A rather uneventful day ended with a couple surprises. Lessons went okay today, for once…just what I needed to carry me through the weekend! I taught my first and second graders the word horse and when I went around the room quizzing them on it, I realized it is a word prone to amusing mispronunciation problems. At least half of my students would proudly point to their deformed creature and say, “Whore.” I was dying of laughter in the inside, but there was no one with whom to share my mirth, unfortunately.
Later, I was preparing to go home for the day after my last class ended at four when I was spotted walking past the break room and the teachers called me in for a snack of ddok and homemade tomato juice. It was unbelievably delicious. They were evidently in the middle of a meeting—they’d already finished their snacks and proceeded to get back to discussing the three-page document in their hands. Luckily, I was excused from this tedium and went into the teachers’ room to await them and get a ride to Buyeo, from where I would catch the bus to Seoul to meet Bianca and Nika. It wasn’t until 4:30 that I was told we were having a special dinner out with some old Hongsan alums, making this our third meal out together this week. I love eating out with everyone—we usually eat such extravagant meals, and even though I can’t eat much of it, they take care of me and make sure I have more than enough food. However, this presented a glitch in my carefully thought out plan, for I’d be unable to get to Seoul by bus now. I was now looking forward to a long night of solitary travel, equipped only with Love in the Time of Cholera. The meal was as uneventful as I expected, especially at the female table where I was. My co-teacher kept napping beside me and everyone else just carried on quiet conversation I couldn’t follow. At the men’s table, they were loudly and quickly kicking back soju bottles, of course, but that’s nothing unusual or notable. With the speeches and multiple courses served, we didn’t get out of there until 6:30 or so. I did get a lacy pink parasol out of the deal—a gift from the graduates to each of the female teachers—which will be exceedingly helpful in my constant struggle against skin pigment darkening. Goodness knows I don’t want to get TAN, of all things!
In the end, I finally got a fancy KTX train to downtown Seoul and arrived around 10 after two hours of mesmerizing prose. It might have been expensive, but boy, it’s great to start a weekend wrapped in the casual elegance of train travel, as opposed to oppressive bus fumes!