Almost there...

I'm relieved that my last blog post was posted on the 29th because it's tiring trying to catch everyone up on a weeks worth of events. I need to get better about posting. Seriously.
My trip to the University Hospital was pretty interesting. Apparently all the teachers who come to South Korea have to get a health check (makes sense) so they can make sure we aren't on drugs, pregnant or diseased. Luckily, I'm none of those, so I wasn't really worried about the health check. I met Mr. Choi outside the school at 10 am and off we went to the hospital. We walked into the center where I was supposed to get everything done and it was MOBBED. There were so many Koreans there to get their health checks. They were all wearing robes and slippers, which I thought was cute. Anyway, the thing I was most terrified about was having my blood drawn. For those of you who know me well, this is the most terrifying experience for me. I think I'd rather meet a dinosaur than have my blood drawn. I think its awful and it gives me goosebumps just thinking about it. So I was apprehensive about that. First things first though, I had to pee in a cup and for the first time in my life, my small bladder failed me and I could only fill up one tube (I had to fill up two of them). I noticed my pee had an orange tinge to it however, and realized that I probably shouldn't have taken the dayquil before my health check. I hope it comes out okay. After peeing in the tube, I had to get my blood drawn. And it wasn't bad. At all. I basically plugged my nose (don't ask me why) and looked at the wall. She filled up four different tubes with my blood and I was perfectly fine. Go me! After the blood, they had to check my eyes, hearing, teeth, height, weight (ugh), and then they gave me a chest x-ray (which I thought was interesting). There was a really sweet Korean nurse who was walking me to all the stations and we got to chat a little bit. I asked her why there were so many people here and she said that the Korean government makes it mandatory for its people to get a health check once or even twice a year. She said because of all the spicy food that Koreans eat, that a lot of people have gastric problems, mostly gastric cancer. Perhaps they should stop eating spicy food. Anyway, on the ride home from the University, Mr. Choi and I were talking and he told me this story about a teacher that they had hired who, after the health check, just disappeared in the middle of the night. Apparently he was addicted to heroin. Lovely. After the hospital, Mr. Choi took me to the pharmacist to get some medicine for my cold, then took me to eat lunch at this traditional Korean restaurant. I was, unfortunately, wearing a skirt, so sitting on the floor while not flashing my lady parts was very stressful, and I am NOT cut out to sit cross legged for long periods of time. My legs were dead asleep by the time lunch was over. If I wasn't trying to play it off so bad, it would have been a hilarious situation.
So the health check happened last Thursday, the 26th of August. Friday after classes, Patrick, Vincent and I went to eat dinner.

 This is our beautiful table. We cooked the pork, onions and rice cakes on that little grill in the middle of the table. 

And this is the bug larvae that they put RIGHT next to me. No, I didn't try it. 

While we were eating dinner, we saw some girls walk past the window who Patrick apparently knew. We had made plans earlier in the day to go downtown so I could meet his friends and experience the night culture of Daejeon. So Patrick invited them to come along. We met up with them around 11:30 then took a cab downtown. I'll just say this. Daejeon is like one big frat party. The guys (native teachers) are all just looking to score and the girls are there to drink a lot and stumble around drunk. My ideal is this: you can party and drink anywhere - why waste a perfectly good weekend drinking in Daejeon when you could be in Seoul, Busan, Jeju-do or at one of the many national parks that they have here? Maybe I've outgrown it, or maybe I'm just super lame, but it just really wasn't my scene. Anyway, I'll get off my soap box. So we met some of Patrick's (who will be called Paddy from now on) friends, most of whom were South African. The Irish girls and I were basically sitting there sipping our drinks (soju and orange juice) while everyone was socializing and drinking (heavily) outside of this convenience store, GS-25. There were groups of natives in little clusters - it was awfully cliquey and weird. I totally felt like an outsider. The most interesting part of the night though was people watching, which I have always loved to do. The Korean girls are all about wearing the highest of heels, the shortest of skirts, but the most modest shirts. It's hilarious. They look like hookers on the bottom, then nuns on top. It's hilarious. They were all beautiful though. Long, beautiful hair, perfect makeup, fashionable clothes, lean, svelte bodies. They were gorgeous. The men were a different story. A lot of them were actually so drunk that they had to be supported by their fellow drunk buddies. The men here dress, well I don't really know how to explain it. I wish I had taken a picture, but that's always kind of weird. They wear skinny jeans here, with polos (with the popped collar of course), thick, black framed glasses and Puma-like shoes. They dress pretty nice actually, but the skinny jeans? Not so much. We went to a couple bars while we were downtown, but since Korea allows people to smoke in the bars, I was totally not enjoying myself. I really didn't mean to be so lame, but I just wasn't feeling it. The Irish girls and I went home around 1:30 am - Paddy didn't get in till 5 am. Yikes!
The Irish girls and I got along pretty well. On the cab ride home, we agreed that we'd meet up Saturday morning so we could eat lunch then travel around Daejeon a bit. Helena and Kellyanne are part of EPIK, which is the public school system here. Since they're part of EPIK, they had this big orientation with all the public school teachers. The ones located in Daejeon agreed to meet at City Hall on Saturday, so after lunch, we were going to do that. I have to admit, I was pretty excited to be meeting some new people. We ate lunch at Mrs. Kim's, this Western restaurant that is owned by this sweet, older Korean lady. The chicken sandwich there is amazing. I have to thank Paddy for showing me that restaurant.
We met this other girl, Rachel, before braving the bus system of Daejeon (which actually turned out to be really easy). We took the 705 downtown. On the bus, we met two other guys who had been in the orientation with Helena, Rachel and Kellyanne. We got lost trying to find City Hall, but eventually found it with the help of some people on the street. We got to where everyone was and it was cliquey again! Kellyanne warned me about this. She actually said that the Americans tended to cluster together and not talk to anyone else, which was exactly what happened. Anyway, the plan was to go out and eat, and since we just ate and I really wanted to go to the E-Mart, Kellyanne and I split to go off and do our own thing. We had a really great time, and I ended up getting a set of drawers for my apartment at the trusty E-Mart.

This thing was awful to carry. I made it though!

On Sunday, we met up with Helena again and basically tried to do touristy things. It was POURING most of the day though, so we tried to find things to do inside. We really wanted to go to this Arboretum type thing here in Daejeon and take lots of pictures of the city, but that didn't happen because it just wouldn't stop raining. 

This is me and Kellyanne after running through the rain to catch a taxi.

Kellyanne and Helena in the E-Mart

We went to the E-Mart again on Sunday because Helena wanted to look for some shoes since hers got soaked from the rain. She wears a size 10, or a 260, so there was really no way in hell that we were going to find shoes for her. The highest they went was 250. Our feet are just too big for Korea. Hopefully all my shoes hold out for the year! So the E-Mart has three floors, and they have these escalator type things to bring the carts up and down the floors. They have these in Paris so I was pretty used to seeing them, but apparently a lot of people have never seen it before. I felt privileged. The rest of Sunday was pretty uneventful, we basically just took some fun pictures then went home to shower off the sweat from the day.

Kellyanne and I in front of the cutest statue ever!

Me in some cool artwork. I love taking pictures!

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday flew by this week. This week was my first week of teaching. I didn't teach ALL the classes, but I did teach a few while Vincent sat in the dunce corner taking notes on how to improve my teaching skills. Baha. The first class I taught went okay. I was mostly nervous and insecure because I knew I had no experience in teaching whatsoever. His comments after the class were to be louder and more entertaining. I was basically boring. Great. The second class went better. I was able to engage with the students more and kind of joke around and be, well, entertaining. The next few classes went great. The kids seem to really like me - I'll hopefully take some pictures of them soon so everyone can see how cute they are! 

Haha, this kid today, his "English" name is James, was drawing a gun today in class. I thought about how much trouble an American kid would have gotten had the teacher seen what he was drawing. The gun even had a silencer on it! He's a sweet kid though. Once he saw that I was looking at his drawing, he started drawing Bart, from the Simpsons for me. Funny!

FINALLY caught up. Last night, Mr. Choi took us all out to celebrate Vincent's last week. We went to this restaurant where they put a pot of broth on the table, then they bring it to a boil on this little stove thats apart of our table. You put bean sprouts, cabbage, mushrooms, dumplings and raw meat into the broth to cook. It was SO GOOD. After you eat all the meat and stuff, you put noodles in the broth (my favorite part). It was so much fun and tasty. As you all know, everyone likes to drink a whole lot in my group of co-workers. We were having soju and beer at dinner, which was pretty nasty, but despite that, I drank anyway. After dinner, we went to this beer garten where we had this really tall glasses of beer. I wish I had taken a picture of them. It was ridiculous. I ended up pouring about half of mine into Paddy's glass though. Beer is disgusting. Our Korean co-workers also seem to think that there's something going on between Paddy and I because I guess we "look good together." We both thought that was hilarious because that would never happen. I played it up for him though. After the beer garten, we went to a Karaoke bar! At this point, I was drunk. Yes, I was drunk. All the beer and soju was just too much. So, inhibitions aside, I belted out some Lady Gaga, Britney Spears and the Spice Girls. It was a good night. 

I can't believe I'm all caught up. What a relief. I've been typing for an hour and I apologize for the length of this entry, but I really needed to catch everyone up. 

This weekend I'm going to Seoul with the Irish girls. I'm so excited! More to come later!