Weekend 3, Blog 7

Sooo, I realized that I was being ambitious when I said that I would do a blog a day. It takes a long time to compose these sporadic thoughts. Not only that, but the things that were new are now becoming old; this makes them hard to type, hard to post, and, I am assuming, hard to read lol. So now I will try to do one or 2 a week, or in the special instance of a grand happening ;-) The week was relatively uneventful, my kids taught me how to say a few words, like mom, dad, milk, and I learned how to play Korean rock paper scissors lol. In addition, I learned the chorus to a popular Korean song called Sorry Sorry. You should watch the video, it is actually entertaining. The group is called Super Junior, and it is like a 12 member Korean N'Sync or something lol.



But I made it to the weekend, didn't have plans originally, because Tarita and her people went to the Mud Fest, this festival for foreigners, and me, being pretty broke, had to sit that one out. I also learned that one of my classes only pretended to understand anything I was saying. I knew they were only phonics level, but dang. They treated my life; I was trying to play a game with them, one of the letters of the day was T, so we were playing a “Touch” game. I would say things like Touch door, touch floor, etc. And they would just touch whatever the first student, who looked like they knew what they were doing, touched. I said “touch door” and they touched the bulletin board. I'm like WHAAAAAt???? lol. So then I just showed them each thing and repeated the same objects so that they could run back and forth, and LEARN things like door, floor, desk, flower, etc. Kristine, being the doll that she is, didn't want me to waste the weekend in the house, so she sponsored my trip to Seoul. We went to visit her grandparents, but didn't actually make it LOL. The Seoul transit system is pretty OC, we transferred from 3 different trains to get to the spot where her uncle was supposed to meet us. The train in Seoul is more like the L at home, even a man walking around trying to sell hats or something LOL. But we made it to the stop, and her uncle takes us to this restaurant for fresh fish, which is what we thought would be sushi. WRONG! The first things they bring out are kimchee, a staple, along with other sides, and a nice bowl of raw squid. Now, I am all for the calamari, but usually, it is battered and fried. So I eat some, not too bad. But it got worse LOL. There were these things that looked like regular cuts of sushi, so I grab one in the chopsticks, and put it in some soy sauce and wasabi. Um, def not. It was like chewing an ear, and it crunched. I def do not know how Tyson did that reckless stuff. anyway the next thing they bring out is a platter of random fish and aquatic creatures, for lack of a better term. There were these bright orange things, and Kristine asked “Is there cheese on that?” Alas, no cheese, just the color of the sea urchin that we were about to eat. At least we think it was sea urchin. There was also raw octopus, raw clams, raw mussels, raw snails, and a few boiled shrimp with head on. So they were looking at us, peepin the scene lol. We look in the middle, and there are these bright red things, and I just knew I was tweakin, but I said to Kristine, “yo, that thing just moved,” to which she replied “don't tell me that!” LOL. So, she pokes it with a chopstick, and it darn near reaches up and grabs the thing! We think it was starfish or something, because I know that is one animal that can regenerate its limbs, and they stay alive after being removed. So, there were 3 of us, and 3 of everything, which meant one thing for each of us. So, I manned up and ate one of everything. The snail, I could not do. I even tried the moving thing, I just cut off a dime sized piece and threw it in the soy and wasabi. Surprisingly, it was the best tasting thing on the platter; the texture, again, was the kicker. The sea urchin, or whatever it was, didn't taste like anything, but there was this random “pop” when I chewed it that almost made me spill it all over the table. We made it through the food just as they brought out MORE food. (luckily one of the sides they brought out was some extra good corn, and her uncle bought us a bottle of soju, this sweet Korean vodka. So after every bite, I chased it with either corn or soju LOL) Gasp.... They then brought out a lifetime supply of regular sushi, I know one was torro, a fatty tuna, idk what the other was, but they were a welcome change. It was cut too thick for my liking, but it was easier to swallow than the previous course. After that, they brought out even MORE food, a veggie stew with a whole fish in it. It was pretty good, because it was cooked, lol, and warm, and didn't have odd textures lol. After our food adventure, we didn't have time to meet up with her grandparents, because her friend Jenny was meeting us near the museum in the middle of Seoul, and I think we were closer to the south. I could be wrong though, we transferred so many train lines lol. The museum was cool, they had a few cool parts, my fave was some of the landscape paintings, and some of the Hindu sculpture. We also went to the special exhibit they have for a few months, it was an Egyptian exhibit, so that was cool. Didn't feel like such an outsider surrounded by brown-people-pictures and artifacts ;-) The kicker: They had a play of Cleopatra (we didn't see it, just the billboard) and it was all Korean actors with straight black hair. Guess I cant expect more, but it was funny. My camera battery died before I had a chance to take the pic. All in all, it was a day well spent, or at least a day of new experiences. Some things I will do again, some, lol, I most def. will not. But I say, you only live once, and if something kills ya, you only die once too ;-) Hope all is well! See ya when I see ya!