I have three mosquito bites on my arse. I gotta keep it under the covers, obviously!
On Thursday I got a call from Grace, who invited Laura and I out for some good sushi just down the road, called Sushi Family. It was yummy and super fresh and cheap. We drank something a little like sake and shared with the chef. He kindly gave us tons of free sushi. A Korean guy at the end of the counter chatted with us, with Grace as our translator. He showed us his muscles and told us he was a gangster and that Bushie is a monkey and that he and the chef were family. So now Laura and I have joined a sushi gangster family. Bring it!
Friday night was a blast. Went to Hongdae, had drinks at TinPans and 66 while waiting for the whole gang to arrive (YunJin, Julie, Hanna, Laura, the Julie Brothers) and then we ate at the Sexy Pig. I don't know how I normally stand to eat all that unsexy meat... lol. Then we headed to TinPans 2, where we got to see some interesting wall dancing, and I hung out with an Australian in Insadong.
Saturday I ended up in Itaewon around 4. My original plans fell through, but I bumped into Val and we went for coffee. Then we bumped into some people she knew on the street and I ended up going out to dinner with them for someone's birthday at Thai Orchard. I saw Annie's roommate in his underwear within seconds of meeting him. I met two girls who knew YunJin's transexual, adoptee, belgian pal. I laughed a great deal. I ate good food. Then I met up with YunJin and had a couple of mojitos at Geckos, bumped into Lynne, headed to The Loft, detoured to Polly's Kettle, back to the Loft, danced enough to make the ankle sore, met a random guy who looks exactly like Steve from Sex in the City and just generally had a random but wonderful evening.
Sunday I headed to the Bookclub in Gangnam. We didn't talk too much about the books themselves, but then, I didn't have anything too insightful to say about either of them. I liked A Long Way Down and it was an easy read, but aside from being relieved that there wasn't a saccharine sweet ending and not finding the character of Maureen terribly convincing, I didn't get too much out of it. Nice read, not a keeper though. Haunted scared the shit out of me. It was like a horror movie in book form. It reminded me of the dynamics of reality tv. I became numb to all the chopping off of digits. I am glad to have read it and stuck with it to the end, but I didn't like it and again, no real deep thoughts as a result of reading it.
The bookclub members were interesting. I liked three of them very much. One 45 year old American expat was weird. He could win a freaky foreigner contest. He lectured me about going home now and starting a career, cause at my age I should be building for the future. It interested me that that's what he thought, though it was obvious that what he meant was that he shouldn't have spent the last ten years teaching in Asia. He is married to a Korean woman, though perhaps not for long, it sounds like, and is planning on returning to being a merchant seaman, and writes books apparently. After the meeting in the coffee shop, we went for dinner and then down to Kyobo to pick up the next book. I already own The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency and have already read it, so unless I can pick it up second hand I might just go with my memory of it. I did pick up two books (Blink, Freakonomics) cause really, is it possible for me to not buy a book in an English bookstore? Of course it isn't!
I didn't get back until 10ish and it was sheeting down rain, so I took a cab from Dangsan. Went over to see YunJin and ended up trying to learn the BoA Valencia dance... I wanna be able to do it in the clubs. It's hot, I tell you. Hot.
Today Mr. Joo had some sort of guests, which inspired the first cleaning of any kind at the school. It wasn't much cleaning though. I had to spend the whole day forcing the kids to quiet down, quite a pain.
I was thinking recently about how many ideas we accept from people we trust/admire without question. For example, my father says that he can't wear flip flops because he finds it uncomfortable to have things between his toes. I had always assumed I wouldn't like flip flops either and now I am deeply saddened that it is too cold for me to be able to wear them every day anymore. It's funny that I just accepted his opinion as my own and never once thought to challenge it. People say you get more closed minded as you get older, your values more set in stone. I find that weird, as in terms of my life, everything just keeps getting opened wider. I meet new people, learn new things, try new foods, see new mind-blowing sights, hear new music, read new ideas, hold new fascinating conversations... Life is fucking amazing. There is just so much out there. I want to see and do it all.
1 comment:
ME TOO!
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