Noraebang with the teachers.

Yesterday (Monday)I was a tired piece of garbage, barely able to lift my head up long enough to say 'repeat after me'.

Of course, last MONTH I had promised to go to dinner and then a noraebang with the grade six teachers. So right after school Winnie and I drove to a restaurant.

It was the same group of teachers as the last dinner. Two of them were late because they'd missed a turn and were on their way to the next town.

Trying to find your way around Korea is RIDICULOUSLY difficult, even for Koreans! For one thing, none of the streets have names unless its a main road, and even then, barely anyone will know the name. So if you want to go somewhere you have to tell the taxi driver a place he will know. This could be a district (and then when you get to the district you can give specific directions, or you can get out and try to stumble upon where you want to go) or a 'landmark'. Landmarks in Suncheon include: McDonalds, a few other restaurants, the cinema, any apartment building complexes, usually schools, etc. If you go to a restaurant you really like and want to find it again, you take a business card. Then the next time you want to go to the restaurant, you can give the business card to your taxi driver. If the taxi driver does not know the restaurant, he will call the restaurant and get directions.

Sidenote: My taxi driver yesterday asked me to go to dinner with him. I pretended like I didn't know what he was saying:)

At the teacher's dinner, I was the only female drinking alcohol. They were very worried I would be hungover. After three shots of %20 alcohol. I told them (truthfully) that I'd be fine!

Dinner was kimchi mandu (love love love) and seafood soup. The soup came in a huge cauldron and you had to scoop it into smaller bowls. There wasn't a lot of seafood in the soup, but there were lots of long, fat, slippery noodles. It took me about 45 minutes to eat one small bowl! I had to pick up a noodle with my chopsticks, and then coil it into my spoon so I could eat it. However, the coiling thing is kind of hard with those slippery jerks.

So maybe I did get a wee bit tipsy considering my food to alcohol intake. I actually found the Korean conversation much easier to follow that way. Not that I understood any words..but it's easier to get a sense of the conversation when you are totally at ease. For example I understood when Winnie was telling the 6-4 homeroom teacher about the little boy who came in saying 'hey baby' and when I said 'what?' 'hello cutie'. I was laughing on the inside, but I got mad on the outside (although Winnie says I'm not very scary when I'm mad).

Then we went to a noraebang. I think I broke their eardrums with Bohemian Rhapsody. AND freakiest thing ever! I have this friend (a fellow 'native speaker') who sings 'Don't Stop Me Now' EVERY time we do karaoke together. And wasn't the last song that Will (who is Korean, but that is his English name) picks! And I had to sing with him! (Will also sang a rousing rendition of 'Livin' the vida Loca' I appreciated it as all of the other songs were Korean, with the men belting them out, and the women doing that odd shaky thing with their voices. They're ALL good singers, don't get me wrong, but I needed a little Ricky in my life).

Classtime!