Week Seven

This week I started my Korean class. I go M/W/F from 7-9pm. there are only 7 people in my class, which sucks because I was hoping to meet new people. I am also the youngest person in my class. There are 3 stay at home wives [two Chinese and 1 Mongolian], a business man [Austria], an English teacher [Florida], a college student [Latvia], and my coworker. This week I learned the Hangeul alphabet. I can read, but very slowly... that doesn't mean I know what I'm reading though. This is only the first of 10 weeks to go, so I do hope to learn quite a bit.


On Saturday morning I headed out to Muju to meet up with Jomel. The bus ride was about 3 hours long. From the highway, you can see all of Muju. It is a very small town surrounded with mountains. The terminal is pretty small and sketch. The has a 'countryside' feel to it. When I met with Jomel, we walked around exploring the town... didn't take long before we had seen it all. That's when he explained that we were still about a 20 minute bus ride to his actual town. We walked around some more and then decided to hit up a restaurant for Samgyupsal. I was actually able to use my Korean skills to find us a restaurant. When we walked in, there was what appeared to be an American girl just sitting on a table staring us down. We said hello and she just sat there looking at us. Not one word came out of her mouth, then she got up and went to a different room. That was pretty awkward. We started going up to the restaurant area, when all of a sudden Jomel and the Korean lady who worked there started screaming. I was like, WTF?!! I didn't realize it was a traditional Korean restaurant where you sit on the floor... and I forgot to take off my shoes. The food was pretty good considering that I hadn't eaten all day. We decided to get some somek [mixing soju and beer together].

By the time we were heading back to the Muju bus terminal, we were pretty tips. Jomes and I were talking in the bus, then this old man started talking to us. Jomes and him became good friends. Jomes cracke me up cus 1, he was drunk at 3pm and 2, he was talkin hella slow and loud so the guy could understand... but the guy's english was pretty good so there was no need for Jomel to talk to him the same way he talks to his students, slow and omitting words. I guess the guy is from Seoul and he's traveled all over the world. He learned to speak English while in the middle east. He told us about a classical music concert that was happening that evening and invited us to it. Jomel said yes. LOL.

Seolcheon is much smaller than Muju. On our way to Jomel's place we stopped at the market to get some beer. This guy actually has a house! That right there is luxury compared to my tiny studio. Huge two bedroom one bathroom house all to himself. His bedroom is bigger than my entire studio. Not gonna, I'm a little jealous.. but I don't think I could live in the middle of the mountains. After a few drinks, we realized it was time to go back and catch the bus to meet up with this old man for dinner. Sure enough, we missed the bus. We chilled at the terminal and have a few more drinks until the bus came. When we arrived at our destination, the old man was right there waiting for us. We went to a Korean BBQ place and had some dinner and more somek! Once we finish, there was a car waiting for us outside. I didn't care that this experience could be leading to me missing some internal organs and having them sold in the black market... I was pretty intrigued with the VIP status that we were getting. The driver took us to the Muju Ski Resort. When we got there, I noticed that a lot of people would bow down to the old man. I guess he's a big deal in Seolcheon. Clearly Jomel and I were very under dressed in our jeans and tshirts while everyone wore nice suits and fancy dresses. We got our seats and the classical music performance began. I guess I'm not cultured enough to have an appreciation for this genre of music... I started getting bored right away and I noticed Jomel had knocked out. Andante was a buzz kill. Once the show was over, we went to the guy's condo... probably the nicest house I've seen while in Korea. It was definitely a baller status place. The conversation was awkward and we didn't have much to say... on top of that, we were pretty sober. So then Jomel asked if we could catch a cab home from there. The old man called us a cab and even paid the fare. I'm glad I'm still alive and able to tell this story. Who knows what could have happened if we had stayed there any longer... maybe there are some genuinely nice people in the world.

On Sunday I wanted to go check out Seolcheon. We walked through the whole town and stopped at the market to get some food in less than an hour. I had planned on taking the last bus out of Muju to Seoul. My 2.5 trip turned into a 7.5 trip home because I got on the wrong bus at Muju... the driver had parked on the 'To Seoul' platform in the terminal so I got on that bus without hesitation. It was not until about an hour and a half into the trip that the driver pulled over to collect the bus tickets. He started freaking out when he saw my ticket and I could see everyone staring at me thinking, "What a noob." Luckily there was a dude on there who could speak English and helped me out. He told me that we were heading to Jeonju, about 2 hours Southwest of Muju. The driver made me pay the fare to Jeonju [W8,600] in cash. My ticket to Seoul [W12,300] was just a waste of money. Once I got to Jeonju I went and got a ticket to Seoul [W17,000]. At least Jeonju was a big city and had a legit terminal. The bus was very nice too. It had reclining seats with leg rests that came up. A very comfortable ride home in deed. Once I got to Seoul, I was too tired and too lazy to get on the subway. I just wanted to go home and pass out. I stopped a cab. I knew something was different when I noticed that the meter started at W4,500 instead of the usual W2,400. Apparently I was on a 'luxury' taxi... there is NO difference in my opinion on the two taxis. They're still either Kias or Hyundais. That damn taxi home was W14,300. I should have just taken the subway for W1,000.