. . . .. That's Daegu for those of you who may be wondering. I finished a pretty decent work week (due to giving tests in a few different classes), by receiving a revised schedule for the next six weeks. The schedule is gonna be really rough on Mondays and Tuesdays, but softens up by the time Thursday and Friday come around. I've just about put in 40 hours every week to begin with though. Usually that consists of 5-6 hours of actual class time, then an hour or more of prep time, and the rest is time used for cleaning, and Johnny's own free time to plan life or study Korean, or read a book. That reminds me, I need to get moving on my next Ken Follett book, "World Without End". I may save that for some flights that I'll be taking come June. . . . that's all you will know for now about that part of my future.
Now my weekend was highly active, as it should have been since I was back in my "Korean hometown", with good folks all around. Apparently Friday night was a big travel night in Korea though, because the speed train was sold out for almost two hours, and so I was stuck taking a slow train (50 minutes more), to Daegu, from Daejeon (another big city in Korea). I did arrive at the house about 11:45, and Eun Byeol was studying for her mid-terms which start this week. Mid-terms are a big deal for the college kids here. I popped open my Korean book for an hour or so, which she was studying, and played on the computer as well. This kid is pretty focused when it comes to her studies, but she still gets out and enjoys being around her friends as well -- heck, she even calls me Big Brother!!
Saturday morning I was actually allowed to come to the breakfast table a little later than usual (maybe 5 minutes). I had my usual breakfast with the father and grandmother, and some fruit to close things out. I spend almost an hour just cleansing at the bathhouse. Some old man decided to converse with me in Korean for a while, which was cool with me. The old men are always surprised that a man who is almost 30, and supposedly "handsome or good lookin'", is still not married. I just laugh, and think "life happens". When I finally got the courage to get out in the world and do something with my day, I went to the Nike store, just to see what kind of shoes they had around. It really didn't matter, because they didn't have anything in my size at all.
I met up with Sue (Su-hye is how her Korean name is pronounced), one of the girls that lives in the neighborhood, and we went downtown for the afternoon. Sue was convinced that we would find a shoe store that carried my size in something decent, but that was an unsuccessful mission. I did buy two polo shirts at a store called Who.A.U. Their shirts are a little under-sized, but I do like the colors they have. Most importantly, the shirts were only fifteen bucks a pop. We ate some Korean style chicken with noodles, walked around a little bit more, and then sat in a coffee shop and people watched for a little bit. Turns out the North Face store had some famous actor there signing autographs, so we just watch the crowd go nuts as we sat in the coffee shop. Sue, being the Korean girl that she is, took countless random photos throughout the day as well. Koreans love taking photos, and I mean they LOVE taking photos. We eventually met up with some of her friends who wanted to meet me for some reason. One was a girl who was super excited to meet me, which I thought was kind of funny, considering her boyfriend is in the Army right now. We conversed mostly in Korean for a little bit, since her English isn't too good.
I got lucky enough to depart from that group about 7, or so. That meant that I could do something I haven't done in a while -- hang out with the English Club folks. English Club is a Korean club, where people discuss random topics in English to help better their fluency of the language. There are a few foreigners there from time to time as well. My favorite Richard, an older fella' from the U.K. was there last night. It's just a good group of folks, to spend your Saturday night with.
I'll update you about Sunday later, because it'd be cool to have some of the pics from the baseball game that I attended with my good friend Greer (who works near Daegu, and graduated from the same high school as I).
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