it. Oh well. At least I have something to do now.

The rest of my weekend was all about food. I was supposed to be taught
how to make something like a Korean Pizza on Friday, but that
unfortunately didn't happen. I did get my lunch with the parents as
well as Indian food on Saturday. Nice and expensive, but something other
than Korean food is a good change and nice every now and then.

I am sure you are now wondering that I am talking about with the Indian
food, right? No? I don't care! You are going to hear about it anyway.
The plan was to meet with three teachers and go to Itaewon for Indian
food. Two South Africans and a New Yorker. The one girl actually
lives in Icheon and I was supposed to take the bus with her from
Icheaon. As per norm, the buses from my place don't do what they are
supposed to and I arrived at the Icheon Bus Terminal just as the bus to
Gangnam lef.t This, needless to say, made me almost one hour late for
my meeting with the people in Itaewon. It was not that big a train
smash, so all went well. We drank coffee, ate, talked about everything
and basically just had a good time. It seems that everyone meets
someone else in Itaewon because two of the girls were going to meet
other friends there after our get together. I tend to do this as well.

On Sunday I went to Suwon. The plan was to meet with Sue, an Auzzie, and
we would then go there together. She has been to the fortress, but
she works in Suwon, so she said she would show me around. All the
planning was OK, until I decided not to take my travel guide along.
This in itself is not a problem, but when I did not have my phone with
me to call Sue, that it when it becomes a problem. Apparently there
are two bus terminals and I didn't arrive at the one that I was supposed
to be at. We weren't sure which one connects to Icheon. There I was,
at the wrong place with no way to let Sue know where I was. I suppose I
could have just asked everyone how to get to the fortress, or the other
terminal, someone was bound to speak English, but I was real tired and
just decided to go home and try to get some sleep. It was all a bit of
a fiasco.

When I got back to Icheon, I quickly wanted to go and buy some empty
DVDs and discovered that this Sunday was a huge market day. I have to
figure out if this happens every week or just some weekends. Mission
noted.

I can't remember if I mentioned the sun shining straight in to my room
in the morning, keeping me awake, but it does. I run across those
"eyes hades" that one uses to sleep. They work great. I got 2 hours of
extra sleep this morning. Man! Do I feel good now?

Just a few observations I've made. Apparently T-shirts go through
fazes here. Someone mentioned that the current faze is to print random
statements of facts on shirts. I saw this a few weeks ago and it is
quite strange if you don't know about the facts yet. On the back of
the shirt it said: "Ostriches run very fast but they can't fly." That is
it. Nothing more - just that. I hope I am not the only one that sees
this as evidence that Koreans are indeed weirder that South Africans.

Another strange thing that they do is add -pia to things. I heard about
this and saw my first example on Sunday. There is a website called
something like buspia.com. Interested in knowing what this is?
Hmmm? OK. I'll tell you. Utopia. UtoPIA. Uto-pia. Buspia. Yup. They are
indeed crazy here.

Oh! Oh! One last thing. Toast. There are shops that sell toast.
Sounds exiting, doesn't it? I thought the same. hehe. Toast is what
they call toasted sandwiches. I would love to know what they call
actual toast.

Well. That is the end of my ramblings for this episode.

Go well.

*Please note that the statements in this Blog are not intended to make anyone look bad. I do not look down on Koreans. I'm merely describing how amusing I sometimes find people and I am mostly describing it to other westerners. Feel free to come to South Africa and tell the world how crazy we are because heaven knows, we are.