16: I Want to Hug Everyone

And so again, I'm updating far earlier than I expected to. It's amazing how one has more to say when one does more stuff, isn't it?

Tuesday was a pretty nondescript day, so I'm not really going to get into it in detail. So, without detail, I woke up, sat around, went to teach, came home, ate, chatted on messenger, read, went to bed. The details of what I chatted about and what I read are of no importance to most, thus I'll keep them to myself.

Wednesday started out much the same. Classes were a bit more pleasant than Tuesdays (I've actually always had a problem with Tuesdays and Thursday, they grate on me for some reason), but for the most part the day was also pretty nondescript. After classes, though, a shift in the usual took place.

Edward showed up immediately upon my leaving my last afternoon class. He left work early for a dentist appointment and stopped by to say "hi" afterwards. A rather frustrating conversation, for me anyway, took place between Edward, James, Cathy (the other Korean teacher) and the director (who is no longer Cindy, but no one knows what she's decided on for an English name, and as she does not wish me to call her Mrs. Kim, she shall simply be the director). There were motions towards the power for the computer, my name, the miming of running, and laughter. When I asked what had been said, no explanation was offered and the topic was changed. I was baffled and a bit irritated to tell the truth. There wasn't much I could do though. Anyway, I had my evening class later, so I figured it would be a quick "hello" with Edward and he'd go home to dinner with his family, and I'd go upstairs to my noodles and tuna then prepare for class. This was not the case.

Instead, Edward invited me to go and have dinner with his family at his mother-in-laws house. I was a little intimidated by this, but readily agreed. It was all quite good. I don't know why I was intimidated. I should just know by now that the people here are friendly almost to a fault and that the food is awesome. I've decided that dried octopus in hot pepper paste is one of my favourite dishes. However, despite the warnings that almost everything is going to be very spicy, nothing ever really is. It all tastes quite good, but the warnings about spice seem a bit much. Every meal someone tells me, "oh, that's spicy, maybe have this instead" or some approximation of that, but so far nothing has even been remotely spicy. I blame Debb for this. Yes, Debb, you. You've ruined my taste buds forever.

Anyway, after dinner, Edward and I went for a walk along the river (if I didn't know otherwise, I'd think he was courting me). All along the path that circled my part of town there were speakers playing marching music. It was rather interesting. Certainly it kept us walking at good, steady pace. During this walk, Edward explained to me the reason that those trees I mentioned in an earlier update were fenced off with a path through them. Apparently the Korean pine tree is in need of protection, but people want to be able to walk or jog past them. Thus, a fenced off area with a path through the middle and around the outside. Later during the walk, Edward got a call on his cell phone from the director telling him that the evening class was no more. All the students had pulled out and I no longer was needed to be there at 9:00. This wasn't just for that night, this was the end of that class. For the time being, my evenings were now free. So, Edward and I decided that this news was deserving of going and having a beer. Seeing as I had no one to teach that night, a beer sounded good. Circular logic is so much fun.

So we went to a bar, had a couple of pints and talked politics. I explained Canadian politics to him, at least to the best of my ability, and he explained Korean politics to me. I told him what the dominant political parties in Canada were, their names and basic ideals. He gave me the names and ideals for the Korean ones. I'm pretty sure something was lost in the translation because the English names of the three main political parties in Korea, by his translation, are the Democratic Labor Party, the Grand National Party, and the We Want to Hug Everyone Party. Seriously. This is a direct quote. Apparently, the We Want to Hug Everyone Party is currently in power. I'd vote for them. They sound nice. We talked about our political points of view after that, me being a leftist, he being middle of the road, but leaning slightly right. We agreed that we each have our points, but we'll never agree completely. It's all good. Then we went to our respective homes.

So, that gets us to now. I'll be back out with Edward on Friday. It seems going out with Edward gives me some good stories, so expect more soon.

Steave