Party hearty!

Well that was pretty much the busiest weekend I've had in a while! On Friday night we went out to this place called "Fish & Grill" (although I'm not completely sure that's its real name since the sign out front is completely in Hangul...anyway, that's what the other teachers call it...for all I know it could actually be called "Deep Fried Heart Failure Palace"...in fact maybe that's what it SHOULD be called) for "dinner" (which is also questionable as a title for the "meal" we had as it consisted of only snausnages and fries, fried chicken and fries and an absurd amount of Korean beer and Soju...all for 15000 won per person which is a measly amount of money for the sheer volume of all of the above consumed by our rather large party). After we'd finished up with our fried beer fest, we headed off to the university district to Tombtone, a bar that many of the foreign teachers in Jeonju frequent. Although I'm usually not a big one for going out, I had a really great time, and we didn't fall into bed exhausted until about 3 am. We caught a super cheap cab back to our place (4000 won) with our next door neighbours, a couple from Minnesota (Pictured above, left). P.S. look at the super great picture of me with my mouth full of greasy greasy food... I'm kind of thinking Soju might not be my friend since I didn't get out of bed until about 3 pm the next day...

On Saturday, our school had a welcome party for the four of us/a going away party for the teachers we're replacing. There was tons of

food, including Korean BBQ and some sort of rice cakey thing that resembled a worm...I'm obviously not in love with that. Aside from the fact that we were forced to participate in the rooftop version of Noribang (Karaoke), it was all in all a pretty good time! I decided we should sing Don't You Want Me Baby? by the Human League since that's the song I most frequently belt out just hangin' around the house and had thus had quite a lot of practice...

although that didn't really make us feel significantly less foolish when we had to reapeat "Don't you want me baby?" over and over again at the end of the song...but still far less foolish than when wesang Baby Got Back later on. Can anyone say work in-appropriate? Luckily with Noribang you don't have to sing all of the words displayed on the screen...was everyone else already aware that that is pretty much the dirtiest song you ever did hear...though so so catchy. I'm sure no one knew...right? Whatever...just check out this sweet view of Jeonju from the top of our school!

After the party we went over to our neighbours' house for a bit of fun times with the other teachers and played this card-based game where each card meant the drawer thereof had to do something different. This included several rounds of "Never Have I Ever" and a card that endowed whoever drew it with the power to make the rest of us hold up our hands as moose antlers at any time...fun times.

On Sunday we ventured to E-mart which is the Korean equivalent of Walmart. In fact, when Walmart came to Korea, E-mart promptly bought it out...IN YOUR FACE WALMART! We bought a bunch of other stuff we needed for the house, including a blender for all my smoothie needs, and an iron for all of our wrinkle needs, and all in all I think we

did a pretty okay job of navigating the store and explaining to the sales people that we wanted the cheapest everything. We also saw a really really cute hedgehog that my friend and I agreed may have had

a broken leg, but that I still really wanted to take home and nurse back to health! While we were in E-mart we met up with some other foreign teachers, Kiwis working in the public school system. The weirdest part of this whole thing has definitely been the fact that seeing other foreigners has become the MOST exciting thing in the world. Back home, I have never once spoken to someone simply because they "looked" any certain way, but here, if someone is something other than Korean, it's like we're all over each other! Bizarre to the max. It's like we're all feeling so isolated and English-

deprived that we'll talk to literally anyone who speaks English. We

all bonded over our shared feelings of alienation...which I've found is what usually happens, and promptly became Facebook friends (because we all know its not real life, and certainly not real

friendship, if it doesn't happen on the Fache Boak).

Once we'd paid for our stuff, we even managed to procure a cab back

to our neighbourhood. Sure it involved Aubrey flashing the carefully written out card with her address on it at the cabby and then asking several times whether or not it was okay, but gosh darn it, we got there! We got right to her front door in fact. I think that's pretty damn impressive! We are impressive everyone! Admit it. Maybe it would have been even more impressive if the cab could have dropped us off in front of OUR front door considering we were carrying two small bookshelves, a blender, an iron, two pillows with cases and a bunch of other junk, but, you know...small steps.

Later on in the evening after our somewhat ailing fellow new teacher had woken up, the four of us newbies ventured out in search of dinner. We'd walked by a bunch of eateries on Friday night on our way to the "Fish & Grill" (including my best friend Baskin Robbins, which

they have in Korea!), so we decided to see if they had any food that we could navigate

ordering. We ended up going to a place called "Pizza School" which seemed to specialize in very very cheap pizza pies. At a whopping 5000 won a pizza, we could all eat for about 2500 won a piece and had the

extreme pleasure of venturing into the wild world of sweet potato pizza along with its safer companion pepperoni. The best part of this place is that it's a truly fantastic source of my favourite food, the hard to come by cheese...goey melty yummy cheese! Here I am posing attractively with the advertisement for something called"Dutch Bite Pizza". This thing literally had hotdogs on it people...hotdogs, corn and red/green peppers all smothered in mayo andaccompanied by something that looked similar to those Pizza Hut pull-apart crusts that, though they

look delicious are most certainly NOT. I think we're going to have to get it next time since it's always important to try everything at least once...even if it looks a bit sketch and more than a bit unhealthy for your eyes, stomach AND body. How could it not be good with all of those factors? To your left you'll find the full menu of options available to us. I'm pretty happy with what we got. The sweet potato pizza was fairly delicious, and although it was unexpectedly a bit honey-mustardy, overall, it possessed the deliciousness. After our little foray to get schooled in the world of pizza, we took a little jaunt over to my previously mentioned best pal Baskin Robins. When we got there, the place was swarming with bagillions of Korean families, all of whom seemed to be ordering giant mixed containers of ice cream...presumably to share (?) It took forever to get the attention of the ladies behind the counter, and when we did, they just took Bryan's order and left we standing there ice-creamless! I was so frustrated I could have cried. Luckily Aubrey came to my rescue and got the chick's attention simply by being

not me...I don't know what up with that... Needless to say, by the time I actually got to eating my "Love Potion #31", I was feeling less than loving feelings towards the whole experience. Damn you language barrier, can you leave nothing untouched by your tyrannous ways? Barriers to ice cream always seem way worse than barriers to anything else, I'm telling you. In the end it was all good I suppose, I mean I did eventually get my ice cream...And besides, here's a lovely picture of Bryan nerding it out hardcore with Aubrey. How can I not find some joy in that? Please note the video game controller hands...

We called it an early night after the icey creamy, since the other three had to start work the next mid-afternoon (they seriously don't start at Bryan's part of the programme until like 1:30 pm...and they don't start at mine until like 3 pm! I think I'm going to love this). I don't get to start work until June when the teacher I'm replacing leaves, so for now, I'm a stay at home non-mom. I don't really know what I'm going to do with myself for a month! We knew that one of us would start a bit later than the other...but I was kind of hoping it was going to be Bryan! This blog may get kind of boring for a while...or really really interesting if I get up the gaul to get out and about the town...and get lost and or otherwise maimed. We'll see how this one plays out...Seriously people, if you want to come visit, NOW is the PERFECT time!