Haven't written in awhile. Guess I've just been doing more living, and less reflecting, which is a good thing I think.
Had a few noteworthy events in the last few weeks. Did a scavenger hunt a few weeks ago. It was organized by a few friends. There were probably like 10 teams consisting of about 5-7 members. There were a bunch of tasks we had to do around Seoul ranging from drinking soju with a stranger, to giving a stranger a piggy back ride, to getting a piercing somewhere other than ears. It was a pretty fun day that ended with us looking around desperately for a piercing shop. We found one, but it wasn't open. We talked to a guy that had a shop right next door and he called the people to come open it for us. While waiting we hung out with this guy named Mickey. He spoke pretty good English, and had this really cool, random place in this alley where as far as we could tell he smoked, drank, and worked on old motorcycles. We completed a few tasks while waiting at his shop, one being making a human pyramid with a Korean on top...
To make a long story short...we ended up getting picked up by one of Mickey's friends named Mr. No, to go to his piercing shop. So all 7 of us crammed into his friends Chrysler 300 that was all decked out in complete leather interior, TV's, and a rockin' sound system. And what, might you ask, was Mr. No rockin' out to? None other than The Backstreet Boys. Epic. Well 2 teammates ended up getting 6 piercings between the 2 of them. They couldn't be on ears so I'll let you imagine where the piercings went. After all that trouble we actually ended up only getting 3rd place. We were a little disappointed, but it was an awesome day!
The same day of the scavenger hunt was the start of the World Cup. I have never really gotten into the World Cup before, but it was impossible not to get excited while here. Everyone was into it. Almost all the restaurants around here have outdoor seating, so they all had TV's set up, and some even had projector screens. It was a really fun atmosphere to be a part of. Korea ended up playing 4 games before they got beat out. We had different, fun experiences for them all.
The first one was at 8:30pm on a Saturday. A bunch of us decided to go into an area of Seoul called COEX. As the cabs pulled up to drop us off all you could see were thousands of people on the street. It was pretty awesome. It was raining, but nobody really cared. Korea won that night, so it was super exciting. All of us bought Korea jersey's, and we got a lot of attention from people, being a bunch of foreigners cheering for Korea. We even made it on an online newspaper sight.
It was a pretty unbelievably fun time. Memorable night for sure.
The next game was on a Thursday night at 8:30. A bunch of us decided to go to the local park around here, that was showing it on a big screen. The park was packed so we tried to go to some of the local restaurants. They were all packed with tons of screens set up outside, so there were just tons of people in the street watching the game. Korea lost that game, but it was still exciting to be around so many people all cheering so hard for their team.
The next game was at 3:30am on a Tuesday/Wednesday morning. We watched that one at the movie theater here. It was pretty awesome. It was the first game that we could all actually sit down and watch from start to finish. It was a late night, but fun to watch.
The last game was at 11:00pm on a Saturday night. We went to City Hall in Seoul, which is the big place to watch it. It was raining again, and there were so many people we couldn't really see the screen. So we all decided to try and find a restaurant to sit down at and watch it. It took us probably 10 minutes to find any place where we could sit down. We finally found a place down a random side street. There were about 20 of us foreigners watching it with about 10 Koreans. They had a pretty good time with us. Koreans are really nice people, and are genuinely happy to share their culture with foreigners. They had fun cheering, and drink soju with all of us. It was a really good game, but unfortunately Korea lost, and that was the end of their World Cup run. I'm really happy I was able to be here during World Cup. I will for sure get into it a lot more in the future.
Watched a few of the American games too. A lot of them were on at 3:30am after Korea games. It made for some long nights, but it was worth it. Lots of fun!
Last weekend we went to a B-Boy competition. B-Boy is what the break dancers are called here. Korea is pretty well known for their B-Boys. I've never really seen anything like that in person. It's pretty amazing what those guys can do. They also had some cool martial arts, and other dance performances too. Fun, interesting time.
Well that is about it. We are all counting down the days till vacation. Eleven more teaching days....then Philippines here we come. I think there is a group of almost 15 of us going now. I'm sure it will be a pretty fun time. Can't hardly wait.
Hope everyone at home is doing well. Talk to you again soon...
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