As you might be able to infer from the title I’ll be covering quite a bit in this blog post. What I will not be talking about is my new apartment. That’ll be it’s own blog post as I could ramble, not that I don’t already.
Beginning on Thursday of training last week after the last blog post left off, we had completed training and everyone was riding the subway back to the hotel late after studying up and practicing our mock presentations. When we were getting off of the subway one of the other guys in training was joking about how he wished he new the Korean translation for feast as he was starving at that was what he was in the mood for. I suggested just walking in and saying “Viking” haha. Ideas were bounced around between the group including a beer & chicken place or just getting a bowl of noodles for the hotel room, before one of the group mentioned he new of a good sit down place that was on the street behind the hotel. We went and our group was too big for downstairs so they took us to the upstairs seating area that was only a couple inches taller than me, so I can only imagine the uncomfortable hunched over strain that some of the taller guys felt. I can only say that seeing a linebacker sized guy bent over around a bunch of tinier Koreans was too funny. The menu had plenty of pictures and I pointed to two items that I want and that was the typical fashion everyone getting two items. The lady however fit the entire 11 person order onto a post-it the size of two thumbprints. It was funny to watch. She came back and the entire order was correct and massive. It truly was a FEAST. I had a dish that resembled dumplings and a noodle soup that had more of the dumplings inside of it. The dumplings were delicious by themselves, but the dumplings that had been soaking in the broth of the soup were truly decadent and therefore I replenished my dumpling supply in my soup each time I’d partake of one or share. And share I did. Everyone did. It was true Viking style with each person calling out to others to try something off of their plate. The Bulgogi gimbap (kimbap) was delicious as well as the various other soups and rices that others had. I think between everyone sharing and the laughs that we shared at some people’s troubles with chopsticks it was the night relaxing people from the stresses associated with the training and the final mock the next day that was needed. Everyone that was at that dinner passed their final mock and retained their job.
Upon passing the final mock there wasn’t a lot of breathing time. It was grab your shit and hop in the taxi so they can take you to the bus station. I was riding the taxi with 2 other fellow trainees to the bus station. When the taxi driver took our money to buy the tickets we made several jokes about how hilarious it would be if he just bolted. He didn’t however, but how many days worth of laughs would that provide for him and his poker buddies. When he was giving us his tickets he went into “mother” mode and was looking at us and was like “Toilet?” I found it kind of funny, but once I was over the initial humor, I was like “Yeah, actually I do kind of have to go.” Luckily that brought tons of laughs that a Korean guy had to remind to go to the bathroom before a road trip. A road trip which wasn’t too too bad, lengthwise. I had a vague idea of what to expect, but it was much shorter. The bus had a screen that told us it would arrive at 9:10 after leaving at 5:45, which isn’t too bad by any stretch of the imagination. The other two were bound for a different city so they left on a 5:15 bus, and I rocked out to Aaron Watson and Charlie Robison while waiting for my bus. When I got on it I initially thought it was free seating until I was approach with a stern looking man who I was obviously in his seat. Then I thought I had remembered my seat was 18. Should’ve taken it out because wrong again. Finally arriving at seat 14 with my messenger bag I was on the aisle next to a Korean cutie. She was actually in my seat, but screw it I’d had enough seat drama for the day. When we were departing the station she was constantly tapping my arm and I couldn’t understand why until she was showing me that I wasn’t wearing my seatbelt. Whoop dee freaking doo. BUT, she was cute and I didn’t want her to freak out that someone on the bus wasn’t wearing their seat belt. When the lights went off I was super inclined to just take a nap. EXCEPT I really couldn’t because I can’t sleep sitting upright and I didn’t want to freak her out when this whitey starts snoring on her shoulder. So, instead I listened to my tunes, which luckily I had charged my iPod. When we arrived about halfway there was a rest stop and we took a 15 minute break. When I got back on the girl was asking which of the recycling bins I had thrown my Coke bottle into and I couldn’t remember, but I do remember having trouble discerning the images as they were relatively unclear and there was a younger kid there that told me the right one. Once I found out she spoke English this was no longer a boring trip. We talked non stop the rest of the trip. Having my tablet out too was a help, because I showed her on maps where I’m from and also drew pictures occasionally to help with concepts. We covered everything from Koreans building tunnels through mountains for the highways to her idea of fashionistas, haha. Then she was asking why I was going to Suncheon. When I told her, she explained that it’s a small town, nothing like Seoul. I told her I liked that as I came from a small town. Then she tells me this small town has 200,000 people. WHAT THE HELL?!?! I quickly had to assure her that wasn’t my idea of a small town. If that’s her idea of a small town then I wonder what her idea of Georgetown is? The other big mystery that was revealed was her age. The entire bus ride I was thinking maybe a college student, possibly college grad. Instead, she’s talking about living with her parents studying for her test to become a state accountant. I was like really cool. Turns out she’s 30, not that there’s a problem with that at all. Anyways we joked some more and then we got to Suncheon. Me being the dummy that I am never once asked her for an email or a phone number or anything. IDIOT. Possibly could run into someone like this again in Georgetown. Haha. A city 4X the size I don’t see it as a possibility.
When I was driven to my apartment I was given vague directions on how to get back to the school. I understood that it was about a 3 dollar taxi ride or a 30 minute walk. The only problem was I didn’t know what to tell the taxi driver in order to arrive at the school, and I knew what direction I wanted to be walking in, but not much more. So, intelligently I took Sunday after unpacking and moving into my place to test walk to the school. 4 hours later I still hadn’t come across my school, but I had picked up some groceries and ended back up at my hotel (a commendable feat within itself) after a good walk. My dogs were tired and barking and it felt good to relax to a bowl of noodles. I found this one delicious brand that I definitely will incorporate frequently into my diet. It is the most complex broth that I’ve tasted of the noodle bowls that I’ve had, it has little yummy slices of bamboo, chilis and chives included in the soup which enhance the flavor. I also scored some local soy sauce that definitely makes the soup a little deeper flavor and last night for the first time I marinated some tofu in the soy sauce before building the soup on top of it and it was deliciously deep and rich. The tofu truly needs a profound broth to build it up and this noodle soup provides it and nourishes me at the same time.
*Til Next Time with the update and walk through of the apartment*
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