thoughts

im sitting in my office. Its about 30 degrees outside, and i have no heat. Im looking out the window and all i want right now is a venti soy vanilla latte, from a coffee shop i would rather not name. Its strange to me how in a region of the world that was built upon tea, how little of it people actually drink. They prefer this terrible knock off instant coffee loaded with sugar, in an attempt to become more of a western society. the novelty of it escapes me.

halloween here was an experience. since most koreans do not dress up, we kept getting many a strange look as our crowd was walking through the streets of Hongdae. as well as the fact that it was pissing rain all night kept the rowdyness to a minimum. granted, all of us still managed to have some fun, and cause a little trouble. No halloween is complete with out at least one drag queen fight, a hilarious skateboarding accident, and an across town dash to a bar with free alcohol.

since the weekend has ended, and another week of not teaching began, i have stocked up on groceries at my apartment, and attempting my hand at a few koeran dishes. I want to cook some stuff from back home for a few of the teachers here but i am finding it difficult to come up with some of the necessities. For example, there are no proper sausages here...they eat tons of pork products, but when i try to find sausage...they give me hotdogs. its really not cutting it.

I did however get to try a really traditional and special food here the other day and that was live octopus, they serve it over rice and a few veggies, and some spicy chili sauce...then at your table bring over the little octopus in a jar of water and pull it out, chop it up. and place it (still wiggiling) onto your plate. suprisingly, if you can get past the texture, the moving tentacles, and the fishyness. It is great.
overall im really liking most korean food, but

next week, im going to try dog soup.