Surreal Suppers

On Wednesday night, I rode Red Devil out to Jen's place, which is conveniently located on top of a huge hill, behind a statue of Jesus (similar to Hot Homeboy Jesus of Wando) and a closed psychiatric hospital. I got lost a total of 3 times on the way there, and had to keep stopping to ask for directions. Everyone was wicked nice though and did their best to steer me in the right direction. As someone who believes that getting lost is the best way to get found in a new place, I don't have a problem with tooling around Mokpo aimlessly.

We went out for "toasteu" (think grilled cheese with egg and cabbage) and "coppy-mocha" (instant cafe-mocha), for a total of about $3 each. Then we hit a stationary store for a cute overload of sparkly barrettes, mirrors, notebooks, stickers and socks. Oh, and I bought a watermelon (more on that later).

Last night, I met Alex for dak-galbi (chicken that you cook with vegetables at your table and eat with a leaf). It was so spicy that I thought my head would explode. We people-watched and were, in turn, watched. Alex is great because he doesn't mind being the English monkey in a fishbowl, and neither do I. A lot of foreigners can't stand always being looked at and pointed at (and it can get frustrating after a while), but there is a fun aspect to it too.

After supper, we walked around Old Mokpo (with all its lit-up archways), until we came to some sort of a smelly, dodgy market alley thing. It was an entire alley of ... pig's head restaurants! It's quite common in Korea to put all the same style restaurants together. I don't know... like, you're going to walk past the first 12 pig head restaurants until you get to the one you like? Oh, yeah, and the pig heads were all on display, conveniently cut in half so that you could see, like, everything.

Yesterday morning, I brought a watermelon to school. I went to the staff room and started cutting it. One of the teachers saw me and smiled, said hi and left. About 3 minutes later, every single staff member, from the principal to the janitor were sitting around the staff room table, eating watermelon (a rather slurpy, spitty affair) and telling me how beautiful I was. Best 8 bucks I ever spent!

Am going to Suncheon tonight - can't wait!!!!!!!!!!!!

On a less positive note - I've been getting headaches every day here. I don't know if I am still jetlagging or what, or if it's the air, or if it's just the mental stress of starting in a new school, or self-imposed dehydration to avoid using the squatters at school. It sucks because I've been having to cut social visits short (i.e. with Jen and Alex) because of my head.