Friday night commenced with a potluck dinner on the rooftop of the school, featuring the collective faculty of both our school and the LCI Academy on the other side of the city. Lacking any real capacity for cooking, a colleague of mine and I found ourselves making a last minute run before the party to the local Lotte Mart where we purchased some sushi just so we could say we brought something. That same sushi was destined to meet the ground later on due to an unbalanced table and some intoxication, but I digress. More to the point, the means of intoxication was brought by the the directors themselves, meaning it was both permitted and encouraged on company grounds. The night involved American music, good conversation, a loosening of the social boundaries that divide the English teachers from the Korean teachers and some dancing that ranged from weak to wonderful (of which I took no part in).

After a nice evening with everyone, a few of us wandered downtown and continued the festivities there. We met up with a number of other friends who left the party before us so that we could celebrate one of the last nights with the teacher who is being replaced by me. It was a group that remained in tact for the duration of three different bars before the Brit and I randomly encountered the Korean friends that I mentioned in the last post. We both decided to remain in their company as plans to sally forth to a Nae-rae-bang materialized. Both reluctant and expectant, we made it over there and set ourselves up in a private room where a a table surrounded by a wrap-around booth and all the paraphernalia for karaoke awaited us. It took a little while for anyone to get the nerve up to be the first one, but eventually our Korean "hosts" took the first step and belted out a melody for the all present to listen. The night continued on with an array of performances, as our ears were both graced and gutted by the varying degrees of mellifluous and raucous noises that escaped our mouths. I still remain apologetic for subjecting others to the combined train crash that was my terrible voice and my tone deaf control of that voice along with my general ignorance of the majority of words to the majority of songs. The rest of the night included a various number of different people coming in and out of the room and trays of different foods and bottles of soju that flowed rather freely. I will not report on this forum the time of night/day that we exited that nae-rae-bang but it was a thorough experience of the Korean culture.

Saturday was somewhat like the eye of the storm of a four day weekend. We went downtown but nothing of any real note occurred. One regret that emerged from that day was the fact that we didn't make it out anywhere beyond Gwangju. While it was a good weekend much of it wasn't spent doing things that couldn't be done back in the States.

Sunday was a day well spent at the Memorial Park. The weather was beautiful so the Brit, Chris and I went out in the afternoon and basked in the sun beneath the shadows of the memorial's majesty. Chris held court on a rock with his rabbit, Moochi, as Koreans approached him unabashedly to get a look at his pet. Terry and I whiled the hours playing around with the football, passing it and juggling. Later on, as the sun began to retreat behind the mountains beyond the city limits, a trio of Korean high schoolers approached us with interest in challenging us to a game of soccer. We complied by setting up a water bottle on either end of our makeshift field and dividing into two sides, East vs. West. We began at an easy pace with neither side showing an advantage but as soon as they put the first ball into our Dasani, I deemed it necessary to make the Ballyown Soccer Club proud. The result was a 3-2 victory featuring a hat-trick and a goal that went between the defender's legs by yours truly. The West had won...

The night was spent eating at a Korean barbecue (again) and then heading over to a local bar to drink a few pints, eat a LOT of complimentary popcorn and watch our Kia Tigers fall after getting the tying run up to bat in the ninth. The game was unfortunate but the night was still good.

On Monday, we headed out to the mountains to check out some scenery. When I first heard that we were going to the mountains I was expecting more of a hiking experience but when we met up with Jeremy, the head English teacher and organizer of the excursion, we learned that it would be a bit different than expected. We did a little bit of walking, were surrounded by some pretty impressive natural sites and got to see another Buddhist temple that seemed less out of place than the one in the center of the city but it wasn't more than 30 minutes of walking before we stopped at one of a few little tent-huts where we were able to dine on some very authentic Korean food and Korean beer for lunch. Afterward, we took a bus back into the city proper where we fell asleep right up until our stop and were rather lucky to have not missed it. The night went similar to the last one with the exception that we did dinner at that same bar instead of at the Korean barbecue and we watched Korean Women's Bowling instead of Tiger baseball.

It was decided the night before that Tuesday (the last day of our vacation) would be spent barbecuing at the park. We had such a good time there that we had to go back. There we encountered a couple from work that was enjoying yet another day of sunlight at the park and convinced them to take part in our Australian-American pastime. I purchased the grill my self with the express purpose of using it many times again in the future and we split the cost for the food. Unfortunately, it was only a few white charcoals and half-cooked sausages later that we were told we couldn't barbecue in the park. Our only alternative was to retreat back into the confines of our neighborhood and awkwardly continue our barbecue in the street outside of a closed mini-mart. It wound up not being what we anticipated but our unwillingness to allow our spirits be dashed managed to preserve our good time. The rest of the day slid gently into an evening of recuperation and preparation for a return to the grind. A grind that will only be three days long.

Today was our first day back from the vacation and all things are well and accounted for. The weekend is missed but the nearness of the next one makes any difficulty palatable.

A happy birthday goes out to a number of friends and acquaintances that have had birthdays in the recent days and weeks. Maybe next year...