When I negotiated my last contract, I made sure that I had some vacation time put in. I definitely wanted to go home next month for Christmas, but I figured I should try to get another week off in November as well. Originally I wanted to do some traveling but decided to stay in Korea and take care of all the "administrative stuff" I needed to do. I had 11 days off and was really looking forward to it.

The number one priority was to finish my graduate school applications. I needed to finish revising my essays and make sure that all the forms got filled out, etc. I had been working on my essays for a few weeks on and off, but focused on that and finally submitted all of them on Thursday. Unfortunately, one school still doesn't have theirs available yet, which is a bit off-putting since the deadline is 16 days away. But I'm sure they're "working on it". The other three are all finished, though. I hope to hear some good news in March...

Vivi has been super-busy with school. Her graduate exhibition starts on December 9 and so she has to finish her final project by then. She also has assignments for her other classes, she wants to take the TOEFL test again, and she is trying to fit in time to do her own grad school applications, too. She makes a lot of effort to see me, but unfortunately we can really only meet on weekends, and even just for a few hours when we do meet.

Since I'm on vacation and Vivi is really busy, this has given me a little bit of freedom to hang out with other folks (read: go drinking). Here are the highlights:

Last Thursday, I went with my buddies Rob, Brian, and Mike to one of the many German microbreweries. Brian is leaving Korea soon and Mike has been very busy lately, so it was a rare opportunity for us to all get together. The highlight was the three-liter beer dispensers they have. Instead of a big pitcher, they serve the beers in what can only be described as a "beer column". It's a big tube of beer with a nozzle at the bottom. We finished two of them.

Two days later was Brian's "official" going-away party. We started at Platinum, which is yet another microbrewery. The difference is that they are currently the only ones in Seoul who offer other styles of beer besides German. They have an English Ale, Irish Stout, and Belgian White. It's definitely my favorite microbrewery in Korea, if not my favorite bar.

There was a pretty big turn-out, including a few people who we didn't expect. Afterwards, we headed all the way up to Ewha Women's University (which is pretty far from where we were) to a jazz club called Birdland. I had been there once before, on a night that unfortunately had no live music. Well, that was a bit disappointing. But this trip wasn't much better. There was live music, thankfully, but the bar was practically empty! At 10:30 on a Saturday night! Pretty surprising. The live music lasted only until 11 or so, and by midnight we were practically the only ones still there. So the barstaff tried to get us to leave. Oh well. It seemed like a bit of a waste to go all the way up there.

After that, there were only six of us left (three white guys, three beautiful Korean girls... I've noticed that all of my friends here fit into one of those two categories!) and we went to the university district and popped in to the first bar we saw (it was freezing cold out). About two or three Hoegaardens later, we headed home at around 3am. So it was a pretty long night, but turned out to be so much fun. The jazz bar was a bit of a bust, but the other two bars were fun and it was great to hang out in a different neighborhood, at least.

Needless to say, I was a bit weary the next few days, but Brian, Rob, and our friend Caroline went back to Platinum on Tuesday night. When we were there on Saturday, we had spend W288,000 (about $250) and so they gave us coupons. So we figured we should spend them before Brian left! We ordered our beer and the girl brought them to us, and served them one at a time. Unfortunately, she did not realize that by doing so, she was upsetting the balance of the tray, and one of the beers (700mL) fell off the tray... and into my lap!! I was TOTALLY soaked. I think the girl expected me to go ballistic (as do many of you reading this, I'm sure), but I couldn't help but to start laughing. And I hadn't even had a drink yet! I felt pretty bad for the girl but it was sort of funny. I stunk of beer all night and even when I got home about four or five hours later, my underwear was still wet. Ah, but we'll never forget THAT night.

Thursday was Thanksgiving, and I offered to substitute for Rob's class. He was just giving a test and only needed me to sit there and babysit the class for three hours. In repayment, he brought me to the buffet at the hotel across the street. I was expecting a "Thanksgiving buffet" but it was really just a "buffet that also happened to have turkey". Still, though, I had a pretty good meal. The turkey was very yummy and the stuffing wasn't bad. For Korea, I think it was a pretty good Thanksgiving meal!

Friday was Brian's "unofficial" going-away party. Every month, the English conversation classes go to a bar on the last Friday of the month. So I always find a way to tag along. About ten teachers and ten students turned up, which was pretty good. The sad thing was that one of Brian's girlfriend's friends had died that day, and so Brian had to leave a bit early. He's off to travel southeast Asia for a bit before swinging through Seoul and then he'll be in Canada. We will definitely miss hanging out with him.

Saturday night was a bit strange. While we were at the jazz club the previous week, I had talked to one of the "front-desk girls" from Princeton Review and she told me that she knew of a really good jazz club in another neighborhood. We made tentative plans to go but never really solidified anything. But she still intended to go, so a bunch of us made plans for Saturday. As it turned out, the only people who were free to go were me and the two girls (Soon Min and Yu Mi). Their English is pretty good but not great, and my Korean is pretty bad, so I thought it might be awkward. But I talked to them a lot the previous weekend (beer has a very positive effect on people's language skills) and I didn't think it would be too bad.

The jazz club was really good but I was getting a bit frustrated when speaking Korean to them. Not because I was unable to have a conversation (we could always revert to English or "Konglish" if necessary), but because they kept laughing everytime I made a mistake. I would NEVER laugh at someone who makes a mistake in English, but I guess that's because that's my job. At first I didn't mind but then they were laughing about something I said and I got a little pissed off. And I guess I felt like I needed to say something. I felt really bad about getting angry, but was really hurt. Laughter in Korea is a weird thing: it doesn't always mean humor or mocking. For instance, if a person (especially an older person) does something like break a glass in a restaurant, they will laugh. It's out of embarassment, actually. But it's a bit hard for me to get used to. I'm not sure WHY the two girls were laughing at me (one explanation was that they were probably just being flirty) but I didn't like it.

Anyway, that put a damper on things for a while, but after that, things got better. I decided to stick to simple Korean (rather than try to make sentences), and there was an opportunity for disaster when I mixed up "heavy" and "scary", but no one laughed. We stayed at the club only for another half hour or so and then the girls wanted to go home. I was afraid that they were not having fun with me so I said (in Korean) "let's have one more beer". We ended up having about four or five more. So I guess all's well that ends well, right? But I was still a bit scarred from being laughed at. I will be sure to bring along a "chaperone" next time I hang out with these two. =)

Aside from drinking, I've been watching a lot of movies. I download them and then watch them on the computer. This week, I watched "Clueless", "Jaws", and "Hero". I have to strongly recommend "Hero". It is a Chinese movie with Jet Li, and it is awesome. Maybe even better than "Crouching Tiger". It was a bit hard to follow (the English subtitles weren't very good) but it all makes sense in the end. It also helps if you know a little Chinese history, I suppose.

Hmmm... I guess that's about it. The other night, I had a dream that my vacation was over, and I was very very sad. I don't think I'll be THAT sad on Tuesday to go back to work, but I have definitely enjoyed having some free time.