Life in Korea: Week 4

Last week [week 4], I did a few exciting things.

On Wednesday, we celebrated St. Patrick's Day at my school. I had no clue what this day really was about... in the states all I knew to do was to dress in green and go to the bars! Little did I know St. Patrick's Day has to do with religion. It was our "theme day" where we don't have regular classes. The school has one theme day per month for the students. Every teacher has to do some activity all day long. We had face painting, cooking class, arts and crafts, some other crap... and I was told do to songs and games. It was pretty hard finding St. Patrick's Day songs for kids. I found two songs; "I'm a Little Leprechaun" (in the tune to I'm a Little Teapot) and "If You're Wearing Green Today" (in the tune to If You're Happy and You Know It). I had to do this for 6 periods straight... I hated it. I would rather teach material from the book.

On Thursday I was able to leave my work early [4pm] so I could go to the Seoul Immigration Office to apply for my alien registration card. I have not been able to get my own cellphone or a bank account because I still don't have my ARC. I went the furthest west I had ever been on the Green line then had to transfer to another line. I got pretty damn confused. I was told that coming out of the subway station, I should just walk straight ahead. Well, that was not the case because I took the wrong exit. When I got out of the station, I could only go either left or right. I stood there for about 5 minutes trying to decide which way I should go. I was a bit annoyed. I tried using the cellphone to call the office. I wasn't getting anyone who spoke English. Finally, I walked to the main corner of a street and waited until I saw a lady that looked nice. She helped me a lot. She called the office (using her own phone hehehe) and got some directions for me. The immigration office was pretty full. By the time they called my number it was 6:02pm. Sure enough, I didn't have all the documents I needed in order to get my ARC. They called my work to have them fax a paper over. Most of the immigration office employees had left by that time. We waited for about 20 minutes, then they gave up. They told me to just leave all my docs with them. I did not wan to have to come back again. The next morning I found out Bits does not have a fax machine and so they went to a store to try and fax the document but they got the wrong fax number. They couldn't call me back because I had not given them my cellphone number [on purpose, btw.]

On Saturday morning I woke up craving Mexican food. I decided to go out to Itaewon to find some good food. I walked around exploring the area for about 4 hours. It was very chill to just walk around listening to my mp3 player. I found many Persian, Indian, African, and European restaurants and marts.

The first Mexican restaurant I found was called Los Amigos. It was described as a Tex-Mex restaurant. It didn't really convince me of it's authenticity so I continued my quest. I came upon a second place called Taco Amigo. The menu looked pretty good. and prices were actually not bad. But it only has about 6 tables and they were all taken. The owner saw me looking at the menu outside and came out and talked to me about the place. He said they cater to the Mexican Embassy events in Seoul. And said their tamales are very popular. I asked for horchata and he said it's W3,500 [about $3]. I will definitely give it a try some other time.

Walking down the main strip in Itaewon, I saw a place called Pancho's. I was starving and so this was going to be the place where I would satisfy my craving for Mexican food. The restaurant was completely empty. It was a nice spot. On the 2nd or 3rd floor of a building overlooking the main strip. The decor was just like any other Mexican restaurant back in WA. I had a good feeling about this place. They were even playing some Selena... hella tight! It must have been a CD because they played 'Amor Prohibido,' 'El Chico Del Apartamento 512,' and 'Como La Flor.' Oh man I was loving this place. I ordered chicken fajitas and was excited to chomp on some grub! Ok, firs disappointment... chips/salsa not complimentary. Ok, no big deal. I still got them so I could enjoy them with my $6 Corona. I could hear the $15 fajitas sizzling their way over to my table... YUMM?? So maybe they weren't exactly delicious. But what did piss me off, rice and beans NOT included!! WTF!! Ok, I was not going to let that ruin my day either... $2 for a side. I guess what I was mostly missing were my beans... why the hell do they serve them cold?? Oh man... truly disappointing right there. Oh, and the rice was bland.

I am very embarrassed to say that even though the price was much steeper than that of Azteca and the quality was way worse, I enjoyed every bite of that meal. It was definitely what I was craving.

Sunday was a very nice day. The sky was actually blue for a change. I decided to be a tourist for the day and went to the Yuk Sam [63] Building.

"At 249 meters (817 ft) high, it was the world's tallest building outside North America and Asia's tallest building when it completed construction in 1985, ready for the 1988 Summer Olympics. 63 refers to the building's 63 official stories, of which 60 are above ground level and 3 are basement floors. The lower floors house a large shopping area with approximately 90 stores, an Imax Theater, and an aquarium. A convention center and banquet hall are also housed within the building. The observation deck (known as 63 Golden Tower) on the top floor is a popular place to go to see a good view of Seoul. Special observation elevators are also available; they are equipped with windows to enable their passengers to view the city as they ride up to (or down from) the observation deck." - Wikipedia

This place was very incredible. It was $12 to go up to the observation deck. It gave me an visual as to how immense Seoul is. It is way bigger than what I imagined. The view was spectacular and I would definitely go again.