Happy Canada day to all! I'm not doing anything exciting to celebrate. I'd say the country looks pretty good for 135. Not that I'd know, I suppose, since I haven't set foot on Canadian soil in 5 months.
Yeah, it's been 5 months, only 7 more to go. Then I'll offically be out of debt and I should have some money saved. The Korean Won exchange rate keeps getting better so I keep getting a raise. It's predicted to go even further too.
I went to the third place game of the World Cup Saturday. Korea lost to Turkey, but the crowd didn't seem to mind too much. Not bad for a team that's ranked 40th in the World to finish 4th. The game was quite an experience. Korea has declared that today be a holiday, which has something to do with their good showing in the World Cup. I don't really know but it was nice to have the long weekend.
I had planned to spend some time in Daegu or maybe even carry on to Busan since it isn't very far from where I was. However, I was by myself in Daegu and I realized that I'm not as adventurous when I'm by myself. So when I got to the train station, I had planned to get a ticket for the next day so that I could explore Daegu a little. But the guy at the station told me that I could catch a train home that was leaving in 10 minutes so I jumped on it. I also kind of wanted to be in Seoul for the final of the World Cup.
Bret and I went into Seoul for the game yesterday. It was pretty tame in downtown Seoul. We sat in one of our favorite hangouts in Hongdae for the game. Then we went to Itaewon to meet up with my friend Keith from Winnipeg. He had come into Seoul to go to a Canada Day party put on the the Canadian Chamber of Commerce in Korea. I sort of planned to go to the party myself, but I didn't get into Seoul until 4pm and didn't have a ticket. I was told they were selling them at the door, but It was ending at 6 so I figured it wasn't worthwhile to pay $40 for an hour. In Itaewon, by the time I finally tracked Keith down, I only talked to him for a couple minutes before I lost track of him again. Ah well, maybe next time.
I've come to the realization that Koreans really don't like Americans. Bret is now telling people that he's from a town "near Vancouver" instead of Seattle. We had some Korean man calling him an "Indian Killer" and to F#@$ Off (in English and Korean) the other day. Although he kept calling me a "friend". I really don't understand it. I mean it's not like he's military. You come to a country to teach Korean children English and that's a bad thing? Although the guy was drunk as a lemur.
I've been asking around and it seems that whenever somthing bad happens in Korea, there seems to be a way to attribute it to America or the American military presence in Korea. Some people think that America is responsible for Korea being divided into North and South because of an agreement they made with Russia after WW2. The speed skating incident at the Olympics last winter didn't help either.
All I can say is that American influence has helped Korea to become the wealthy country it is now. Which isn't to say that it wouldn't have been otherwise but it's really a shame. Of course it's the GIs (army guys) that are a big part of the problem. They get into trouble in Korea and where they might go to jail in the US, they just get sent home from here. I dunno what to think, at least they like Canadians.
Otherwise it's been much of the same here, I've been busy at work cause it was the last week of the month. But, that's mostly cause I don't make very effective use of my time while I'm at work. I spend more time browsing the Internet and doing crossword puzzles when I should probably be marking test papers and making up tests. So then I get annoyed when I have to spend extra time at work or bring work home. Only myself is to blame I suppose.
The next week should probably be a little busy too. Two teachers are on vacation and as far as I know, the school couldn't find anyone to take their place.
Well that's about it for this week. I gotta go to bed and get some sleep...later.
