Weekend Warriors!

Hey all, back again! It was a good long weekend full of funnery, but I couldn't write until now and I can't post pictures because I still don't have the interwebs at home. I'm going to work on it this week and see if I can't Skype it up this weekend with yall. And by work on it, I mean bug Paul about it at the office. Paul is our branch's go-to guy; if we teachers need anything (beds, internets, a ride to the store, etc), Paul's our man. I feel bad about bugging him for shit because he's so clearly overworked. But he showed up to a little gathering I had on Friday and got wasted, so that was great! But I get ahead of myself.

So on Fridays, I get off early since I only teach one class that day. I decided to run home and cook up a big ol Mexican meal for everyone and invite them over. We had a decent gathering of 6 or 7 people, the food was good, and we relaxed and talked until like 2:30 in the morning. We also had plenty of alcohol: soju, mekju (beer), and a brand new friend of mine, Makgeolli. One of the girls at work, Maya, brought over like 6 bottles of the stuff, and it's like a sweeter, watered down sort of beer thing, but it's a bit higher in alcohol content and hits you much harder than you'd think. I ended up drinking the better part of two bottles during the night, which I paid for later. But the little party was fun, and it was good to see people outside of work a bit.

I guess I should point out some important facts about drinking here. First off, everyone drinks every night here, and when I say drink, I mean they get down to business time. Last week, Dan and I walked back from work every night and got some food, and without fail every night we saw at least a few people stumbling down the street just plastered. On Wednesday, we saw two dudes fighting each other, but they were so drunk they mostly just held each other up to keep from sprawling on the ground. And yet, without fail, every person wakes up bright and early to go to work in the morning. It's amazing, really.

Anyways, after everyone decided to take off, Maya asked us if we wanted to hang out for a while longer and go do or see some stuff. We figured we'd go to the beach, since it's one of the big places to go here in Busan. So we hopped in a cab and headed over. Now, the cab wasn't the best idea for me, being the only one drunk. I had also decided to finish the rest of a bottle of wine from home right before we left, so as not to let it go to waste. And taxi drivers aren't much better here than in the states; in fact, they're worse. So after I evacuated dinner, we grabbed some ice cream and went to the beach! There were people all up and down it selling and firing fireworks, so we naturally immediately bough some and fired away! It also happened to be one of our group of 4's birthday, and she really enjoyed it, so that was worth it. Afterwards, we watched the sun rise, then headed back to Somyeon for a breakfast of BBQ and seafood stew. Then we all went and crashed for a few hours.

The four of us woke up and met up in the early afternoon to head out again. We wanted to go to the fish market, another Busan landmark. So we hopped the subway over and fished it up! It was fantastic; just rows and rows of tanks of seafood, all alive and waiting to jump in your belly! There were tubs full of squid, gross red worms, crabs, flounder, clams and mussels, and of course octopi!! We ended up ordering an octopus up and having the lady chop it up for a delicious squirmy meal! It was especially fun to feel the little suckers latch onto your tongue. I also ended up buying a crab, which the birthday girl Heather named Cristobel. Needless to say, he was delicious last night.

The rest of the night, we went to a great big wholesale market type place and bought some odds and ends. It was great, you could find everything there and you bargained for all of it. We went out that night to a couple of bars called Fuzzy Navel, the second of which was a big foreigner spot. They also had fire shows, where the bartenders would do tricks w/ flaming bottles of booze. They weren't great, though, and constantly dropped them, but as long as they don't drop one on me, I'll forgive them. It was hilarious to see everyone get into it at the bars, though. Everyone was singing along w/ the songs and dancing in their chairs, and the bar staff would have these coordinated dances. We spent the rest of the night and the following day hanging out and playing Grand Theft Auto.

All in all, a solid weekend! And this coming weekend, it looks like we're gonna take a ferry to Jeju Island. Look it up and you'll be as excited as I am! Party on, Wayne.