The King Visits

It's spring time and the cherry blossoms are out. I love walking to work in this season, because even though my neighbourhood is kind of a "hole," it does have a LOT of cherry blossom trees all over the place. In fact, most of the streets seem lined with them and walking around these days, with a soft showering of white petals falling on you is very nice indeed. My short walk to work is now filled with cherry blossoms, magnolias, and Rose of Sharon bushes.

The small temple at the bottom of the hill leading to my apartment has all of those flowering trees in it's compound. Look!

How pretty!

I mentioned in my last post that the BIG BOSS was coming to pay us a visit on Wednesday and so it came to pass. I arrived to work a little early and the lobby was all decorated with these "WELCOME" banners. One of my co-workers was blowing up (Halloween!) balloons to hang up. I went with my boss to the stationary store across the road and we got even more balloons and soon the school was looking very pretty! I snuck into an empty classroom to put on a bit of makeup so I would look pretty too, but the kids soon found me. It was hard trying to keep my hand steady with children climbing all over me, but still, I think I did a pretty good job.


So, the Big Cheese himself showed up. Many of the kids got wickedly shy when he first turned up and I was suddenly surrounded by kids clinging to me and trying to hide behind me! Boss Man flashed me a smile and a nod (he's got one great smile, that man) and then strode importantly to the staffroom where he quickly sat down to play on the computer with his back to the window. Soon after, two other important looking men in suits entered the school and pulled up chairs to sit in a small pow-wow with the Boss. One man even moved the snacks my boss had laid out (sticky multi-coloured rice cakes and a tray of strawberries and cherry tomatoes) from the table behind the Boss to a chair right beside the Boss, so his Majesty wouldn't have to turn around and inconvenience Himself. For the next 20 minutes or so these men stayed huddled up looking serious while the kids grew restless and I got hot as the temperature rose from all the kids breathin' up all my oxygen in the lobby.

Finally, he emerged and what I thought was going to be an hour-long talk with the kids turned out to be about only 5 minutes or so! I beamed at the students brave enough to ask questions, though. One of my little superstars asked, with perfect pronunciation "what is your favourite animal?" to which the Boss answered "Puppies!" (YAY, PUPPIES!) The short talk was followed by photos with the kids (it reminded me of a mall-Santa) and then everyone lined up for a signature and then that was that. I didn't even really see the guy leave, I think he just snapped his fingers and a magic carpet came floating through the window to whisk him off to his next rock-star engagement.

I'll give the guy props, though, his English was really impeccable, great accent, and he knew how to command a room. Look how interested the kids are!

Enraptured.
I can't believe that my 2 co-workers thought his English was poor! It makes me wonder if they might be deaf as well as delusional. (Truth, he really didn't speak MUCH English, just a few questions and phrases peppered in his short talk, and always rephrased in Korean. Still,...)

Anyhow, all in all it was a good day for me, because I only had to teach one class, got to go home an hour early, and spent the day uploading songs into my MP3 Player. Chris Brown's Run It sure is an ass-shaker.

Otherwise, I've got a little stomach bug going on. I'm all Nausea Gabor. Tomorrow, though, is another Speech Contest Day followed by dinner with the co-workers and boss-couple. We'll eat raw fish. I'll take pictures. I'm LOVING my new camera, but if I find it cheaper up at the massive electronics store in Seoul on Saturday I'm going to be bummed out!