Tuesday, April 7, 2009

A weekend of Companera and "Elin"

On Friday Chelsea and Erin returned from their temple stay more exhausted than ever. I found them napping at the apartment when I got home from school. Brian was busy bowling with his 6th grade teachers while the girls caught me up on their adventures. The bottom line was that they very much enjoyed the temple, but the vegetarian food was a struggle for Chelsita, and the 4 AM wake up call and cold meditation were challenges.

Brian came back to report a high score at the bowling alley, and we were off to dine. We tried lots of restaurants while our carnivores were in town that we'd never gone to before because they advertised only meat, but we found a delicious squid and garlic roast at the place we've seen many times but never entered, the one with a chicken with it's butthole taped up - strange mascot, catches the eye though. It was the beginning of a long night of mayhem, including but not limited to arcade games and soju bombs. Erin's friends from the Peace Corps (she was in Honduras), Rich and Raul, are both living and teaching in S. Korea "these days" and they met up with us late that night.

Next day we woke up late, but not terribly so, and somehow motivated everyone (that's 6 people if you haven't counted yet sleeping in our one room apartment) for a hike on Geumjeongsan. Not everyone was enthusiastic to begin with, but everyone was glad they'd seen it once we were there. That's Raul on the far left, then Erin then Chels. Rich was doing a scramble while we were eating apples.
And below is the mountain and fortress wall. The azaleas are all blooming but the cherry trees haven't made it up this high yet.
After our hike we went to Dr. Fish where everyone was tickled to their limits by tiny mouths chewing on our feet. From there we decided free drinks at the casino were a good idea, so it was there before a soju tent and back to Kyungsung. In our home turf we ate more and then showed everyone a great time belting our hearts out at the most ghetto little nore bang in town. Then we were off to Ol 55 where we met and played pool with an Asian version of Johnny Shields. Check him out, it's kind of unbelievable.
Sunday morning it was even harder to rally the troups, but once we were up we had a nice Sunday walk on Haeundae Beach on our way to Vesta Sauna, a bath house with an unbeatable view of the beach and Dalmaji hill. There's even a small tub outside on a porch where you can soak in the breeze, but there's a necesarrily high fence so you can't really take in the view from there. The girls loved the bath house, and according to Korean tradition, we are all best friends for life now for having gone together. The boys had a good time, but at the risk of stereotyping by sex, I think boys simply don't enjoy bathing as much.


It was hard to see them go, especially Chels and Erin because I know we won't see them again for at least 9 months, but it's better to have seen them and have them go than never have seen them at all.

This is unrelated, but hillarious. This is a real commercial for a pizza chain in S. Korea, and it uses a mix of Korean slang and English profanity to sell the stuff.

Yes, he says "*#$ f*#$ f*#$ mother f*#$ f*#$ mother f*#$"and also "let's get down ni@#*!" and this airs frequently on all channels. So funny.