The other day my roomie Taylor invited me to go with her to meet with the guy she tutors because she was nervous (I didn't understand why until later).
We ended up meeting with his correspondent and heading over to a restaurant a few minutes from Yonsei that served genuine Korean beef (no Australian or American beef for them!) which meant a portion of the Chinese stew went for 35,000원 per person (yikes) and there was cucumber/onion soju and makkeoli to go with it. I had to ask for water specifically for myself and for my roomie because they only had alcohol on the table. Anyways, we arrived at the restaurant and met with not just my roommate's tutee but also his five ahjussi buddies. They were all around fifty to sixty years old and were really excited to have lunch with "the pretty american girls" heehee. One of them had been involved in the Clinton administration. My roomie's tutee is a Congressman in the Democratic Labor Party and is very friendly but very bad at English. Another of the men had a son who works at Discovery channel and the other was very quiet but my favorite of the five, since he was the least overpowering. It's nearly impossible to have a conversation and deliver an opinion with a bunch of old men speaking broken English. Never even thought I'd have run into that problem. It was also a little uncomfortable (but totally hilarious) because the congressman commented to one of his colleagues in Koran about my "S-line" (to all who are confused, it basically is the term for a nice figure) and when I blushed and they realized I had understood him everyone started laughing.
Anyways, I now understand why my roomie was intimidated by them.
At the end of the meal I went to go take the subway to work, but the congressman stopped me, pushed me into a taxi, and stuck a 50,000원 bill in my hand (a little less than $50) and told me to take the taxi to work. I was speechless. I tried to insist on the subway and give back the money but he shut the door in my face and waved the taxi driver on. The taxi driver muttered something along the lines of "sheesh, she knows those guys?" and went on to his destination. He tried to cheat $5 out of me, too, which made me really mad, but it was all good because I started yelling at him in a way that only Korean dramas can teach you. Ka-ching.
Later on in the week, I was able to get in touch with a Yonsei alum who is the president of a Korean steel and glass company who helped give me a ride when I was moving out of the dorm. So that's another cool contact I've made.
Annnd third of all, today I'm going to be having lunch with a man who is a translator from Korea who lives in Rome. Since I'm going to maybe do translation or interpretation in the future I'm glad to be making contacts with him.
I've been deathly ill for about 2 weeks which made finals, moving out, and saying final goodbyes a living hell for me. I was extremely stressed out and coughing my lungs up pretty much every day. I had to pull an all-nighter for one of my papers, and a near all-nighter for my Korean-Japanese Relations exam but I'm pretty sure I killed it. I hope I got good grades. I know I had a solid A in my Korean language class so there's that at least. My cough and sore throat (a part of the sickness that only developed two days before Christmas) is FINALLY going away now. I spent almost all of Christmas day sick in bed. I did get a really pretty pair of earrings as a present, though. And a nice meal. There was also a Paris Baguette Christmas Cake - something I've been looking forward to for over a year since I first heard of it during Thanksgiving break my sophomore year. Crossed that off my bucket list!! And so, Christmas wasn't a loss at all. Being in Korea during the holiday season has a really nice feeling to it - very Christmassy. I was really lucky to be able to be here for it. I hope snow comes soon because this dry wither and wind is nasty!
I had the hardest time saying goodbye to all of my friends. I spent maybe ten minutes saying "I AM NOT GOING TO CRY" while tears spewed out of my eyeballs the morning that everyone moved out of the dorm. I had to move out in multiple parts because I have SO MANY WORLDLY POSSESSIONS argh. Need to do a clean sweep of my closet soon! Restructure my wardrobe and such. Anywho, it was really sad. My friends and I took a trip to the Sejong book store earlier and had our big-shabang-final-hangout and all that jazz but it's still sad to think that I'll probably never see 99% of them ever again. It's so weird being in that in-between place where I miss my Wesleyan and Ohio friends so much but also will be missing my Yonsei friends at the same time...I just wanna be with everyone!!! *sniffle* Ah, well. It'll be alright.
I'm planning a few more hangouts with people before I go back to America with the few people left here and with my Korean friends that live here. Just gotta stay busy!
Anyways, that's all for now! Oh, and here's a picture of me with the congressman and his friends, and also of the Christmas cake!
Love you all!
<3
Happy Holidays,
Janet xoxoxo
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