You'll all be happy to hear that this has been a pretty good week. There's a variety of reasons for this, but I think a lot of it comes from the fact I've wrapped up my first full month of school at my Hagwon- most of the classes have a set amount of material for each month, so I now (theoretically) know what to do in April. Or at least I can avoid the big pitfalls I fell into before.
Also! One of the big highlights of my week was getting a care package from my folks in the states! The only problem with it was that I got it at school- so I got to spend most of the day staring at the box, wishing I could go home and open it up. Sweet, sweet anticipation.
But yes- cookies! Peanut butter! Taco seasonings! Books! Black tea! All sorts of goodies. I honestly haven't even touched the cookies and the like- saving 'em for later, y'see. Still, just having a little bit of home shipped over here made me feel pretty great.
And, on top of all that- I finally got my ARC card, which means I could finally get a bank account, which means I got PAID. Ah, it's a good feeling, knowing I have money coming in. I'm going to have to sit down and figure out my expenses soonish, but I plan on tucking a tidy sum of my earnings here away. Living thrifty and all that. (Which didn't stop me from buying a bunch of stuff at the grocery store just now, but still).
Friday night, I hit up the local expat bar- unfortunately, I got there a bit early, so it was kinda quiet. I had some fun talking to a Welshman & a Canadian- both of whom absolutely trounced me at darts- but they were very sporting about it, especially given the fact I didn't know how to play beyond 'throw the pointy thing at the round thing on the wall.'
Saturday was certainly more eventful, however! As once again, I met up with my cousin and a friend of hers- whereupon we went to the War memorial of Korea. Pretty neat little museum- the outside was easily the best part, as it had a ton of tanks, planes, helicopters, and other hardware from the Korean war. They even had a little destroyer (or whatever the name of this kind of ship is) you could walk around in- and you could see a bunch of holes in the side of it that'd been circled with red to indicate where it'd gotten shot up. In retrospect, I probably should've read the plaque, but I was a little too distracted by poking around.
The inside of the museum was neat too- though again, I couldn't help but find some of the exhibits kind of jingoistic. Which isn't to say that they do the same in the states, but there was a lot of 'Look at all this cool stuff our National Heroes of Korea use because they are so awesome!' The exhibit on the current ROK armed forces was particularly notable in this way. Which was kind of amusing, as I read in the newspaper a week or two ago that a lot of the Korean-made next-gen weapons the exhibits were touting...don't work like they should.
There was an exhibit/memorial on the sinking of the Cheonan. I found this surprising, since the whole North Korea issue is one of those things that nobody seems to mention in passing conversation- which made the exhibit a little more jarring. Especially considering they had pieces of the torpedo that sank the ship on display. It was like the entire point of the exhibit was to say 'LOOK WHAT THEY DID.'
So yeah, we poked around the museum for a bit, then headed back to my cousin's pad to regroup (and so she and her friend could change clothes. Whereas I, of course, stayed in my same T-shirt, fleece, & jeans I'd been wearing before. Then, we went to Hongdae! That's the neighborhood around a big university, so it's very young and trendy (and an expat hangout, to boot!). And, being Saturday night, it was pretty bustling.
The ORIGINAL plan was to catch a punk rock show- but when we got to the club, there was a different band on the bill than the one we wanted to see. Which either meant I got the place wrong, or there's another joint with the same name, or whatever.
But that's alright! As if you can't find something fun to do in Hongdae, you probably hate fun in the first place. Bars and clubs were everywhere- we wound up going to some little place called 'Zen III.' They had a pretty good DJ (even if he began to repeat some of his songs. As good as it is, I think "I'm on a Boat" is a once-a-night kind of song). Some more of my cousin's friends popped in, so we wound up spending most of the night dancing around and generally having a good time. It was my first night partying Korean-style, and I have to say that while the club wasn't exactly my typical sort of haunt, I really enjoyed it. I had...more than a few Jack & cokes, so that helped too. Still, the cocktails must've been a bit weak, as when I woke up this morning, I didn't have the hangover that I feared I'd wind up with. Go figure! Maybe I just sweated most of the booze out on the dance floor.
(I don't know who that guy is, but he had rad glasses, which is enough for a picture).
In any case, we eventually wound down- ambling out of the club, at which point we got schwarmas from a street vendor outside the club. They, of course, were delicious in the way that greasy, spicy food can be once you're winding down an evening's revelry. Certainly more characterful than Jack in the Box, at least!
We piled into a taxi, and my cousin was awesome enough to let me crash at her place, given I live a good hour away from Hongdae (or anything cool in Seoul). That, and the trains had stopped running by the time we wound down anyway. Got about...four hours of sleep before I woke up again, and made my way home! I dunno what it is, but I'm kind of an early riser these days. Residual jetlag, perhaps? Or maybe the sun was just shining in my eyes.
But yeah, a little bit of fatigue aside, I'm doing pretty good! Sundays are lazy days for me, which is a nice little routine- I went to the grocery store, cleaned on the apartment a little bit, took a nap, and so on. I'm sure I'll crash hard in a few hours and catch up on the sleep I missed, but that's just fine by me!
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