Another Rockin' Friday

Last Friday, we had another Market Day at school. During all the time I've been here, Market Day has happened every three months. Our latest one should have been at the end of March, but management has decided to have it every four months instead. So it was held the day before Children's Day (which was this past Saturday.) There was a lot of talk beforehand. We wanted to do something special for the kids for Children's Day. We wanted to do something different! So we discussed games and activities we could do with the kids, and changes we could make to the menu. The food we served on past Market Days has always been the same: steamed mandu (dumplings) and 'duk bokki' - which is cylindrical logs of rice cake, triangular shards of fish cake, onions, and carrots in a spicy sweet red sauce. We also serve "sushi" - seasoned rice stuffed into triangular envelopes made of tofu as well as sandwiches made of potatoes mashed up with small cubes of ham and vegetables, and a big container of plain 'ole hard boiled eggs. Then there's little cups of jja-jjang instant ramen, and a variety of sugary sodas.

But we should do something different, we thought! Something exciting! Let's shake things up a bit! So they even gathered ideas from the students, and we spent breaks tossing around ideas in the Teacher's Room for the past few weeks. In the end we did exactly what we do every single other time. Sometimes it's like this here, a lot of talk and little to no action. I don't know why.

"Cho-bap," the fruits of over an hours worth of labour!


Oh well. I'm not a big fan of any of the food we have on Market Day, so maybe it's a good thing. If we had offered lobster and steak, I would have spent the whole day nibbling. We had our normal "store" with bits of dollar store stuff:


Oh, we did have two new and different things. At one point there was an arm wrestling tournament in one of the classrooms. I didn't attend and don't know who won. There was no giant trophy, so I wasn't interested in participating. And we handed out ice cream - green apple flavoured chips of flavoured ice. Happy Children's Day, kids! Go make your tongues green! Whooooopeeeee!

I went to HomePlus afterwards, because no one was even interested in going out for some meat and soju, which is one of the reasons I used to enjoy Market Day. Come to think of it, Teacher's Day is coming up on the 15th. I wonder if we'll do something for that. And by the way, today is Parent's Day (think Mother's and Father's Day smushed up into one and celbrated by giving little baskets of carnations.)

So at HomePlus I stopped in at the Pet Corner to buy Mister Kamikaze some grub. Then I went to visit the wee animals in their aquariums and cages. One wood-shaved filled enclosure was bursting with adorable tiny baby mice, playing and sleeping in piles. One little mouse lay dead - drowned in the water dish, and his brothers and sisters approached and drank the water filled with his essence of death. Ick. I called a blue vested employee over, "Look, that mouse is very sick," I told them in Korean. I don't know how to say, "Look, it be dead!" I do know how to ask, "Do you want to die?" I don't think that would have went over very well, though.

I came back to town, rented a couple of DVDs - "The Pursuit of Happyness," which I'd already seen and loved, and "Deja-Vu," with Denzel Washington and Val Kilmer, which was, uh, strange. Didn't love it.

I stopped in at Tudari, a Japanese style eatery, because I was really hungry. I had a nice frosty pint and ordered some pork-wrapped enoki mushrooms and was just settling in to read my book when two fellas joined my table. Nice guys. They were both very sweet, and I had already forgiven the intrusion by the second pint. We even moved on to 2-cha up the street. I really like the very tall one. We have plans to meet soon. Right on.

Afterwards I went home and drunk dialed members of my family. They looooove when I do that.

Finally, I nominate these as the ugliest shoes in Korea:

And no, sadly, they are not mine.