Well there goes another weekend!After my four day week of teaching (Thanks Children's Day) it was only a few days from Tuesday to Friday before the weekend came flying round again.
I had my usual game of football down the Elementary school on Friday evening until Kevin finished work at 9pm and then, joined by Haji we headed to Ocha's for our usual meal and Now! Bar combination.
The presense of Haji (and the fact that he had just been paid) obviously inspired Charlie to 'get on the soju', something which to me never seems like a good idea. We headed to Now! around 10.30pm to find that as usual it was pretty quiet a that time of the night. We played a few games of darts, I think Charlie may have even won one this week but we tried not to let him know.
A few other people decided they wanted to get in on the action so we played some form of '501' in four teams. Me and Kevin teamed up and we managed to successfully complete our aim of not being beaten by Charlie and Alex, an English guy who we met there.
During the game we were playing with a couple of Korean guys who could speak a fair amount of English and also seemed to be eating their way through the menu. I don't know if an incresingly drunk Charlie had actually spoken to either of them but for no apparent reason he seemed to dub of the them 'Pretty Ricky'. This guy was suited and booted and obviously Charlie took a liking to his style.
Speaking of which by this point Ramseys had turned up and was as usual sporting a predictably flash silk shirt and making us laugh with almost everything that came out of his mouth. Deliberate or not I don't really know.
We carried on playing for a bit though me and Kevin decided to drop out and just watch the action from a distance. This mostly involved heckling Charlie for as Kevin quite rightly pointed out 'giving the three hell'. I can't describe the numbering order of the dartboard but I know he was going for 20 and 3 is nowhere near it. During these games another character joined (I late discovered he was called Brian) but Charlies's comment after one throw of a dart saying 'That guy's bad ass' now has him dubbed as 'the badass' between the three of us. It might be one of those, you had to be there moments but this guy couldn't be further from badass if he tried. He was some fourty year old creepy looking dweeb who was obviously glad of the company!
After a few games of darts we moved over to the pool table where me and Alex proceeded to be whooped by two guys who clearly knew how to play. It was at this point that Charlie started to come into his own and aside from picking up the nickname 'Quadzilla' he inexplicably decided to sink a bottle of soju and a couple of beers in the space of five minutes before going on a one man dancing mission around the bar. (Hopefully I will be able to attach the video for your viewing pleasure.)
It was at about the point when he started hugging everyone and talking to random people that we decided to venture home.
Me and Kevin always look forward to cab journies with Charlie as he is invariably a drunken jester but on this evening he was in paticularly fine form some of his best comments having us in stitches and including,
-Trying to get us a cut price deal of 2000 won to get home (despite the meter starting at 2250 won)
- Telling the driver he was taking us in the wrong direction and saying he wanted to go that way because he'd heard the girls over there were delicious
- Saying the word goobnee over and over again
- Describing the driver as 'his boy' and then proceeding to slap him on the back and knock his cup of change everywhere!
By the time we'd got back to Hwa-seo O-ga-ri I was ready for bed. By this point Charlie was in a complete state and aside from telling the cab driver to 'shut up' when he wasn't saying anything, falling out of the door and onto the pavement and then chatting to some Korean people for about fifteen minutes despite them not speaking English at all, he managed to make it home at about 4am.
I must admit I was a little alarmed at the amount of noise coming out of Charlie's room as I was trying to sleep but the next day when I discovered that he had infact been trashing his room and then vomiting I was not surprised!
The night of sillyness was followed by some much needed rest and preparing for my big debut with Inter Suwon on Saturday afternoon. After getting up I watched the Magic Vs Celtics game on MBC ESPN and then headed to E-Mart(e) for some shin pads. Took me long enough to find them in the shop that sells literally everything and even then it was a mission to find a pair that weren't meant for small children.
I hopped in a cab and headed to the GSIS school to meet with the guys. The driver on the way there was giving me a Konglish tour of the area pointing out things on the way there and although he didn't speak much English he sure knew how to use his horn. Strangely he also knew the words 'crazy', the word for a female dog and the thing you sit on! Something when strung together he liked to shout at people who were cutting him up. Never mind that he was not a far of red lights or not cornering at 100kph, God forbid someone get in his way!
I got to the school in good time and began training with my new team mates. As there wasn't a kit for me I looked a bit of a plank in a pair of borrowed and way too big orange shorts, my blue, yellow and red Roehampton socks and the team's white shirt! I started on the bench and we didn't begin the game very well being 0-2 down within about ten minutes. Things improved though and we managed to get it back to 2-2 before being 2-4 down into the second half when I came on. Not that I influenced any of the goals but in the fifteen minutes I played we managed to pull it back to 4-4.
We were playing Anyang who are from just down the main '1' highway in Korea and the game was of a pretty high standard. The Suwon team is mostly made up of American players with a few Scottish, English and Irish players mixed in. I enjoyed making some new friends and chatting with them about their experience of Korea so far. Will definately be going back to train with them on Thursday.
After the game I came back to Hwaseo to discover that Kevin, Charlie and Alex had set off to Seoul to meet one of the former Talkster teachers, Nate. I agreed to meet them at the International DJ Festival and after a shower braved the subway by myself for the first time to head in the direction of the 'World Cup Stadium' which is where the festival was being held. I managed to get there unscathed despite having to change lines a couple of times but that was just the beginning of the adventure as it turned out to be quite a distance from the station to the park where the festival was.
Using my powers of observation I noticed a couple of beams of light in the sky which were blatently coming from the park so decided to follow the road until I came to them. Twenty minutes later and after walking through three parks and up one massive hill I could finally see the festival but was slightly destroyed to see that between me and the venue was an eight lane road with no sign of a bridge to cross to get there. Just as I was thinking about hailing a cab to see if I could solve the problem I was some kids climbing across what looked like a pile of scaffolding.
I decided to investigate further and found that it was infact an incomplete brideg that they were climbing across. I waited a couple of minutes to see if there was any sign of them but figured they must have made it and then began plotting my way across! I'm really not sure how I made it across nothing more than wooden boards, metal rods and scaffolding but I was delighted to finally be there and rang Kevin so I could meet them once I had got a ticket.
The festival itself was actually amazing, I've never been to a rave or been a fan of trance, dance, house music but the whole setting for the park was perfect and I enjoyed the various different stages which were set up with dj's. After we stopped doing meeting place, toilet and bar laps we decided to join in with the action and do some dancing. First at the main stage and then at the Jaegermeister stage where we eventually pushed out way to the front.
At about 3am I was feeling pretty damn tired, my feet hurt and I was also very hungry. Luckily Kevin and Charlie agreed so we all decided to head home and get some food. We agreed a decent price of 45000 won to get ourselves a cab back to Suwon and despite listening to some horrendous 80's music on the way home I was pretty glad to be given the chance to climb into bed! Me and Charlie stopped for some kimbop first and I now see what they have been raving about this whole time as it was infact lovely. I had the egg version. It's basically seaweed with rice, egg and ham wrapped inside and then coated in an omlette and chopped into smaller slices. Even if it was 5.00am by the time I got to bed it was well worth staying up for.
Having exauhsted myself the previous night I decided it was be a good idea to have a long lie in. I didn't surface from my room until about 1pm and even then it was just to go to the shop and get some milk. Me and Charlie went to look for some dinner at about 4pm and ended up getting some delicious galbi down one of the roads off the 'five points'. A pot luck randome guess managed to get us some bacon strips which we throughly enjoyed.
We decided to go out and throw the American Football in the park for a bit after that. As usual people stared at us as if we were throwing a hand grenade around and one of the kids from Charlie's kids was so fascinated by seeing us that he decided to take some photos! In the mood for eating again me and Charlie headed to Suwon station and towards CGV to see if Star Trek was playing. The next showing was about an hour and a half after we got there so we decided to go to an arcade instead and waste some time. This place had a riduclous amount of games and we ended up staying there for an hour before getting that traditional meal 'Burger King' for tea!
It's been a while since I ate a non-korean meal and let me tell you it not only tasted a damn sight better than Lotteria, it was absolutely delicious. It reminded me how much I miss French Fries and also cheese. Although I enjoy immersing myself in Korean culture it's sometimes good to spend some time reminding myself of what I left behind!
Back to the grind tomorrow and a lesson about 'big' and 'small' faces me in the morning which should be fun! If not interesting!
Night all x
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