This is gonna take a little more energy that I can muster right now, but I'll push through to get this post done for now. It's Friday night in America, and I'm doing my post for Thursday, since it was my last full day in Korea for a few weeks.
Woo Yeup and his buddy Paul, came home around 1 am, after going dancing at a club with Eun Byeol and some friends. I woke up and saw another body on the floor and wasn't really sure it was there. We ate breakfast, and then got cleaned up so we could start our days. Paul had to go to his hagwon (private English Academy), and I had to meet some friends for lunch. I met Gina and Woo Yah (who I haven't seen in a while). Gina is a good friend of mine, who I met through TD (English club), and she eventually brought her younger man to the club as well last year. He is now working at Samsung Corporation in a city called Suwon.
Gina just got a job teaching English in the public school system, which she is pretty excited about. She'll have to go through a week worth of training, but otherwise, she should excel with the new job. We ate lunch and walked around the Daegu National University of Education campus, since Gina had a meeting for her new job there a little while later. I had to meet Woo Yeup's friend Paul downtown, in the early afternoon to help me find a backpack with a monster face for my nephew Ethan. He knew where to go, so we were able to both head back to our respective neighborhoods right away. (falling asleep, will continue in the morning, with my interesting Thursday night with Mr. Kim - director of the Young Cadets and his family).
Thursday Night Gathering with Mr. Kim and his family
Mr. Kim is the director of the Young Cadets Group of Daegu. Young Cadets is a group of kids who have a love for flying, or maybe even want to be in the Air Force one day. On the weekends last year, I taught a group of the older students English for 90 minutes. I also went on some trips with the kids to events such as the Seoul Air Show, the a competition for young students at the Korean Air Force Academy, a family day hiking event, as well as a few other places as well.
Mr. Kim told Wooyeup and I the week before that he wanted to get his together, since Brother Koo would be going into the Army, and I would be living for the short term before starting the new gig. So I pestered him a little bit about how much I wanted to drink this stuff called Makkeoli.
If you want to know more read here Makkeoli (thanks as always to Wikipedia for the help).
So we met at the little shop where Mr. Kim works and sells items such as model planes, gliders, and model cars. He does spend his time putting some of the planes together when he's not meeting with parents, or selling such goods. When he was finished repairing a plane, we got in the family van and went out to his family's place. First we had to stop at EMart, (close to the equivalent of Wally World in America). We had to pick up a few bottles of the good stuff. These bottles aren't very large, and they only cost about a dollar anyway.
We arrived at the apartment to see Mr. Kim's beautiful children (he has a beautiful family), and wonderful wife, who was preparing the food, with one of the family friends. We ate the proper foods that go with Makkeoli, see the above link for more details. We talked and talked about everything and anything. The conversation mostly in Korean, because Mr. Kim speaks English about as well as I speak Korean, which isn't all that bad actually. Mr. Kim's son who thinks the world of me, was loving the fact that I have no hair now. The daughters were busy doing their own thing with their friend, but the little guy couldn't stay away from me.
After the seventh or eighth bottle, (at the least the women were helping around this time), Mr. Kim started having a heart to heart with me, via Brother Koo's translating -- though I was able to decipher a good bit on my own. I started to hear about how much I meant to him and the organization. He gave me the story one of the boys -- William - who was a super shy kid who never really engaged into conversations with foreigners until I came along. He talked about how good I was with the kids, but I loved teaching them. It's odd hearing that, because at first I just thought it was a great way to make 100 bucks for 90 minutes of teaching. The parents were always good to me, and treated me very well though, so there were times in America last year, when I really missed that group.
Mr. Kim even went on to tell me that I should always look to him as a brother from now on, and his kids should be able to call me "Uncle John" as well. That kind of gave me goosebumps. He even told me to feel free and stay at his place with the family whenever I made it to Daegu for my weekend visits as well. After hearing all of that, I really just wanted to delay my flight a few days, especially since I had to wake up at 6, and I was still at Mr. Kim's place after midnight. After some hugs with the kids and the wife, we took the elevator down and walked out to the street to find a taxi. Eventually we were on the way home in a taxi, around 12:30 or so.
Woo Yeup had to wake up with Eun Byeol at 5:30 am, to catch a bus to the ski resort, and well, I had to wake up and get to the bus station a little while later. At least Grandma was super kind enough to cut me up some fruit for my flights, around 6 am as well. I wasn't feeling too hot, so I went to the bathhouse and sat in the sauna for a little bit before taking me shower. Poppa Koo was kind enough to take me to the bus station as well.
Anyway, I may still post on here a few more times, even though I am back in Memphis at my mom's house
for now. I hope everyone has had a good weekend.
Take care and thanks everyone for following this blog over the last six weeks or so.
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