Check out the headlines: Foreigners eat at basketball game!!! You can also try the new unintelligible translated version. We hadn't been to a game in weeks so we thought it was time we made an appearance. People from work need to start hanging out with us more to get the five star treatment. We arrived fairly early because the last few time we went there had been huge lineups. This time there was no lineup and the ticket girl tried some English on us and asked if we wanted to sit on the "special bench", whatever that meant, but i declined. As we sat waiting for the game to start an announcer came out and started picking people out of the crowd for some reason. I looked up at the big screen to me staring back at myself. I waved and the announcer tried goading us to come down. I asked C if she wanted to go, but she couldn't even look up at the screen. Eventually a guy came and said something about Outback Steakhouse and that got us moving. They just opened one in Wonju in January and they have a section at the games where you can sit almost on the floor and eat. It turns out all we had to do was go to center court and say our names, then we got seats in the VIP (Outback) section. Before the game started we also got our picture taken with the team mascots (you can see above), which actually turned out nice. It was much better than the picture on their website. We got served some ribs, chicken wings, fries and bread. While it wasn't too hot it was pretty damn good for free. Oh yeah, and Wonju won the game.

In work news it looks like our time in Wonju will come to an end in about two and a half months. The two month break C needs will just be too much. The director's wife tried negotiating it down to two weeks, but that just isn't enough time to see everyone back home and relax. They've started looking for our replacement, so sometime in the next three months or so we should be home. I might write about work stuff someday.

I fixed the link to the Penny Arcade comic posted earlier.
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The Energizer Bunny

I woke up at 5am yesterday after about five or six hours sleep. It's now over 23 hours later and could still stay awake. I need help.

Happy Valentines Day

The t-shirt says it all. Except niece should be plural for me now. God help me if i ever become a father, or rather god help my daughter. (I'll fix the link when it dies in a couple days.)

It's been a long time. I've been meaning to update for a while, but i've been stuck in a zombie-like state for quite some time. My sleeping pattern has been even more erratic than normal. The last few days have seen in bed from 8am-noon. That's it. Sometimes less. I try to get to sleep at a decent hour, but our upstairs neighours seem to have taken up some nighttime hammering project. The last week or so we've heard banging at all hours of the day. It's not that loud, but it's enough to wake me up if i;m not in a deep sleep. I'll fall asleep for 10-25 minutes and then i'll hear some banging. I don't know what the hell is going on up there and telling them off would be useless.

On Friday we went downstairs from the hagwon for a few drinks with some people from work. We had a good time and i think i'm starting to get used to Korean Beer. The stuff is like water and on a trip to the bathroom i was at the urinal i didn't notice the two older Korean guys come up next to me at first. As i stood relieving myself i heard:

"American?"

"American."

"AMERICAN."

"AMERICAN."

I thought they were just talking to themselves at first. Apparently they don't have the same Unspoken North American Urinal Rule in Korea where you stare straight ahead or straight down and there's NO TALKING to the strange guy next to you. I should have ignored them, but like an idiot i told them i was Canadian. In there horrible broken English they asked if i spoke Korean and if i was an English teacher. They pointed upstairs to ask if that's where i teach and tried asking how old i was. After that i think they were trying to make fun of me for going bald at 28 or something. I don't know. I tried to get away politely but they wouldn't leave me alone. I was gone so long a search party was sent out. The directors wife came out and got in between us. As i tried to walk away one of the guys grabbed my arm. I'd had about enough by then and just walked away. Other than that, we had fun drinking and talking. I learned a while ago that i can make people laugh that don't speak the same language and i managed to make the new secretary laugh a few times without any Korean. It was a good night.

In other news the director took us aside tonight and talked to us about going to Jeju-do island together. It's kind of like the Korean Hawaii, except not as warm, from what we've heard. When he first mentioned going together a while ago i didn't think he was really serious. He wants to go in late March. I only hope his two kids don't come along. He also talked about having stay longer since we're doing an all right job and most of the kids like us. We told him about how C needs to go back home for a while to see her family. Surprisingly to us he was interested in finding a solution that would allow us to go home for a few months and then come back to teach again. I guess we'll wait and see what the future holds.

After our brief political interlude (rant), back to our regularly scheduled programming...

Haven't taken many pictures lately, so here's one from the paper festival in October.

A couple weekends ago we headed to Seoul to meet with a girl C and i used to work with. She arrived a few months ago and let us crash on her extra single bed (ouch my friggin' back) so we could go out for a few drinks. We met her and some of her friends also from Regina who had just arrived a couple weeks earlier. We went out for actual Mexican food in Itaewon and then to a small hole-in-the-wall bar called Bar Nana for some drinks. Throughout the night we met six people from Saskatchewan and at least ten from Canada. I swear that of the 12,000 foreigners teaching English in Korea, at least 6,000 must be from Saskatchewan. C and were really surprised at the reactions we got from people when we told them we were from a small town outside Seoul. We got quite a few people that asked "Why?" and even one who asked if we had a movie theatre. They sounded like people from Toronto or Vancouver when you tell them you're from Regina. We're in a town bigger than Regina and they haven't been outside of Seoul yet and they're acting like it was the center of the universe. Whatever. After we got tired of the Reggae at Bar Nana we looked for a cab to Hongdae (the university area) for the six of us. As we waited a guy in an unmarked minivan yelled to ask us where we were going. He wanted 20,000 for a ride to Hongdae, but the New Zealander with us tried to talk him down to 15,000. My Korean is horrible so even though i thought the number he said sounded odd i just ignored it. It turns out he talked us up to paying 105,000 for the ride. The cab driver was alright though, and just laughed and took the piss out of the guy for his flub. Our stay in Hongdae was brief and the three of us left looked for a cab to our friend's apartment. She said the guy wanted 30,000 but i told her what 20,000 was and he agreed. As we passed through Itaewon the guy must of heard us talking about the Burger King there and suddenly started turning up what's called Hooker Hill. We weren't sure what he was doing at first but the guy swung around the block and ended up knocking on the door of the locked and barred BK trying to get us some. He was pretty cool. Even though he didn't speak any English we were sure he understood most of what we said. After our attempted BK it was off home at 100 km/h through red lights. I swear there are no traffic laws in this country. Every taxi ride is an adventure. The next day was spent shopping and we managed to find some North American food in Dongdaemun and a late birthday gift for C. We had a good weekend that i hope to repeat soon. That may not be the case though, since something came up at work that i'll have to get to another time. Damn i'm long winded.
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