Oh What a Night

I'd like to apologize to my most avid of readers for skipping a day of posting although I believe you will find my excuse a bit more than valid!

Wednesday night as I previously mentioned was the night of the big 'meeting' with Mr. Song, the owner of DYB Choisun Academy. After finishing work at 10:30pm we waited around school for another hour or so crammed into one of the classrooms with a dozen or so other teachers, waiting for the Big Guy. Song finally arrived, late due to traffic, and made a brief presentation to everyone in both Korean and English!

All the Korean teachers admire the guy with an absurd level of fascination while the native teachers seemed a bit less impressed. I was most captivated by his billionaire jet setter sense of fashion wherein he paired blue jeans with a turtleneck covered in a neon green polo! Only in Korea does the boss dress like a clown!

Mr. Song and Nathan Teacher

Song had the Native teachers share in reading a passage he had printed out about choosing how to live your life. While the message is obviously beneficial it felt like I was sitting in the middle of one of those black bordered corporate motivational posters people buy in SkyMall. The joke about the passage was that life is composed of B.C.D. The 'B' standing for Birth, 'D' representing Death and the 'C,' obviously meaning Choisun, the name of the institute where we work! I found this joke substantially less than funny however as we have been putting in almost 12 hour days this week including transportation time. . . .

The 'meeting' wrapped up very quickly albeit late and we were ushered outside and into taxis, three foreigners for one Korean teacher, headed to a restaurant. No clue what the restaurant was called but we had the whole upstairs private room for the 25 or so teachers and Mr. Song. Food was brought almost immediately after we sat down at the 'fake-traditional' tables (where it looks like you're sitting on the floor but thank God that the floor is cut away and you're in fact sitting upright)!

While a plethora of side dishes, mostly kimchi, pickled cabbage, were brought out first, it was the main course that just blew me away. For every four people there was a large wooden tray brought out, ornately garnished and covered with a dozen different cuts of raw tuna! Not having eaten since noon almost twelve hours before I dug in immediately! Although some of the cuts proved to be fatty and tough to chew, other pieces of tuna melted in your mouth like I have never had before.

Just in case the tuna platter wasn't enough, food continued to arrive at everyone's table almost non-stop throughout the night. Tempura was brought out and passed around as were a number of other different fishes, some smoked, some grilled and others deep fried. We also had a small plate of 'salad' that simply sat there as a distraction.

Before we were too far along in our dinner, Mr. Song came over to the table at which the foreign teachers had convened to tell us a) that no one gets hired with out his direct approval (so Nate and I are to expect a personal interview at some point) and b) he his happy to have everyone get together for drinks. Song then pours everyone a glass of beer with a shot of soju (local firewater) and prompts, 'bottoms up.'

A-Young (Anna) Teacher Toasting to DYB's High Enrollment

After everyone has gotten some food in the stomach and the madness subsides a bit (as all teachers had been at least 9 hours without having eating) Mr. Song stood up and suggested that we go around the room doing introductions. Harry, a relatively large Korean American from New York (oh this guy's great) volunteered to go first, putting me in second. Introducing oneself draws a round of chants from everyone who say your name and clap loudly three times. . . I just wish that someone would have told me it stops after three the first time, oops!

Michelle, Chris, Moon Young, Harry, Cleo and Myself. . .a Bit Surprised!

We finally made it around all the tables and resumed dinner. At this point our little Korean teachers, the largest of which couldn't possibly exceed 120 pounds had started to grow a bit tipsy and gradually opened up to us white folk, venturing ever closer. Finally they had decided that all hesitations were to be thrown out the window and that their primary goal was getting us to consume as much soju as they could pour down our throats. . . .no thank you!

Julia, Moon Young, the Ever Bright Sunny and Nathan Teacher

Dinner lasted until around 2:30am at which point I thought we were headed home. . . .not so lucky! Joseph, our school's administrative guy and as good of a friend as we have here, took the foreign teachers out looking for a bar while Mr. Song retired to a norebong (karaoke lounge) with the women.

Joseph and the FT's (Foreign Teachers)

After wandering around Nowon Station area for half an hour with out luck finding the next big party, Joseph and Chris (the teacher that I'm essentially replacing) decided we should wander back to the norebong. We came into yet another entirely private party at which long tables were filled again with food, primarily food, and again, with dozens of bottles of soju and beer.

Joseph and the Out-going Chris 'the Almighty' Teacher

While Mr. Song was having a fantastic time with the ladies he asked us foreigners if we wouldn't mind waiting outside so that he could talk to all the Korean teachers in private. . .mmm hmmmm. . . .He eventually let us back into the big private room where Karaoke was sung for the next few hours and the tambourine beats never stopped!

Sometime during the course of the evening Mr. Lee, our interviewer and school director arrived on the scene. Around 4:30am he decided that is was time for the foreign teachers to leave, and once again I was mistaken by believing that we were headed home.

Outside the norebong we were simply redirected down the street to yet another restaurant. Brynn, one of the English bloakes had been smart enough to sneak off by then and was certainly at home in the comfort of his own bed. Unfortunately for Chris, Martin, Harry, Nate and I we were seated at an open air restaurant for yet a second dinner of the night.

This time raw meat was brought right out to the table and Joseph kindly grilled it for us in the bbq rack that sat smoldering in the center of our table. As would be expected, little room was left on the table for the soju Mr. Lee ordered as side dishes took up the majority of prime real estate.

Though Mr. Lee spent the better part of dinner lecturing us on this that and the other thing I was fighting just to stay awake and paid little to no attention to what he was saying. Finally, around 6:30 am, with the sun almost fully up, we were dismissed and Mr. Lee offered to take a taxi with Nate and I home to make sure we found it, as we still had a 45 minute drive ahead of us at this point!

As we pulled on to the highway, the inevitable happened. . . .rush hour! We were stuck in morning rush hour traffic coming home from our evening meeting!

Dropping us off a few block from our buildings at 7:30am Mr. Lee reminded us that this evening was not to affect our professional life and we were expected at school in the afternoon. . .which we made it to. . .but just barely! The scene around the school was rather hilarious however as one of the teachers conceded to Nate that the Korean teachers had 'many times during the night they they do not remember.'

Thanks for the outing Mr. Song, everyone had a great time. . .but next time can we do it on a Friday and be home before dawn!?

Getting ready for my first Friday! No plans for the weekend as of now, I'll see what the LP Bible suggests so we can get our touristy itches out of the way early!