korean movies, green beer, & wingin' it...

Last Wednesday night was entertaining in that about 9 of the EPIK teachers in the Gumi area got together at a friend's place & watched a Korean movie (with English subtitles of course), as well as enjoyed pizza & drinks. Picture 9 people in a small apartment gathered around a laptop computer, reading subtitles of a movie, lol. The movie was called Old Boy and was funny as well as "twisted." I will leave it at that. Interesting movie...watch it if you have time. :)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oldboy
Thursday brought up the idea of looking for Guinness beer in Gumi to celebrate St. Patrick's day. While I was more on a mission for green beer and a night out of the apartment, I decided to join Paul, Ali, & Alex in their quest. We ate dinner @ a place we had been to before, then headed to another part of town where there is a western restaurant/bar called "Waegook Cook," which is actually owned by a "waegook". Considering it was a Thursday night, there were quite a few people there, all in spirit of green beer & decor. We attempted a game of poker, another card game, & enjoyed a free shot from the owner of the bar. Back at home around midnight I somehow managed to stay up until close to 3am. That's the downfall to being 14 hours ahead of Texas time, they are up when you should be sleeping. So with three hours of sleep after chatting on Skype, I made it to Friday!

Fridays, as previously mentioned, are my hell. Well not hell, but I have many more classes than I do the rest of the week! I will say TGIF every Friday, this I am sure of. So with many cups of coffee I make it through all 6 classes...ok well 5 because my co-teacher could tell I was sleepy & told me I didn't have to do my "teach the teachers" class. I've been there 3 weeks now & have still yet to do that class. I consider my daily conversations with them to be "teaching" enough, lol.
On to Friday night!! Met up with a new friend for some dinner, a coffee chat, & then out for drinks. Went to a few new places. It was nice to go somewhere other than Corona for the entire night..even though we did end up there for a bit at the end of the night, haha.

Saturday brought coffee, a stroll through Gumi with beautiful warmer weather, & lunch with my friend. After debating on what to do for Saturday evening, I decided to see a group of people that I hadn't seen in awhile. All of the teachers in a city named Jeomchon have an annual St. Patrick's day celebration, so I decided to partake in the event. Since I knew a few people that were in my Class 6 at orientation, I figured it would be fun! I was correct in this assumption!!

Tons of people packed into a smaller area of a bar, green beer, soju, Irish flags, green paint...what could be better?! Of course having only known a few people originally, I left that city with about 10 new friends! From the bar we went to a noraebang for a little, meaning ALOT, of karaoke. From there we stumbled to a Japanese restauraunt that was conveniently open around 5 am. Eventually crashed at a friends place & caught the 3:30pm train on Sunday back to Gumi. The train ride was only an hour and a half for about $5. Not bad at all for a weekend trip! Here are a few pictures (out of tons that ended up on facebook) which kind of sum up the night:

Sunday was a day of failed attempts at creating a lesson plan for the week. Having gotten little sleep during the weekend like I should have, I was tired & ultimately fell asleep with only a general idea. Monday morning, 30 minutes before my first class...BAM full powerpoint & lesson plan! :) Like we learned in orientation, some days you just have to "wing it!" And that I did. Which brings me to Tuesday...no responsibilities at the moment and enjoying my evening at my apartment. I started reading The Alchemist today...a book that a friend Wade gave me before I departed on my journey to South Korea. In love with the book already...very inspirational! :)

XOXO,
Amanda