A Japanese and Chinese Major

Archive for the ‘Personal’ Category

This weekend was so-so. Julie wasn’t too happy about me going out Saturday to hang out at Hongdae with Josh and his friends and Josh wasn’t too happy with me and made fun of me for not making my own decisions. Last Thursday night I went out to eat with Michael, Josh, and the rest of the crew and then went to karoake. Before going there we played some shooting bullseye game, then we went. I sung photograph and it was pretty bad, and then I sung say it ain’t so and that was pretty good. I wanted to stay longer and drink more beers and sing but I had to work the next day, and the girls were already leaving so I tried to catch up with them but I didn’t. So Susan came out to help me and we ate street food for a little while before trying to catch a taxi. It looked like she needed help too so we ended up walking all around looking for a good place to get a taxi. We ended up back in front of work and I finally got a taxi about 40 minutes after waiting.

Friday night I went to Julie’s and we went to eat a chicken hoff place near her house. I had two beers and was relaxed but Julie wasn’t and looked stressed since she had to work in the morning the next day. All of Saturday I spent pretty much laying around and watching tv at her place, since no one was home. I watched some stupid movie where a guy kills people because of a made-up friend that tells him to, it’s the movie of the cover of the Waterworld guy holding a red square box up to his eye or something like that, I started watching Godzilla and realized how crappy the dialogue was and could see how I liked it as a kid though, and I thought about how Godzilla was advertised at Taco Bell and I remember mom taking me to go through Taco Bell and they would be advertising for the movie and I got a Godizilla movie cup and things like that, good times.

Saturday night I took a bus to Mokdong and met Julie to go to Todai’s. We didn’t know where it was so we had to go to a PC room, and I was so surprised to see there were girls playing games there too. We got onto a bus and got into the area around it, but we were walking forever trying to find the place since we got off a stop early and we didn’t know exactly where the place was. While looking I had to experience a non-western style bathroom, but I handled it a lot better than the last time I had to do it which was when I was in Japan years ago. We were walking all around looking for the sign and freezing, we were just about to go into a place to warm up when I spotted the small blue sign. We were looking for a huge place, like as big as a floor or building, and we were surprised to see the little sign. Anyways, we got in and we had to wait since they were full. We first thought they meant that they were booked the whole night and the only way we could get in was if someone cancelled or left early, but that wasn’t the case. We waited for about half an hour and got in. The sushi selection wasn’t as good as the one in Halifax. The other food they served though looked pretty good, but I spent most of my food space on sushi. We discovered the blended kiwi drink and we kept going up to check every once and a while to see if they had made the next batch. We also spent about an hour there just sitting and watching the ice skating show that was going on and played on the tv next to us and on the big screen. After dinner I decided I would go out, so I did.

I tried finding the park to meet Josh, but I took a wrong turn and walked about not knowing where the hell I was and was afraid to ask directions. I eventually started back where I can from, and I found out that I should have taken a right at the gates instead of a left, oh well. I bought one of those wine drinks and waited at the park where there was some show going on. Everybody was really into it but I didn’t look like I cared. When I met Josh and Anne we went to Gogo’s. All the foreign women there are all nice to me and smile at me for no reason when I go to places like that. We waited for Josh’s coat for so long that the night pretty much ended, and we had no choice but to go to Ska once again. I kept going back and forth between the bars, buying drinks at Gogo’s then going to Ska. Some foreign translator guy wanted my number. I got a taxi home but I don’t really remember it, and I woke up with two shot glasses and a half-eaten lemon slice in my pocket. I had trouble opening my door because I had remember my code backwards, and I tried getting help at the front desk for it but gave up when they couldn’t understand me.

Julie was unhappy about seeing my Sunday. I was in the mood for Can More, so we went to the one at Makdong. My goal pretty much of the whole night was to try to make Julie not made at me anymore. We talked about a lot of things, like how we’re not doing what we wanted to do in college and how she isn’t painting or anything like that. The strawberry smoothie was really good. About a half hour ago that one girl on the other side of the hallway, Tina’s friend went by my window. She was talking to Christina, and I wanted to look when she got out to make sure it wasn’t a student Jun Ming (the heavier young girl who I talked about ghosts with) that was absent this morning. But no it was that girl, and I just had the time to catch her with a big smile and waiving at me in front of my door, I had time to waive back.

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I worked this last Saturday, and it really sucked.  First of all, this Chuck guy was scheduled for two classes, the first one of the day and then the third one.  Well he missed the first one, and I was told he wouldn’t make the other one either, which was making the day start off great.  Well, he shows up to the third one and I have a cancellation after teaching him, so Julia the front desk clerk suggests that he take another class with me since I have an absence that block.  Oh I was so pissed.  The rest of the day consisted of people showing up 20 or more minutes late to Christina, making me think that I was going to get a break when I didn’t.  One girl even missed the entire class with Christina, and then she walks over to me and hands me a folder and says, yeah this person didn’t come for me but she’s coming for you… I oh my gosh I was so mad/depressed, and I felt robbed.  I even thought I would later have an absence during the second to last class, I even wrote that in an email to Julie, but sure enough the person shows up late and I have to teach.  Fucking sucked.  So I had 14 out of 16 classes that day.  The other guy Joel had 5 absences and two no-schedules, so he had a 3 and a half hour break.  I’m still very mad/stressed about that, and it’s making a difference in my attitude today and maybe for the rest of the week.

I can’t wait till I’m done with this job, it totally sucks.  I counted and there’s like 40 some more Mondays I have left until I can get out of here.

Julie and I spent the Saturday night at her house pretty much.  We ate at a sam gyap sal restaurant near her house, her and I didn’t think it was that great and when the guy brought out old/weird rice Julie lost her appetite.  Even though we were full we decided to stay out and drink, and that one place that we ate outside in front of when it was cold and ate snail.  We got a pitcher of beer and talked about whatever, I tried to get deep and talk about how we are such a small speck in the vastness of the universe, she was uninmpressed, and we played rounds of rock paper scissors and I tried to guess the opposite of whatever she bluffed.  When we went up to pay the waiters said to her, “this isn’t a bar, next time you gotta order something to eat” and Julie just nodded her head like, whatever, screw you I don’t care.  Which I agree.

Yesterday I talked Julie into going to Yongsan, and we got some Dunkin Donuts cuz she wanted some, and we ate them standing up and looking out the window since the donuts seats were full.  There was another building connected by breezewalk, so we walked over there but there wasn’t anything special over there so we walked back to the main building.  We were asking around for external laptop hard drive enclosures and people kept telling us there were two kinds and we didn’t know what kind it was, but I figured it was the latest one and we had a 50/50 chance so I bought one anyways for $15.  We went up to the top floor to the gamestore and I was tempted to buy an xbox 360 pc monitor cable but they were at least $13 and Julie wanted me to find one on the Internet for cheaper.  Well after that we were really hungry and decided to eat out, Julie said she heard an advertisement for Todai sushi on the bus and we wanted to go to that.  She called her brother and we found out that it was far from where the bus was, we would have to take a taxi to get there and everything.  Since it was too far, and we didn’t want to spend that much money, we decided to walk around the Mokdong bus stop area and look for some restaurant to eat at.  Well when we walked out from part of the subway it was snowing and it looked soooo pretty out, and Julie started snapping pictures.  It was so cool because it was dark besides the street lamps and lights and the snow made it seem very cozy, words can’t describe it.

We ended up ordering a pizza, with a small amount of chicken wings, and started watching Resident Evil Biohazard on my PC.  We watched only half and then I got street food with Julie and I got on the bus to go back home.  When I got back I had to drop off Josh’s bookbag that I borrowed, and I was looking down at the ground while I walked across the side street in front of my apartment, being careful not to slip on any of the slushy snow and minding my own business, when all of a sudden I see a snowball fly past my left side and skid across the street.  I’m surprised at first and ask myself if that could have been by accident and immediately realize it could not.  I’m thinking that it’s either a kid or someone mistaking me for someone else but I turn around and see Ed standing there all smiling and bouncing back and forth.  We say hi for a brief time, explain how I was surprised, and he explains that he was just going home, I ask him I hope he wasn’t looking too long for home or something like that, and then he gave some funny joke about being locked out of his apartment, like he was a couple weeks ago.  Anyways, we say goodbye and he throws a snowball at me again.  I return the bookbag and go back home, and happily find that the hard drive case was the right one.  I was happy and I was sad.  I was happy that it worked, even though I had to figure out how to change permissions at first, but I was said because about five years ago I sold my laptop and didn’t recover the hard drive, so I lost all my information on it.  That really sucks, I had a lot of personal files and information on that from my younger days that I’ll never get back

Anyways, today has been a long Monday.  I got a break just now, a one-hour tutorial, so I’m very happy about that.  When I went out into the lobby to make a copy for my Dairy worker student there were three girls sitting out on the couch, and I think just about all of them were starting at me interestingly and nervously which made me very pleased.  Other than that, hopefully this will just be another smooth Monday night and week.

About the last entry: I didn’t end up drinking with Ed, instead I went to E-Mart.  Sam invited me to go with him, and I told him I had to tell Ed first that I was going.  I stopped by my apartment to tell Ed, he didn’t seem too dissappointed, so I went to E-Mart.  Sam and Josh went without me.  I didn’t buy much this time because I’m tired of buying the same old things, like dumplings, duck bolki, ja jammyung, things like that.  I bought what I thought was a bucket of chicken that looked good when Josh got it last time we went together, but what it really was was fried and marinated chope che dumplings, or something like that.  It was very good, but a little cold so I had to take the pain of frying it to warm it up a little bit, and by the time they all got warm I wasn’t hungry anymore.  I bought and drank alot of a white rice drink and will get it next time too, I finished the last of it today.

Oh, I was really sick friday too.  I ate at Julie’s, we think it was an old yogurt that I drank.  I was feeling really sick, and I even forced myself to puke, and I had to go the bathroom alot.  I was really happy that I didn’t have a bathroom emergency while I was riding the bus or in the train, that’s all I was thinking and worrying about.  I’ve never really gotten food poisioning until I came to Korea, like with the oysters and then with that old yogurt.  Anyways, what made me remember that is because I have out-dated yogurt in my fridge that I’m now scared to drink.  That’s about it.

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So yesterday morning while I was leaving work I saw my manager coming up the stairs and I asked her for information about the CEO.  To make a long story short we both kind of lost our cool and she accused me of threatening her when I said I would report her if she didn’t tell me the information.  I stayed over longer to talk about it with the other manager, and when I told him that she lied about either them being in a financial crisis or wanting to increase the teacher’s pay he sided with me and looked in astonishment and said to himself, “Why in the world would she say that”, “Why would she say that”, and something like, “I can’t believe she said that”.  After that he was like, OK, I see where you’re coming from now, give me some time to talk about it and figure it out.

When I came back later that day to work, he said I could keep my contract, but since they were changing businesses that I will have to do more things like phone English and even visiting different companies.  I said that’s ok as long as my pay and everything stays the same.  I went in to apologize to my manager, but it was harder than I thought and I was trying to make it sincere even though I think she could see it was not.  I think she was trying to be sincere too and explaining to me why she wanted to fire me, for the company but I still didn’t trust her or care and I don’t think she was truly sincere either.  Anyways, I have my job back for now.

At the end of work yesterday I wanted to wait for Josh to get done but Sam was done and he said he was leaving right at this moment if I wanted to go.  I didn’t want to seem like a dick and be like, “but I want to hang out with Josh and not you”, so I decided to go with him then.  After thinking it over a bit and a bit of convincing from Sam, he convinced me to go with him and Anne to the James Bond movie at the theater even though I wasn’t interested in seeing it.  When we got to whatever part of the city we went to we found the movie theater and bought our tickets and looked around for something quick to eat.  Before that we stopped at family mart and I got a flavored soju wine bottle and Sam a large can of Heineken.  We ate at KFC on the top floor.  I ordered two sandwiches and I was only able to eat one before it was time to go.  I managed to take a couple bites of the second one and was surprised to see that the Stacker sandwich had a potato hash cake thing in it.  On the way back to the theater Sam got us to stop by Krispy Kreme, and asked the confused girl working there for three free donuts.  It looked like she didn’t understand at first but Sam was persistant and like “free”.  She eventually knew what he was talking about and we got out of there with 3 delicious free donuts.  I had to run up and stand in an alley to stuff the remaining sandwich in my coat pocket before going into the movie theater.

While we were walking to the movies I was walking behind Sam and I was like “Sam,” and he turns his head back to the side real quick and says, “Yeah I know, plastic bag”, and I was like OK WTF.  I called him out on it and explained I had no idea what the fuck he was talking about and I was glad I did because that was really funny.  He was drinking his beer from a plastic bag.

When we got to the movie theaters it was only us and a Korean couple to our upper left.  I thought it was kind of cool that you could choose which seats you wanted to sit at on the computer screen before buying the tickets.  But anyways, I started eating my sandwich and was afraid I was being too loud chewing so I would only wait when the sound got loud.  Right at the beginning of the film before the credits, during the opening production studio commercial thing it was silent and a piece of my sandwich or potato or whatever fell into the sandwich bag making a pretty loud sound, I laughed nervously, for I was embarrassed about being a gluton.

Anyways the movie wasn’t what I expected it to be but it was still good.  I expected Bond to save the world from some big laser or missile or something like that, but that just didn’t happen.  I thought the movie was just half way done when it ended, but I kinda got the feeling while I watched the last 15 or so minutes that it would be the end.  When I was like, “that was it?” at the end Sam was like, “Oh, didn’t you know? There taking a new direction with the Bond movies, kinda like how they did with the new Batman, they’re trying to make it more realistic”.  In the taxi back he was like, “yeah, what did you want, a watch with lasers?  Those kind of save the whole world movies just aren’t realistic these days, these days it’s more like Bourne Ultimatum and stuff like that”.

Something I also thought was interesting was that it was the first time I can remember that the US was an enemy and evil.  I was kind of shocked and didn’t realize we looked that bad and evil to the rest of the world, it was kind of a wake-up call about how other people view my country.  I know we are in wars we shouldn’t be, and Bush and Cheney are assholes, but damn I never thought a mainstream movie like James Bond would have the balls to come out and say it and show it in their movie, making the US an enemy just as Russia and China are.  They also had the guts to talk about the dollar, having the bad guy get paid in euros while he says “the dollar isn’t what it used to be”.  If that isn’t a sign of a country that lost its once dominence in the world, I don’t know what is.

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Well my schedule for today is looking awesome.  Not only that, but the new place is really cool and I have my very own computer in my office!  Some of my students have changed their schedule for later so I’m free for the next two hours.  Wondering if I should watch a movie or not.  Yeah, this seems like it can be pretty nice.  I just really hope that I’m able to successfully defend my job and be able to stay here for the rest of the year.  I have to ask my manager for boss info today and I’m nervous about it.  Other than that, yeah.

I came too early this morning.  I left at 5:30 in the morning and got here at 6:00, realizing that my shift started at 6:50 and I had to wait for the building to open.  So I walked up and down the streets around here.  I noticed that the city didn’t seem as exciting without the people.  I think for me, what makes this place exciting is looking at the people rather than the scenery and buildings, but the combination of both of them is best.

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Tomorrow is the first day at the Seoul branch tomorrow, I’m a bit nervous about it.  My schedule for this month doesn’t look that bad, and I really hope that my conflict with the manager will be resolved with me winning and staying at EC.  I really don’t want the trouble of moving out of my apartment, having to go out of the country to get a new visa, and having to find a job when it’s not my fault.

The manager fired me because of “financial reasons”, and when an opening came up for my position she didn’t offer me my job back but hired someone else.  When I reminded her I still wanted to work there, she had a paper signed and filled out and everything and said I could still work there but I should decrease my bonus.  When I told her no I won’t, she was totally surprised and speechless.  Later that day she called me into her office and told me that they couldn’t keep me, and I said then I’m going to file unfair dismissal and she said go ahead and I said “I am”.  I have to talk to her again tomorrow to get the boss’s name and contact info to warn him that I’m going to file.

Let’s make a list of the weird things she did which proves she’s firing me unfairly:

She said I was picked to be fired because I didn’t smile enough and because I didn’t talk to the secretaries very often.

She said it was for financial reasons but when Josh quit and his job was open she didn’t offer me it but hired someone else.

After I reminded her I still wanted to work there, she said I might still be able to stay with them since Josh left and asked me to decrease my bonus pay.  When I refused, she told me hours later that I would not be re-hired, and used the excuse that she already employed a new worker who signed a contract.

While she was trying to get me to reduce my bonus pay, she said she wanted to give all the other employees a raise but because I was getting so much it was hard for her to do so.  If the company is in a time of financial crises, why in the world was she thinking about giving the other teachers raises?  And how much difference would a $100 decrease in my bonus pay make divided by at least 20 workers?

When the worker who’s quitting, Josh, stated to EC the reason why he was quitting was because he doesn’t trust the company is financially sound, Michael told him don’t worry, we’re doing fine, there’s nothing to be worried about.

Anyways, what a rude bitch.  More than once she laughed when I told her I still wanted to work there, and laughed during the meeting with her and Michael.

It seemed like her only excuse for all of this was talking about how she already had the new girl sign a contract.  She kept talking and talking about it and I was barely paying any attention, and getting confused and tired of sitting there listening to nothing that matters until I finally said to her “Why are you telling me this? It doesn’t matter to me or make any difference in my case.  These are just managerial decisions.  You’re the manager, you’re involved in that not me.  I’m just the worker.”  You could tell that by the end of the conversation she was noticeably frustrated/pissed, and she continued to try to bluff me to call the Labor Department because she claimed that she was right and nothing bad would happen to her.

Anyways, aside from that let’s talk about living in Korea.  I think I’m getting used to it and starting to act normal when I’m out in public, realizing that not everyone is staring at me the whole time or caring about what I’m doing.  It’s such a challenge for me to put on a normal face in public, trying not to look stupid or mad or dumb or anything like that.  I constantly think while I’m on the subway about what my face looks like to other people, and I try to make it as blank as possible.  I also struggle to find points where I can stare and not seem like I’m looking at other people, I just want to look normal and not all buggy-eyed and looking all paranoid around me.

I was standed by my friends at Hongdae this last weekend.  I wanted to stay and eat street food and they left.  I ended up trying to get a taxi but to no use, and so I walked around for about an hour and a half I think on the streets with nothing but my hoodie on while it rained.  I talked to two groups of Korean people that had surprisingly good English skills, but neither could help me directly.  The second group of guys just told me where to go for the subway.  I made it there and when I got on the train I must have slept for 3 hours.

I need to take pictures.  I need to get a thin and ultra awesome digital camera.  Now that I’ve been working a semi-real job for awhile I’ve started realizing how easy it is to afford some of the things I want now.  When I lived with my mom $200 dollars was a lot, but now it’s a small drop in the bucket.  Let’s hope I can keep my job so that lasts.

Last night, Saturday, Julie and I went to Seoul EC to pickup my coat and bookbag, and after that we decided to walk around and have dinner at Myeongdong.  We decided we wanted sushi and walked all over to find the best place.  I heard recently from the ESL cafe forums that there is a Todai restaurant in Korea like the one in DC.  We picked one of the first ones we saw and came back to it after looking at a few others.  We got a combo meal and it was surprisingly delicious, everything tasted great.  We talked about how usually when we go out for dinner we order something that we don’t really want or are not in the mood for, but in this case the food was awesome, they even gave us a Fanta with it without us even asking.  The combo came with a salad with salmon and Chili seafood and a “precious” roll.  Pretty damn good.  We walked a little more and I got the idea of buying a huge purple dried tentacle from one of the street vendors there and walk around Myeongdong with a huge tentacle in my hand and biting into it.  It would be funny if I were caught on camera with it by being filmed for getting a free hug, since there were some young free hug people there filming.  Anyways Julie wanted one of those elephant ear things and we were walking down a street and happened to find one, except they didn’t fry them.  It was right here, in the street on the right of the top video:

http://expatjane.blogspot.com/2008/11/myeongdong-holiday-lights-at-shinsegae.html

We were standing right at that same spot last night, admiring the snowing building, talking about how the Tom and Tom coffee on the left looked like a mix between Starbucks and The Coffee Beanery, and waiting in line in front of the truck that made non-greased “traditional” Korean elephant ears called hodduck.  While watching them make them I was amazed at how easy it would be to start that kind of business.  Get a cooker, a truck, dough, sugar, some bags and holders and you’re all set.  Julie and I were worried that an older lady tried to cut in front of us while we stood in line there, and some guy walked buy with a huge inflated cross on his back and a megaphone declaring that man has disobeyed and strayed away from God in English.  We then went and walked around one of the big department stores, and Julie and I looked at the electronics section.  I let her play Kirby for awhile on the Gameboy.  Although she wasn’t good at it and didn’t know what she was doing, she had a fun time playing it and looked cute.  I really enjoyed just standing there next to her in that white and brightly lit department store with all the Christmas decorations around and watching her play.  Later before we got on the bus we decided to have coffee.  She asked for them to blend the ice but they didn’t do a very good job, and little girl was staring at us and when we both looked at her she ran away.  We watched the movie Strange Days at her house and it was pretty stupid, I wanted to stay up and watch The Mist but I kept falling asleep.  I went to bed while she continued to draw a cup sitting on a table and other big flashcards for her upcoming English classes.  That’s about it for that day.  Came home today early because she wanted to hang out with her girlfriends and have girl time while shopping, so I just chilled her today on the computer and watched some stupid tv shows like the one with a young Elijiah Wood and some Koreans that tried to act Mexican.  Is that enough detail for ya? ok peace.

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It’s 1:09am here, by the time I wake up tomorrow morning I’ll see if Obama is in the lead to become the next President of the United States.  I have four classes tomorrow, and they end at 9am Korea time, which should be just at the same time the polls in Ohio will be closing.  I have a class with that Noh guy, that reads Express Yourself and who always smiles and puts S’s on the end of every word.  I plan to end the class immediately and rush out to the lobby and sit in front of the widescreen tv to watch the rest of the results.  I miss watching what happened with the 2004 election.  I sat in the basement and constantly flipped through all the news channels to see all the excitement.  I saw how sad and depressed the Fox news people were when Florida went to Kerry and how happy they got when it flipped to Bush.  I don’t think I really understood why the Fox newscasters were looking gloomy and sad when it looked like Kerry was going to win because I didn’t really realize how biased and unfair Fox newschannel was at that time.

Right now it looks like Obama has this one in the bag, and if I wake up this next morning and find McCain winning, I believe it will no doubt be because of unfair play.  In other news, I read an article today about how there will be two more Army units deployed into the US in addition to the first one, so that’s not a good sign at all.

There was more talk today about how EC was going to move to the City Hall branch, and that instead of Sam Josh was going to go first.  Apparently all of the ECs are combining into one small building and bringing all of their students and gaining some, with a total of 400, which works out to each of us getting 40 or more students.  I tell you what, I’m not keeping this job if I get no breaks, it’s already bad enough that I don’t have a life because I have to work a split shift and can’t do anything all fucking week including Saturdays.  If they make us sign new contracts, which I think they have to do since they’re going to be a new company, I’m not renewing.  Not only do I not want to work at EC anymore, but also I expect that they will try to cut my pay and benefits, which I will completely not accept.

After work tonight I convinced Josh to go eat some street food at that one vendor between my place and the subway.  The food was ok, not as good as before though, but good.  I think the lady got a little annoyed with us since we didn’t know how to speak Korean well or understand the few words that she said.  When she filled up the cup with red sauce and duckong or whatever those pasta-like things are I made the motion of reaching for my wallet while raising my eyebrows, and with that she gave me an arm throw and a disgusted face like “get the fuck outta here”.  We said thank you and left, no big deal though.

Saw some pictures of me posted on facebook from the night we all went to an upstairs bar and Sam wore the mask of a horse.  I look really bad in the pictures, not what I imagine myself looking like or what I see in the mirror at all, and I hope that I just look like that on camera, but the old saying goes the camera doesn’t lie.  I also saw and was surprised to see that I still have some fat around the side of my chin, I hate that.  Now that I’m gaining weight again because I’ve become comfortable eating and making food here, it looks like I need to exercise again   With all the weight I was losing my first month here, I thought that that at least was something I no longer had to worry about

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I had to work Saturday so I had to miss Halloween.  I didn’t really mind missing it at first since it’s not really celebrated that much here and because I don’t have a costume, but when I found out it was $20 club pass night I really wanted to go.  Earlier in the night Ed said he would cover for me if I was feeling sick, but I said no.  I then ask him later, and when he asked me if I was really sick, I told him the truth that I wasn’t really and despite thinking that he would say yes anyway he said no.

Saturday Julie, me, and Sam went to a Jazz club in Itaewon.  I didn’t really listen all that much to the music playing because we were all talking, and we were probably mostly the ones talking the whole time while we were there.  Afterwards Julie had to go back home, and I went with Sam’s friends to a “house party”.  When we got there there was a small apartment room full of people speaking Spanish.  I tell you what I have no interest in Spanish, its culture and anything related to it.  There was an asian guy in a Egypt costume and people with wacky hair whigs.  Somehow I convinced them all to go out to Hongdae.  We went to the bar that was cool and looked like the cantina from the Star Wars movies.  It was pretty lame there though, I wanted to go club-hopping.  I think we stayed there for a long time, a couple of hours or more, and the one Korean-Spanish-English speaking girl and the other Spanish girl agreed with me to go out to a club.  The dude that wore the crazy hair and the German guy came too.  I wanted to go to Tinpan but they didn’t want to spend the cover to go in.  They wanted to eat so we waited while they ate some food on the street.  Oh before leaving for the Jazz thing Julie and I ate streetfood at the one vendor between my apartment and the Subway, which was fun and tasted really good.  We ended up going to some bar in the basement that I’ve never been to before, that had some cool Halloween decorations up.  There was a guy passed out on the dance floor in the back and I tried to fake dance while drinking.  I could tell the Spanish Korean girl was fake dancing too but she did it alot better than me.  I don’t know I just can’t dance when I don’t like the music, and even when good music did play I wasn’t that good of a dancer.  The hair-whigged guy danced pretty good using his arm and waving it up in the air, and he and the Spanish chick were moving pretty good.  The Korean Spanish girl said that she didn’t like that place and it seemed like all the people there were young because it said high schoolers get in free or something like that.

After that we went to a Noribong.  It was one of the fancy ones that you could look out the window and everyone could see you.  I sung the usuals like fly me to the moon and sung physical by myself for the first time, and photograph by def leppard.  I didn’t sing very well, my voice is too high like usual.  I drank a red-cass while there and I started to fall asleep at the end and I think the other people were noticing this.  When we got out of there it was early, like 7 or 8 in the morning or maybe later.  I was like “come on guys, let’s drink!” and the Spanish Korean chick was like “Ohhh so you’re an alcoholic” like she should have known all along.  We talked about wanting to get breakfest but there were no restaurants that were open.  I decided on Burger King but when we got there I changed my mind.  I think I could notice them becoming frustrated/tired/thinking I was a drunk/stupid with me.  We walked to the train station and she told me to get on the train and get off at Shincheon.  I waved by to them with their fake smiles as I got on the train and almost fell over while walking in.  I then sat in the train, got out at Shincheon, looked around not knowing where I was and called Julie for help.  The remaining hours I spent were getting on the train and falling asleep.  I fell asleep and I could feel someone pushing me away.  I thought it was Julie and so I became angry, kind of bit my lip and slapped my hand together with my fist.  When I looked it was some girl in white my age that had a disgusted look on her face and I immediately sat up when I realized it wasn’t Julie.  I didn’t say sorry but I think she could tell that it was a genuine mistake and that I really was sleeping and surprised.  I didn’t say sorry but I kind of nodded my head a bit.  It was kinda cool because she was cute.

Then I got off the train because I missed my stop, then got on again and missed my stop, then got on again all because I kept falling asleep.  At one point at one of the outside and high stations I checked my watch while sitting on the bench and saw that it was around 10am.  When I got near my apartment I bought some street food near the one outside of Josh’s, and the lady gave me two peppers even though I only wanted one.  It wasn’t as good a street food as the night before though.  Sunday I woke up around 6pm and was still drunk/groggy but feeling good.  I spent the rest of that day just surfing the Internet and downloading Blade Runner and making food.  I made a bunch of fried dumplings and even that stuff with the hot red sauce sold on the street and watched Family Guy.  When Blade Runner finally downloaded, I started watching it and it was boring so I fell asleep.

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The morning started pretty bad because I was all ready except for one thing: I didn’t have a car.  I kept trying to get ahold of mom for an hour to find out where she was, turns out she was at the marina.  I can’t believe she would be that stupid to go and lounge in front of the pool when she knew that I had to use the car and drive here today.  What did she think, that I was going to drive at night? Just stupid.

Drive was pretty long, but bearable.  I spent alot of time switching radio channels, it didn’t seem like there was anything good on.  Luckily this time around I was able to handle the express loop, and was able to find my exit.  When I got into Chicago, man was it packed with people walking all around with colorful outfits.  It was really cool to drive downtown a little bit, and I even had only minor lane-turning-finding troubles.

I didn’t have much trouble finding the place, but I had to drive around the block to get into the self-park garage. I am right in the heart of downtown!  On Ontario St., one street away from Michigan, it’s like you couldn’t get a better spot.  When I parked the car I swiped my cc and was kinda confused that I didn’t take a ticket, and I had to ask a guy in the lobby who explained it to me very un-enthusiastically.

Even though I was tired from driving, I wanted to walk around a bit.  So that’s what I did.  In doing so I got a bit sweaty, and realized that I want to lose 5 to 10 pounds or so, but other than that it was pretty cool.  Lots of people around and buzzing business.  There was a constant line at the Apple store, I don’t know for what reason though.  After walking around a little while I came back to the room and took a shower.  Since I hadn’t eaten since breakfast, I was pretty hungry.  I looked up places where I could just order pizza by the slice on the Internet, and someone said that Gino’s sells by the slice.  So I walked down to Gino’s, took about ten minutes, and walked in.  Didn’t look like I could just order one and stick around, I would have to wait in the long line if I wanted any.  So I ordered a medium cheese for pickup, and the girl working there said it would be an hour and I said OK.  I didn’t know of anyplace I could hang out for an hour, so I started heading back to my room.  On the way back I decided that I didn’t really want to walk all around downtown Chicago holding a big pizza box, so I would drive and pick it up.  Then I thought about the hassle with the traffic, and maybe having to pay to remove it from the parking garage and park it again.  So when I got to my room I called the pizza place and asked them to deliver it to me.  They said that although I’m in a different Gino’s restaurant zone they could deliver it and it would be there at 8:50.  Well 8:50 rolls around and nothing.  A lot of the time I was nervous and thinking that maybe I should call room service and tell them that a pizza was coming for me, but I ended up not doing that.  Instead I called the pizza company, and the guy was talking all scared like I was gonna yell at him seemed like he was under a lot of pressure and he said he would give me free pop, and that he didn’t have any drivers left and they were already all out and that he sees my pizza and it’s sitting there all warm and good still.  He ended with “ok here comes the guy now” and that was it.

When the guy came, around 10, he was a greasy Chinese guy around my age, definitely not American.  And his English was a little shotty.  He asked for the total and I said that I already paid for it, and he was like “oh, ok”, and I tried to explain to him that I also had to pay for delivery, and he was like no, don’t worry about it, just tip”.  So I was like, oh well ok, and I gave him $5.  I wasn’t sure if $5 was a good enough tip in Chicago but he noticeably got happy when I gave it to him and thanked me so I think that was good enough.

So, the pizza was good.  I could only eat two slices, so I got lots left over that I will save for breakfest and put in the car tomorrow before checkout, hehe.  I was also really glad I decided not to go out and bring back a drink, or buy pop from the pizza place, because I ended up getting it for free.

Jonathan called and thanked me for the wedding gifts while I was waiting for the pizza, that was nice of him.

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One of my friends has a Japanese stalker that has been bothering her for about two years now. His efforts to contact her are unrelenting. He emails her everyday, declaring how me he loves her and needs her, but she just ignores the messages as spam. Last year he even said that he bought a plane ticket to the United States just to see her, scaring her enough to call the cops.

Recently he has been contacting her friends, and threatening to kill himself unless she pays attention to him. With the suicide rate being so high in Japan I wouldn’t doubt that he is speaking the truth.

She says this all started when she briefly met him at a party. Since then he hasn’t been able to take no for a no. Honestly, with billions of other people in the world, is it that hard to meet someone else? Especially when you don’t even know the girl in the first place.

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Japan is a pretty liberal country when it comes to drinking.  You have to be 20 to drink legally, and the rule is lightly enforced.  I do remember a time though when my Japanese friend said that he was chased by cops in a park because he was drunk and 15.  Anyways, if you’re not causing any trouble, you should be alright.

One of the cool things about Japan and some other countries is that you can drink in the streets.  This was something that I was happy to experience while I was there.  But recently I find out that walking while drinking is rude, and that is something that I remember doing very specifically.

Too bad I didn’t know that at the time.  I’m not sure that it is rude to do in Korea too, but I would bet that it is.  Oh well, now I know.  And now you know too.

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