Life in the PC Bang

It's distressing. Despite the convenience of the close proximity to my apartment, the computers in the internet cafe, or PC방, don't have any form of MSN messenger, you can't download anything, and the owner insists on sitting next to me, snapping his gum really loudly. I can even smell it. He occasionally looks over my shoulder to see what I'm doing, which is very disconcerting. Last time I tried to sit in a different seat he insisted I sit in this one. I don't know why. Kids usually come to these places to play online games, and I hear as far as they go this is quite a nice one since it has a non-smoking area. At 1000 won/hour I can't really complain, but it's just not the same as being in the comfort of my own home...

Nevertheless, I write up the day's events, bleary eyed and irritated by the guy next door. Slept through my hangover this morning, to be forced out of bed by the cable guy coming to disconnect my internet. *Sniff*.

OK. I'm over it. Really. ^^

Anyway, I didn't make it to graduation, but since none of my kids were graduating it was pointless for me to go, except maybe for the amusement of seeing seven year olds dressed up in gowns. I did turn up at school near the end of the ceremony to wait for Lauren, but I opted to hang out in the Teachers Room (where the few teachers that had made it automatically went to their ex-desks...) I stole the "What's The Time Mr Wolf?" book that I'd seen lying around - an exciting childrens story with a puppet wolf resembling a black, snappy Badger out of the Bodger and Badger duo. I'd had my eye on that for a while, so I was secretly glad the school closed so I could have it. Jokes. ^^

Lauren and I headed for Yongsan where we went for a job interview. We liked the layout of the school but there are some serious power-tripping women in this country, as the principal made it perfectly clear that she would consider our applications along with all the other interviewees she is seeing this week. Still, hopefully we'll hear back from her soon with a reply, whatever that may be. It was strange since we didn't really find out any information about the school though it seemed decent enough, but nor did she really ask us any questions about ourselves.

Slightly bemused by the fifteen minute 'interview', we headed out in search of some fun. It felt as though we had all the time in the world to play with, and we wanted to make the most of this. Of course this isn't true - we really ought to be getting a new job ASAP, but why waste a beautiful Saturday afternoon job hunting when we could be outside enjoying the non-icy cold weather?

We went to Myungdong where we wandered the high street shops. We revelled in the Christmas decorations, found new addictions in decorating our own sticker photos - in shops just filled solely with photo booths where you can dress up, take photos, and decorate your own backdrops and borders - and took advantage of the free hugs - people just standing in the streets with a sign reading "FREE HUGS". With fairy lights lining the shop windows and a crispness in temperature, there was certainly a festive feeling filling the air.

In the evening we went up to Seoul Tower via the Namsan cable car. It was very romantic looking down on the lights of Seoul *^^*

On the subway tonight I found a newspaper entitled "The Learning Times" - a newspaper for learning English. This weekend's feature article was part of a script from Sex in the City with Korean translation. Interesting vocab you could pick up there...

Tomorrow we're off to one of the US Army bases to remind ourselves of Western food and English literature. In fitting with the theme of the day we're meeting our army guy - the only one we've met so far - at Starbucks. Should be a blast.

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