Um. So, haven't updated since the Wando info. But fun things have happened, so here be updatery. Last weekend was good, we had a few of the other teachers over for drinking fun and were up until about 4.30 just chatting and listening to music etc last Friday, which was cool. Then Saturday (after Becky impressively made it to the gym in the morning) we went into Downtown Gwangju where all the shopping fun is. There was some kind of festival taking place, with scarily young girls doing inappropriate dances in scary outfits and makeup on a little stage, people in costume and on stilts parading around, bands playing, lots of K-Pop and all manner of strangeness. Ace. We went home about 8pm, had a bit of a snooze to refresh, then went drinking again. After a few drinks at Jasmin's place, we went back downtown to a Turkish bar - basically there were cushions everywhere and lots of curtains. No Turks as far as I could see, but it was fun anyway. Then at about 1.30am onto Speakeasy for dancing and giggles. I spent a lot of the night laughing as the girls tried to wriggle away from various slight weird drunk men - particularly starey-intense-dude who was too weird for words. Much drinking and dancing. We left there about 4.30 (I think) and headed to Soul Train. I was kind of excited about the prospect of listening to and dancing to some soul, but when we got there it turned out they weren't playing soul at all. Not even R&B. It sounded more like Travis. Weird. Anyway, we only stayed for about 20 minutes before deciding maybe it was time to bed.
The next day we struggled out of bed in the early afternoon and made our way to Chosun University where the GIC put on an International festival every year.
This basically consisted of a whole bunch of food stalls and a stage with talent show and entertainment. There were a few other bits but that was the interesting stuff. The food was ace, although inexplicably we had to buy food vouchers - a 5000 won note got you a 5000 won food voucher. Can't quite figure out why this was, it seemed like it would've been easier to use real money, but I'm sure there was logic in there somewhere. Anyway, there was loads of African, Indonesian, Chinese, Nepali, Indian, Philippino and Mexican (I feel like I'm missing something out... hmmm. Oh, western food was represented by crepes. Seemed weird to me.) food, which we sampled as much of as was physically possible. African was the best for me, especially as we got a whole plateful for about 50p - pretty good value. It was also Indonesia Day, so Indonesia was very well represented with dancers and singers galore. After a while we decided to rest our bloated stomachs and watch the talent show. Between acts they started announcing winners of the raffle - our little group managed to win 4 tickets to the Biennale, about 8 free coffee vouchers and a new Sony Cybershot camera! Sadly the camera didn't come to me as Sophie had the winning ticket. This is especially unfortunate as my camera seems to be a little unwell at the moment. Bugger. Hopefully it's just a temporary setback. Um... Yeah, so eventually we headed back home for more sleepings.
This basically consisted of a whole bunch of food stalls and a stage with talent show and entertainment. There were a few other bits but that was the interesting stuff. The food was ace, although inexplicably we had to buy food vouchers - a 5000 won note got you a 5000 won food voucher. Can't quite figure out why this was, it seemed like it would've been easier to use real money, but I'm sure there was logic in there somewhere. Anyway, there was loads of African, Indonesian, Chinese, Nepali, Indian, Philippino and Mexican (I feel like I'm missing something out... hmmm. Oh, western food was represented by crepes. Seemed weird to me.) food, which we sampled as much of as was physically possible. African was the best for me, especially as we got a whole plateful for about 50p - pretty good value. It was also Indonesia Day, so Indonesia was very well represented with dancers and singers galore. After a while we decided to rest our bloated stomachs and watch the talent show. Between acts they started announcing winners of the raffle - our little group managed to win 4 tickets to the Biennale, about 8 free coffee vouchers and a new Sony Cybershot camera! Sadly the camera didn't come to me as Sophie had the winning ticket. This is especially unfortunate as my camera seems to be a little unwell at the moment. Bugger. Hopefully it's just a temporary setback. Um... Yeah, so eventually we headed back home for more sleepings.This week has been officially a month since we arrived, fun times! Feel pretty settled now, and more comfortable with the more crazy things Korea has to offer. Like people riding their mopeds on the pavement through busy streets and thrill seeking taxis drivers running red lights. And being given candy floss by a lady from a phone shop. But it was still highly disconcerting a couple of days ago to hear an air raid siren going off shortly after we arrived at school. It seems every so often they have a drill just in case Kim Jong Il goes crazier and sends some planes over the border to attack us. Apparently all we're expected to do is go inside the nearest building. I guess Korean buildings must be designed to withstand explosions! Who needs bomb shelters eh? Also, the creative mangling of the English language will be forever entertaining.
Anyway, I'm going to go to bed now. Becky's laptop is still set to English time, but I think's silly o'clock. now. Gnight!
No comments:
Post a Comment