Hello all! It's been a while and I meant to put this up weeks ago, but you know how life is...This has been a bit of a rocky New Year so far but I have faith that things will work out. For the first time, I've had trouble with some of my students. Three of them, in three different classes, all of whom are men and are in their early to mid 30s. For some reason, they have issues with me and it makes teaching them a bit on the difficult side. And for those of you who know me well, I'm a pretty sensitive person so it's a bit hard to deal with that kind of blatant rejection. I do have to tell myself that it's impossible for everyone to like me and it does work most of the time, but not always. But anyway, let me give you some fun stuff to read about and some fun pictures to look at. 
'Tis a pleasure to be getting back to you not only with new pictures but also with some videos taken at the Noraebang on December 23rd, 2006. It was an awesome night. Let me start from the beginning:Our office decided to have a Christmas party for everyone. Earlier in the day, one of the teacher's, Son Mi, took me to a place that I will be forever grateful to her for: an outdoor local market close to my neighborhood. I had asked people for months about where I could go buy groceries because I found E-Mart so expensive! And it truly is. Though it's kind of like a K-Mart, the food section is ridiculously expensive and I cringe whenever I go to the checkout section. Son Mi opened up my world to a wonderfully fresh market where you can find pretty much anything and vegetables and meat are way cheaper than at E-Mart. I have found my new shopping district. Now, whenever I want to go to the market, all I have to do is hop on a bus and take a 10 minute ride and I'm there! Though I didn't have my camera and therefore didn't take pictures of the market, we nonetheless had lunch there and I tried something new: Soondae and Kope Chang with glass noodles in a hot and spicy sauce. 
Okay, so let me explain. Many foreigners hate Soondae because in truth it is blood sausage. But my images of blood sausage up until then was French style 'boudin', which is coagulated blood cooked in the intestinal pouch of beef (I think, or maybe it's pork?). I have tried boudin and was not really crazy about the texture nor the idea of literally eating blood. I was expecting the same thing here so I was a bit apprehensive but was willing to try anyway. As an appetizer we had some cold Soondae and liver pate. The liver was excellent, by the way. I tried the soondae and was surprised to find out that the intestinal lining was not filled with blood but was instead stuffed with glass noodles. Yes, there is some blood, but it wasn’t swimming in it and I didn’t feel like I was eating pure blood. It was not bad! Not something I’d order on a regular basis, but all in all, not bad. Our main course arrived and I thought we were going to have noodles with soondae and pieces of pork. Well, dear friends, Kope Chang is actually tripe! Yup, innards and innards for lunch. It was a surprise, like I said, but all in all, not bad. I’m not a big fan of innards but my grandmother used to make tripe in a sauce when I would visit her in the summers and it wasn’t bad either. So, though I think I’ll never be a fan of this type of food (innards etc…) it’s nice to eat different things from time to time. After eating, I bought onions, pork, beef, mushrooms, beans, broccoli and tomatoes for the incredible price of 20,000won. It would have cost me twice that much at E-Mart. Don’t you just love outdoor markets! Upon returning to my place we had some tea to warm us up and then Son Mi helped me choose something for the Christmas party, something Christmassy. It was fun to dress up since I do that so rarely. The party was lots of fun. There were only two of us there that were non-Korean speakers but that was part of the fun. We were nicely integrated into the cultural feel of Christmas in Korea. 
We had an interesting gift-exchange system that I would recommend to you guys in future years with large groups of friends or with co-workers. Each person bought a gift that could be used by a woman or man. Numbers were mixed in a box and people had to pick a number. The first number has the worst luck because they had to pick one gift and they are stuck with it. The last person, number 20 for example, could either choose the last gift on the table or choose any other person’s gift among the people who has already opened their presents. So the idea is that you can steal someone else’s gift that has been opened. I was lucky enough that no one wanted my nice scarf but there were many other exchanges that were pretty funny because people were running away from the people who wanted to take their gift. We had a blast. There was good music, good food and good company. 
After leaving the office we decided to go to a Noraebang, which is a Korean-style Karaoke. It was awesome. My first time to a Noraebang in Korean, there were 20 of us and we got a big room in a Noraebang a block from our work. We sang for hours and drank and danced and played drums with Moon Jong’s daughter. There were a lot of songs to choose from and pretty much everyone took a shot at the microphones. But the star of the night was our boss, Cane, whom you will see in all his glory in many of the pictures I have posted. You will also get to see short videos of me dancing and fooling around (incidentally also a bit sloshed) with the boys while they sang horribly and loudly into the mikes.
Okay, so let me explain. Many foreigners hate Soondae because in truth it is blood sausage. But my images of blood sausage up until then was French style 'boudin', which is coagulated blood cooked in the intestinal pouch of beef (I think, or maybe it's pork?). I have tried boudin and was not really crazy about the texture nor the idea of literally eating blood. I was expecting the same thing here so I was a bit apprehensive but was willing to try anyway. As an appetizer we had some cold Soondae and liver pate. The liver was excellent, by the way. I tried the soondae and was surprised to find out that the intestinal lining was not filled with blood but was instead stuffed with glass noodles. Yes, there is some blood, but it wasn’t swimming in it and I didn’t feel like I was eating pure blood. It was not bad! Not something I’d order on a regular basis, but all in all, not bad. Our main course arrived and I thought we were going to have noodles with soondae and pieces of pork. Well, dear friends, Kope Chang is actually tripe! Yup, innards and innards for lunch. It was a surprise, like I said, but all in all, not bad. I’m not a big fan of innards but my grandmother used to make tripe in a sauce when I would visit her in the summers and it wasn’t bad either. So, though I think I’ll never be a fan of this type of food (innards etc…) it’s nice to eat different things from time to time. After eating, I bought onions, pork, beef, mushrooms, beans, broccoli and tomatoes for the incredible price of 20,000won. It would have cost me twice that much at E-Mart. Don’t you just love outdoor markets! Upon returning to my place we had some tea to warm us up and then Son Mi helped me choose something for the Christmas party, something Christmassy. It was fun to dress up since I do that so rarely. The party was lots of fun. There were only two of us there that were non-Korean speakers but that was part of the fun. We were nicely integrated into the cultural feel of Christmas in Korea. 
We had an interesting gift-exchange system that I would recommend to you guys in future years with large groups of friends or with co-workers. Each person bought a gift that could be used by a woman or man. Numbers were mixed in a box and people had to pick a number. The first number has the worst luck because they had to pick one gift and they are stuck with it. The last person, number 20 for example, could either choose the last gift on the table or choose any other person’s gift among the people who has already opened their presents. So the idea is that you can steal someone else’s gift that has been opened. I was lucky enough that no one wanted my nice scarf but there were many other exchanges that were pretty funny because people were running away from the people who wanted to take their gift. We had a blast. There was good music, good food and good company. 
After leaving the office we decided to go to a Noraebang, which is a Korean-style Karaoke. It was awesome. My first time to a Noraebang in Korean, there were 20 of us and we got a big room in a Noraebang a block from our work. We sang for hours and drank and danced and played drums with Moon Jong’s daughter. There were a lot of songs to choose from and pretty much everyone took a shot at the microphones. But the star of the night was our boss, Cane, whom you will see in all his glory in many of the pictures I have posted. You will also get to see short videos of me dancing and fooling around (incidentally also a bit sloshed) with the boys while they sang horribly and loudly into the mikes.Hope you enjoy our moments of glory. Love ya! L
