Well, it's definitely starting to feel like summer, though those of us who have been through a Seoul summer know that it gets much, much worse than this. We've had some days that are warm (80) and humid, but at night the temperature and humidity drop and so it's rather refreshing. But during the day it can be a bit sweaty. We've started to run the air conditioners at school and the other day I broke down and turned on the AC at home.
We had two holidays at the beginning of May: Children's Day and Parents' Day. They don't have separate Mother's and Father's Days. Anyway, on Children's Day, Vivi and I went to a traditional Korean folk village. She had some school assignments to do so she was a bit busy with that, but I enjoyed seeing the old buildings and learning about the crafts that they used to do. And the entertainment was really fun. It was a beautiful warm day but I must have been allergic to the clean country-side air because I was sneezing all day! On Parents' Day, we went to a baseball game with some friends. Vivi really likes baseball (we have been to another game since), which indeed bodes well for the future!
On May 6, Vivi and I hit our 200 day anniversary. We went to our favorite Indian restaurant (the same one we went to on Valentine's Day) and went to a department store to buy each other gifts. We realized that it was getting a bit silly to count both on the "western" system (every 3 months) and on the Korean system (every 100 days). I don't know that we've decided which we'll stick to but we have definitely decided to tone down the fancy meals. I think we're both gaining a little weight because of it.
There have been a few nights out with "the boys" in May. During one of the holiday weekends, Rob and I met our friend Jung and some of her friends up near Ewha Women's University. We went to a jazz club called Birdland and the place was really beautiful. It was about 9:30pm on a Saturday night and we thought it was a little weird that the place was a bit empty. We asked what time the music started. Unfortunately, because it was a holiday, there was no live music that weekend! Arrgh! We hung out there for a while anyway and later, Rob and our friend Brian and I went to the university neighborhood called Sinchon, where we found a very cool bar that let us request music (they played a lot of 70s punk, 80s metal, and 90s alternative) and had Hoegaarden pretty cheap. So that was great.
Another time, we went to the tourist neighborhood of Itaewon to try to find a pub that was showing the FA Cup Final (that's the final match of the big soccer tournament in England, in case you didn't know). My favorite team (Arsenal) was playing and I had even recently bought an Arsenal t-shirt just for this night. The first bar we went to (our favorite in Seoul) said they weren't planning on showing the game but would let us have the "private room" to watch it. About an hour before the game, they informed us that they didn't get the channel it was on! Yikes! So we rushed to another bar and they said they would be showing it. There were a few other Arsenal fans there, too. But when game time rolled around, we couldn't find it on TV! Apparently, no TV station in Korea was showing it! Crap! It was a fun night anyway (lots of Hoegaarden consumed) and Arsenal ended up winning (so that's all that matters, I guess) but I was really looking forward to seeing it.
Teaching is going about the same. The classes are starting to get bigger and I know in July and August they will be pretty much full.
This month I moved up a level in my language class, which meant I got a new teacher. At first, I really hated her. She would talk way too fast and if she asked you a question and you couldn't answer it fast enough, she would ask someone else. Very discouraging. There are only four of us in the class and we all agreed that she was talking too fast. So we'd ask her to slow down but she would keep right on talking fast. I was about to give up but recently she has gotten much better. I am going to continue to stay in her class next month but then I will be too busy in the summer months. Besides, the class starts at 10am and I finish teaching at 10pm, and that's a very long day.
In two weeks, The Princeton Review's summer program begins. A few of our old friends from last summer are returning and I am really looking forward to seeing them. And I'm really glad that I won't be teaching high school kids!