Let October Roll

One more day until the weekend starts over here, quite literally. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that this Friday is a holiday. Don't ask me why, I haven't the slightest idea.. But nevertheless, myself and a half-dozen teachers are going to use the opportunity to go take a trip to the eastern coast of Korea. I'm not exactly sure which town we're going to yet, but we'll be leaving early in the morning on Friday.

Tomorrow, Thursday, myself and Sarah (the same teacher who'd been invited to Busan last weekend) were asked if we could go and take some promotional pictures in the morning. I'm not exactly sure where, but they promised us a lunch at Outback's Steakhouse afterwards - good enough of a payout for me! Outback's is one of several restaurant-franchises that are fairly common in Korea. You can also easily find TGI Fridays (popular in the States, at least), some McDonalds, and KFCs. But the most popular, by far, is Baskin Robbins - which may very well be the most common franchise in the country (judging on what i've seen - and i've seen over a dozen thus far). I'm not quite sure why they're asking the same two people repeatedly to do promotional work, unless they're trying to establish us as some sort of GEC Mascots. Ahh, and I thought the days of being a mascot were behind me:

(It's not actually me in this picture, but hey, it's the same costume - credits to my friend Stephane for this picture, and for actually spending more time in there than me)

Anywho, this week has been pretty dull otherwise. My adult-classes are on a week-long break, but I was happy to hear that my morning-adults actually called the administration at the end of last week, and asked if I could leave early for lunch on Tuesday so that they could take me out again. For those who like to keep track, it's the third time in a month. They still won't let me pay for anything, so I think the logical thing to do would be to buy them all gifts at some point - or import something from Canada for 'em. They're a pretty great group.

They took me to a very high-class Korean restaurant, named Kyung Bok Kung. How high-class? When you enter, you have no fewer than four people bowing at you - followed by two more when you're down the hall. That's gotta be right up there with the Best-Buy staff applauding anyone who comes in when the store opens. Anyway, the food was excellent. We had some kind of beef/noodles Bulgogi stew, along with a dozen side dishes. Most Korean restaurants are very big on side-dishes.. you're not expected to finish everything. One thing that bothers me, though, is that it takes a looong time for me to remember what any food is called - I have to eat it several times before that happens- so i'm going to make a stronger push to force myself to learn Korean. After seeing the kinds of efforts that those adults put in, what kind of excuse can I really come up with?

Between learning Korean, learning the Guitar, and going to the Gym regularly, I finally feel adequately busy. I never thought that being busy would be one of those things i'd come to like, or even appreciate... but after being so inactive for over three months after graduation, I just felt so damned unproductive and lazy. It feels good to get into a healthy routine. The only thing I regret at this point, about leaving North America, is how badly the financial markets took it. I guess it took a month for the news to really leak, but what followed was the economy taking a historic dive.

Sorry about that. I'll be back.
I promise.