Seoul Saturday-Sunday

Seoul was fun as I will count this weekend trip as my first time since it was the first time I 1.Drank and 2. passed out in the nations capital. Also this trip was enlightining. I'm not gonna pull any punches we were at a place called Hooker Hill when we started the drinking as one of us is formerly a member of the Army who was stationed in Seoul for 6 years I believe. This was the place for them to go. It was quite crowded at the top at less hookery places but the middle section of the hill(note: this really is a hill and it sucks to go up or down) there was a proposterous number of prostitutes standing infront of their "Bars" where I wonder aloud now at work, "could you even get a drink at one of those places?"

It akso made me question English education in this country as one girl approached the oldest gentleman in our group took his arm and tried to coax him into some shady room in this dark ally of a street. I didn't hear her but I assume she could speak enough English to get her point across which probably puts her in the top 30% if only because she is willing to even speak it. It seems hard to get Koreans to fess up to knowing English cause they are afraid of making a mistake and looking dumb. Little do they realize that people like me come from across the planet in an attempt to teach them and in the process we look tremendously foolish for basically the whole time. I think I've seen 4 non prostitute, non English teacher Koreans speaking or at least trying to speak English. My main Pizza guy, probably mid to late 30's, the head teacher at my school, a very very nice woman in her late 50's had a very nice conversation with her even though she swears her English is terrible, it's not. My Vice Principal, he also speaks very well but we haven't spoken a lot since my first week. And the last one is the funniest but this man in Seoul we met while standing outside of a hotel trying to find a room he came up asked us where we were from was making jokes and singing songs all in English then he tried to help us find a room by talking to a couple of hotels we called he was probably also mid to late 50's like the VP. I guess the point of this is that many Koreans know functional English or at least the polite words but are like frozen solid against usuing them. Which is differnt from me cause I only know polite words, hello, goodby, here and there. So yeah

Anyway I don't have any pictures of anything of my own from Seoul cause we got cameras at the end of the trip instead of the beginning because we are idiots. So far I've just taken some pictures from here in Okcheon and I will post them soon so that everyone can see how awesome of a place this is.

Edit: I think that I'm gonig to buy pizzas for my schools because I should probably do something for them before they start to think I'm an inconsiderate jerk. Oh Kay off to teach the first class of the day!

Weapons Grade Cute

Today was an important day. I finally went to Daejeon and applied for my Alien Registration Card(ARC), once I get this I will be able to get internet and tv in my home and leave the country. Not that I'm in any particular hurry to leave Korea, quite the contrary. I'm loving every moment in Okcheon, my adopted hometown of 55,000 souls. I love the look on little kids faces when they see me. It's either sheer joy or sheer terror. Then I say "Hi" and they either run away or respond in kind. Also since I went into town today I got off of work early. I was walking down the street with groceries and some high school kids actually said "Hi" as opposed to just staring or avoiding eye contact. In this town of 55,000 there are about 8 government contracted teachers here, who knows how many privates and who cares really. Anyway there are 8 of us who stick out like thumbs, 3 of us stick out like sore thumbs thanks to being black. I wouldn't want to be anyplace else on the face of the earth right now, I'm learning something about myself and everything around me everyday. The kids are tough but the job is rewarding.

I'm planning on going to Seoul for the first time with some people I met at orientation. Right now we have the 26th set as the date but it's still tentative to me cause we are supposed to get out first paycheck on the 25th. Normal Korean teachers here get paid the 17th so hopefully the worse case scenario for me is they accidentally pay me a week in advance then just say sit on it cause it too much work to take it back and then give it back one week later. So I may meet some people
on the train or in Seoul either way it'll be fun

I cannot stress this enough, most of the children here have been uncontrollably cute. Everyone of my 6th & 5th graders are are older then my oldest niece and she has nothing on them in cuteness right now(sorry Maddie). They are secret walking cute factories, producing weapons grade cute and then testing it on the undesirables in the northern provinces of Iraq while the United States silently nods because this is a fight against extremist. They are that cute.