Friday night after work, a bunch of us went for soju at Biba London. (Oh how I wish there was a Biba Las Begas!) I ate my first quail egg - you know, after all the travelling and the general willingness to eat anything once, it's hard to find non-bizarre food items I haven't tried. Side dishes sometimes fascinate me in Korea... We had quail eggs, pickles, and corn. Canned corn. Unheated. Interesting... Anyway, there were some fruit identification problems. We thought the mango soju was lemon, until we had the lemon and concluded that that must be what passed for mango. Either way, the mango is better.
Then Ortencia and I decided to go into Noble Bar, as she'd been wanting to try it. There was only us, two men and two waitresses, but it still took us until we discovered that there were only men's toilets to realise we were in a hostess bar. They serve strong, strong drinks in hostess bars. Then I went home and IMed people for a couple of hours.
I nicked that rather cool soju container. It has a hole in the front to put the ice in, so that the drink isn't diluted but can be chilled. It was a bitch to clean and I haven't a clue what I am going to do with it. Or why everyone encouraged me to nick it. It does make a pretty ornament for my rather bare shelves.
early, tired, conference, boredom, bandi & luni's, coffee, people still around, disappointing food, suggestions
We had to get up stupidly early on Saturday morning, to experience the joy that is a Poly School conference. We were even there an hour early and The Powers That Be wanted us all sitting in the auditorium. That was quickly nixed in favour of decent coffee. As per usual, I might have picked up and idea or two, but nothing significant enough to make up for missing a day of my weekend. But at least we got nice American Eagle bags, with the Poly logo printed discretely (and removable, should I ever be arsed enough to do so.) Apparently they were for putting our curriculum books in. Because we only get one and can't lose them. And no doubt none of our colleagues would ever consider letting us photocopy the odd page. Basically, everyone was herded around like kindergarteners and forced to listen to drivel along the lines of "Don't let your classes run around with knives and screaming like banshees!" and "Planning is helpful so you know what to teach!" Pearls of wisdom, I tell you. The only halfway interesting part was listening to the keynote speaker, who was from Harcourt. Which perhaps explains it. Jen and I were a bit silly during the participation bits, but I must say, there is nothing I like less than having to role play a student. Well, okay, maybe a few things. But it's pretty high on the list of unliked things. Then we got to go and have our "boxed lunches." Wow, did they suck. The only decent thing about Poly Conferences has always been the food and they struck out this year. However, since the whole thing was being held in Coex, I did get to go and spend money on some books in Bandi & Luni's. I saw a few people I knew from my last Poly stint (Shane, Annie, Kevin Nelson, etc.) And I even was my usual obnoxious-pointing-out-of-idiotic-errors self in my last seminar on e-Poly.
zita, casino, blackjack, drinks, lever, blue tiger, earrings, dvd bargain, subway
The other benefit to the location was that there is a Seven Luck Casino there. Korean people aren't allowed in the casinos here, only those of us with foreign passports. Which is odd, when you think about it. Anyway, after some fast food baked ziti (good, especially considering that most Italian food isn't extraordinary here), I headed in with Jason and Raj. Dave was already there, playing the $10 blackjack tables. We settled down for some free drinks first and after a bit Jason wandered off to win $100. At best over the course of the evening, I was up $2.50. I kept the $2 chips and tipped the .50 cents. We also played the slots and I have to say, the only way slots are interesting is if you have to pull a lever. Or if Neptune talks to you if you win. If you could put those both together, it would be awesome. I ended up down 25,000, but balanced against my 6 free drinks, I broke even, I guess. To get home, we took an insanely long subway ride. We had to ride about 3/4 of our line, plus a bit on the green line. It took forever, it felt like. Managed to pick up some earrings (blue with black stripes, hence the blue tiger bit) in the subway and four DVDs for $10 just outside our building. All in all, a profitable night!
respect
More on this later. It needs more thought put into it than a recounting of the weekends events does!
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