Adventure!

Yesterday the wife and I had to go for our checkup. The head of the Englishee dept. took us to the hospital, after which she wanted to take us out to lunch. That would seem like a nice gesture to a normal person. However, my wife is not a "normal" person.

Not only is she is on a raw food diet right now, she is also a devout, militant, fundamentalist Vegan. She is the type of person who would strap c-4 to her chest and suicide bomb a McDonalds. The very thought of eating in a restaurant where the "juice of dog", or chicken is prepared sends her into a blind rage.

She wanted absolutely no part of eating any lunch besides the pureed raw turnip, garlic and yeast that she packed for her lunch, and smelled roughly like the bottom of a garbage can. So we made excuse, after excuse as to why we could not possibly go to lunch. The head of the English department did not want to go back to work and fought desperately to go out to eat.

"Its only 10am, and there will be nothing open."

"I tink, dat maybe your wife want go shopping until runchee?"

Unfortunately for her, not only is my wife nearly six feet tall, and therefore too large for either female or male Korean clothing, she also lacks the bargain hunting and fashion loving gene predominately found in females and gay men. Somehow, I posses the gene, I know its weird!

She suggested several more options for avoiding going back to work, but my wife was unrelenting. Eventually she out-koreaned my boss with her stubbornness and inability to take no for an answer born out her diet based fanaticism and was driven back to her school.

I however, do not posses my wife's unrelenting will, and also did not want to go back to work, so after she was driven back my boss suggested lunch one more time. I said OK, and figured if they did not have anything I would eat later.

The restaurant she took me to was a traditional place that served the "Juice of dog" and chicken in one building, and traditional tofu and noodle dishes in another. It also had incredible landscaping.







The served me a boiling hot bowl of one piece of tofu roughly the size of a babies head, and of course rice and side dishes. They were worried that it would be too spicey for me, but it only had a mild tang to it. It was pretty good, and the vegetable sides were good, but the kimchi smelled like low tide so I had no part of it.

Afterward it was time to go back, but my boss really did not want to, so she suggested going for a short walk. We ended up wandering around what looked like an abandoned shack, with giant woolly guard dogs on chains. It turned out to be a Buddhist temple that normally served tea, but was closed. My boss convinced them to let us in and look around and we checked out the shrine.





Then she convinced them to make us some tea while we sat on a heated mat watching Korean soap operas. When we finally left, it was about 1:30pm.

"Oh, it soo late!" My boss said in surprise. She had told the Vice Principal that we would be back by noon. So we rushed back to school, but when we got there, it was a ghost town. All the teachers had gone to lunch so no one even noticed we got back an hour and a half late.

After they all got back we went to the gym and played volleyball and basketball for about two hours. It was like the special Olympics in there. Not only was I not use to Korean rules volleyball (like a mixture of soccer and volleyball)I am old and mildly retarded at sports, luckily all the other teachers were too.

I miss variety

That is the one thing I really miss about America. There are a million stores selling a million brands of a million products. You could buy almost any type of fruit or vegetable year round, shop for clothing of any size and brand, or buy things online for incredibly cheap prices.

In Korea, not so much. Every town has the same cell phone stores, book stores, clock stores(they are really into clocks here)and bakeries and they are all selling the exact same products. You might find a little more variety at your e-mart or homepluses, but the bulk of what they sell is exactly the same as what everyone else is selling.

There are foreign markets in Seoul that sell some a lot of products that you cant get anywhere else, put the prices are high and the selection is limited.

There are places that sell foreign sized clothes, but the last pair of jeans I looked at were $150.00 and looked pretty shoddy. And forget about a good pair of running shoes. Unless you want a stylish pair of rocking elevator shoes.



Oh well, I least I can afford to buy shit over here. Back in the good old US all my money went to rent, food and heat.

New obsession

I was on facebook the other day when I saw this, my new obsession.



They are perhaps the cutest thing ever.

Lately my wife has been thinking about getting a dog here in Korea. She is getting to that stage in her life where her biological clock is more like a ticking time bomb. She wants a baby to love and cuddle and make little cooing noises at. She has been getting baby fever bad since her cousin dropped her third kid, and gets all starry-eyed every time she sees a cute little baby. When she sees an ugly little baby (we have all seen them, even if we don't want to admit it), she just gets angry at the parents for bringing something into this world which offends her eyes.

She cannot have a child (one of us is fixed), and mentally she does not want one plus, we already have two, and believe me, that is more than enough. But biologically she feels compelled to create one, or at least have a reasonable substitute.

So she decided to save a dog from becoming soup. She has been looking into adopting abandoned dogs, which have been rescued by animal rescue korea. She wants to do this even though she is allergic to almost anything with hair. Not to mention her number one most hated thing in the world is dog poop.

Whenever we go for walks and she sees anything that might resemble dog poop ( a melted candy bar or the like) she not only gives it a wide berth, but shouts out warnings to me and the kids to avoid the feared poop-like stain at all cost. If I venture to closely to a fecal stain on the ground, I do so under threat of physical violence.

I don't really want a dog, and all the hassle that comes with not only feeding, walking, picking up poop and not to mention the hassle of shipping it to wherever we are going to, when we leave Korea.

The kids really want a pet right now, and the wife wants a pet right now and I would like to have a pet, but just not yet. And when we do get a pet, I want a micro pig. I want to breed micro pigs and have dozens of little piglets running around looking so fucking cute. Look at theses things, how could you not want one!


OMG! So fucking cute!

Assault

Everyone who reads my wife and my blog knows that my wife hates on Korea, and I am a little more tolerant of people without long heads.

Yesterday I wrote a big, long, whining post about how living in Korea is a constant assault on all five senses, but I did not post it. Everything I was going to say has been said before. If not by my wife or I, then by one of the other dozen living in Korea Blogs. So I deleted it.

I wrote about our bus ride to work, passing fields and streams choked with trash. People speaking in their hacking goblinish language. The foul smells from the bus passengers, and countryside. The terrible K pop blaring over the bus's loud speaker. The pollution, boring shoddy architecture, limited food options (anyone ever hear of spices besides red pepper and fish sauce?), pointless nationalism etc. etc. etc.

But what is the point? It has all been said before.

I spent the better part of yesterday morning writing it, instead of doing lesson plans, working on my after school class or really doing anything that resembles work. Then I just said fuck it. I am not putting out another whiny, complaining blog.

I have an easy job, I am saving lots of money, and I cant complain about that. Sure I put up with everyday BS and live in a disgusting country, but so what? Its only temporary, someday I wont be here. I will leave Korea for one of the dozens of other countries that are worth living in, and exploring.

I don't care about Korea anymore. I am here to save money and that's it. Everything else is inconsequential.

Teaching Englishee in Korea! Phiting!

My school is ponying up 80,000 won for me to take a "Teaching Englishee in Korea" class. I will take the classes through the method of "Internet based lecture though" .

It will be taught by a guy who was "English teacher for global company such as Korean Air, Doosan Infracore, COTI and etc."

I will be learning lessons such as:

"Comparing, Korea VS. foreign country" I expect to learn that Korea, of course is best and sparkling.

"Understanding Korean School" I have to admit, I do not understand Korean school, be it one school or many school...

And last but not least "What is 'TEACHER' in Korea" yes, what is TEACHER? Does the Korean hive mindset mean there is but one singular teacher? Are we all one great entity working together? This must be the philosophy aspect of the course.

I have to hand it to the guy though, horrendous spelling and grammar mistakes aside, he is conning my school out of 80 bucks, which at least shows some balls.

Does anyone else have to take theses bullshit classes?

Going to the doctor

If a Korean so much as skins their knee, they go to the doctor. If they have a runny nose, quick to the doctor. They expect you to do the same as well.

"You da seek."

"Yeah, I am a little under the weather."

"What did da doctor say?"

"I did not go to the doctor."

Stunned silence...

In America, we know that there is not much a doctor can do for you, if you have the flu, or a cold, or bruised your knee on a coffee table. Except of course bury you in soul crushing debt for the rest of your life.

I have been sick for almost a week now. I have, as my wife puts it "Man Flu" which means that I am sick, and not paying as much attention to her, therefore I am being annoying on purpose. I have not been to a doctor yet, because A: there is no cure for a cold or flu. B: Korean doctors are about as capable as a blind one armed juggler. and #3: Its not AIDS, cancer, or a broken arm, which are things that doctors (probably not korean doctors) can actually help you with.

The head of the Englishee dept. is intensely concerned. She is insisting on taking me to a doctor tomorrow. I will probably be pretty much better tomorrow so I told her sure, just to get her off my back. Plus I might get to skip a class or two, which will make the whole thing worth it.

Hopefully now she will stop asking me if I have diarrhea every 15 minutes.

Man Flu

I am back at work today, after spending two days at home with the man-flu. The wife was getting pretty annoyed about me staying home focusing on getting better, because it gave me less focus on her.

I still feel pretty sick, and sitting in my giant un-heated office with huge, drafty aluminum framed windows I am not getting any better. I could go to the heated teacher's office, but then I would have to talk to my co-teachers, and they would want to give me "juice of dog soup with kimchi" to help me get better, so thats out.

Its not that there is not a heating system in my office, its just that they refuse to turn it on. I thought my skipping out on two days of work this week might change that, but obviously I was wrong.

One of the reasons I came back to work today, instead of spending another day killing deathclaws and giant molerats, is that yesterday I received an e-mail that I might be getting an extra week of vacation time and a raise.

If you don't remember, my wife got a pay raise with a couple months back pay, and an extra week of vacation because she is working in an industrial area, about 3 blocks from my school. When I asked my school if I could get some of that they said "no, fuck you."

So I asked the district coordinator and she said "No, fuck you, and fuck your wife. I am going to report you to the administration, and make her return that back pay."

My wife, however did not have to pay it back, and she still has her extra vacation, and now it looks like I do too. So hopefully I will be getting some back pay, which on top of my 8 hours a week of overtime, will make a nice fat paycheck.

Sick day

After six months of being exposed to no hand washing, open mouth coughing, disease spreading, Korean children who at least 30% of whom are "seek" at any given time, my immune system finally gave up. I guess I have not been eating enough kimchi...

Now it is my turn to say "I seek teacher! Need to sreep in crass." Except I aint going to class, I am using one of my 14 sick days to stay at home and get paid.

Back in the good ole US of A, if I was too sick to drag my sorry ass into work, that was 8 hours of money that I would not earn. As a carpenter, I made over $20.00 an hour, so a sick day meant at least $160.00 would be missing out of the next pay check, more if we were working overtime that day. And if I was so sick, that I needed to go to a doctor? That would have to come out of the next pay check.

There are a lot of things that suck of Korea, but at least I can take a day off every once in a while and not have to worry about how I am going to pay the bills.

That time of the month.

I would like to dispute some lies written about me.

"I forbade him from killing Yau Guai in Fallout 3. I'm well known for my devotion to god, the gays, hopeless little douchey dinner dogs and pixilated endangered species! Why should he be allowed to run around the imaginary 50's themed nuclear wreckage killing poor giant beasts and eating their flesh when all they're trying to do is get by in a cruel, cruel, radioactive world? "

First of all, I don't go around murdering fake endangered species and devouring their flesh. I don't eat any flesh, be it real or pixilated. I am a vegan in real life and in fake life. That is why I, unlike my wife, took the time to make sure that when I leveled up, my charisma was high enough for me to obtain the animal friendship perk. Although I admit to whacking a couple of giant mole rats, only for quest purposes, I however felt no joy from it.

"I decide now is the perfect time for us to 'spend time together'. I follow him, crawl over him, and flop down beside him. He seems slightly unhappy with me. I can tell cause he's glaring at me.
"What are you glaring at me for?"
"That hurt!"
"Really?"
"Yeah! You just dug your bony fucking knees into my back! You have the whole bed to crawl around on, why do you have to pick the one part I'm on!"
That seemed pretty funny to me. I laughed and he stormed off."

OK, this actually happened. But I am sure that had anyone else had 135lbs of boniness hop onto their back that they would greet the situation with anything but enthusiasm, unless they are into that whole S&M thing, which I will not judge you for, no matter how perverted and disgusting of a human being you may be.

"This is by far the likeliest culprit: Mr. AwesomeEstrogen is on his man-rag. Like man-flu, man-rag is a serious life-threatening affliction with debilitating symptoms you women can't even begin to comprehend! Luckily, it only happens once or twice a month and all will be back to normal in 3-5 days."

If I was on my "Man Rag" I would be the one following her around, alternating between unrelenting nagging, physically abuse, and constant attention seeking. It may be that someone else is about to receive a visit from aunt flow, and I am simply the victim of a conspiracy being framed for having a mangina.



I say if the tampon does not fit, you must acquit!