I attend Korean classes at three different venues, three different nights, with three different people and teachers. I'm hoping that this will eventually lead to me being capable of speaking Korean...but mostly that's just wishful thinking at this point.
So Emily and I met up in Hopsongdong, which is a neighborhood about 15 minutes from where I live;it's a fabulous little neighborhood, full of life and true Korean flavor. We had dinner at this cute little restaurant that serves traditional Korean side dishes (which is quickly becoming one of my favorite Korean meals). These side dishes vary and I rarely see the same one twice, last night there was pumpkin oatmeal- this is sooo delicious, some sort of squach and mashed pumpkin salad, lilypad stems soaked in sweet teriyaki pepper sauce, two kinds of grilled and marinated fish, rice with beans and peas, rice cake with beans inside, and my favorite soybean and tofu stew. YUM! Emily and I ate and chatted, i'm seriously considering getting my TESOL (Teachers of English to Teachers of Other Languages) Certificate because I think it's important to have the certificate that says i'm a bona fide teacher, but also because I think that this certificate will open a whole new door of teaching resources to me! and Emily has hers so the conversation was extremely informative for me! After dinner Emily and I got on the bus to go to the Changwon Hotel, which is where Tuesday night Korean classes are held. As we were cruising down the street we suddenly heard this loud BANG! and the whole bus bucked and jumped, a cloud of noxious, visible blue smoke began steaming up from the floors of the bus. The bus driver quickly pulled over and Emily and I departed.
We were nowhere near our final destination.
After realizing that the only bus that could take us where we wanted to go was the bus we had just exited, and that the NEXT 102 bus wasn't coming for an undeterminable time we began seeking alternatives. In Korea there is this great system where you can rent bicycles, ride them about and then return them for a nominal fee of 1,000W (roughly 70 cents) per two hours. We looked across the street and what do you think we saw? Bike rentals. Well there went Korean class! We quickly jaywalked, and realized that the entire rental system was in Korean. hmm...so we flagged down some high school girls and they helped us get some bikes rented. MAN! I have missed riding a bicycle! We cruised down the city streets giggling like 8 year olds. Perhaps the best part of this ride happened when we were sitting at a streetlight I turned around to look at the scenery and instead saw a horde of policemen rapidly moving towards their police cars...we made the obvious presumption that our bus finally blew up and that it was a good thing we had abandoned the electrical transportation for physical.
After riding about for a bit we returned our bicycles and wandered about City Seven, I thought it was this massive mall atrocity but it turns out to be nothing more than another overpriced tiny mall! Fun! Not... So we were exiting the mall and trying to find the nearest bus stop when a man approached us, tall, white, blonde hair, cute smile. He began speaking and we quickly realized that we understood...40% of what he said. He was apparently from a country called Listonia. I don't actually think that country exists. Perhaps he was from Estonia? Im unsure, I also thought he was selling something, medical equipment maybe? Who knows, but when I asked him what he sold he looked at me like I was crazy. Apparently he was just staying in the hotel. Ah the confusion. So we quickly parted ways with this lost listonian and got back on the bus, where I saw my first Korean cross dresser! Now this was so exciting that Emily pulled out her mirror so that we could glance at him/her in the mirror. We decided that he was a very poorly dressed woman and that most likely it was a bad joke gone awry...we hoped it was at least! I finally made it home after exploding busses, lisping listonians, and bad cross dressers! Maybe i'll skip on the Korean lessons more often in favor of land and culture explorations...
Anyeong!
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